Any (stealthy?) commander could be issued a "questing" command: The commander simply disappears for at least two turns. Then, each subsequent turn thereafter, there is a small percentage chance that this commander pops up in an assassination attempt with some enemy holding that item. If successful, the commander remerges at his owners captial with the item being transferred to the lab. Otherwise, the proud hero never returns from his quest, his fate unknown to its former lord...
Easy implementation: All that needs to be stored is the commander, the target item-class, the basic percentage chance and maybe the total number of turns the commander has been questing. The program should not keep track of actual province locations. The initial chance should be based on things like distance to closest enemy bearing the quested item at the time of command issue and movement rate of the commander. Each subsequent turn, this basic chance is slightly increased by a fixed value and maybe decreased by smaller value if the artifact is moved (in case of artifacts). Maybe any item above level 4 shoud be targetable amd maybe there should be a fixed chance for the commander to get lost...
FUN: I think it would be real fun to hunt for specially needed items, without hazardous micromanagement! This also might make SCs a bit more vulnerable by sending SC-Killers targeted to the enemy SC's items. There is a delay for balance and they might end up with the entirely wrong person and you never know when they will hit, but artefacts might then be really battled for!
