Assassination of rulers and heirs

GMOEU · Oct 23, 2015

I'm sure this has been suggested before but I'll add to it.
It would be great if we could hire assassins to assassinate a particularly strong successful ruler of another country, or a heir.
Of course the success rate would be low and to thwart the attempt (extra) bodyguards could be hired, at a cost of MPs or cash.

Any attempt, or catching a potential assassin, would have major effects on the target country and other countries, especially allies of the target country's ruler.

It could be part of espionage.

War_lord · Oct 23, 2015

Wasn't really a thing in the time period of the game.

Martin_Mortyry · Oct 23, 2015

War_lord said:
Wasn't really a thing in the time period of the game.

War_lord · Oct 23, 2015

A bunch of suspected or rumored Assassinations and attacks by lone crazies or groups of political or religious fanatics, isn't the same as what the OP is suggesting and is more of a random event or crisis type thing. Targeted state killing weren't a thing, intelligence networks of the period simply weren't that sophisticated.

As for the Borgia, the modern consensus is that the oft repeated accusations of Poisonings, incest and corruption were inventions by the many influential enemies the family had.

Martin_Mortyry · Oct 23, 2015

War_lord said:
A bunch of suspected or rumored Assassinations and attacks by lone crazies or groups of political or religious fanatics, isn't the same as what the OP is suggesting and is more of a random event or crisis type thing. Targeted state killing weren't a thing, intelligence networks of the period simply weren't that sophisticated.

As for the Borgia, the modern consensus is that the oft repeated accusations of Poisonings, incest and corruption were inventions by the many influential enemies the family had.

You've got the point here. Usually assassination attempts weren't done by the other head of state, therefore regicide fits Crusader Kings, where you can play as tens of different characters in one country and even get killed by some landless lowborn, much more than it does EUIV.

I'm not really for merging Paradox games, but gosh, if I were able to merge two of their franchises, it would be CK and EU.

BrokenSky · Oct 24, 2015

I would like it if Espionage were expanded, such that it didn't require espionage ideas to do most espionage actions (but a few, infiltrate administration, study tech maybe?) would need espionage. Assasinations is something I would make available without espionage, but be very unlikely to work without high spy offense.

Might limit assasination to heirs though.

Either way failure would have dire penalties. I mean really bad. Worse if you have royal marriage or the same ruling family.

Martin_Mortyry · Oct 24, 2015

BrokenSky said:
I would like it if Espionage were expanded, such that it didn't require espionage ideas to do most espionage actions (but a few, infiltrate administration, study tech maybe?) would need espionage. Assasinations is something I would make available without espionage, but be very unlikely to work without high spy offense.

Might limit assasination to heirs though.

Either way failure would have dire penalties. I mean really bad. Worse if you have royal marriage or the same ruling family.

Nah, espionage should either be reworked or replaced with something entirely different - either way, all the covert actions should be successively unlocked with dip tech progress.

magnusvejby · Oct 25, 2015

I disagree, this could be used for PU abuse, and since Paradox don't want to add a advanced dynasty system, it's gotta be a no from me. In CK2 the assassination system works fine coz there can be 100's of heirs but in EU4 there is (Almost) ALWAYS only 1 heir.

Imagine if you get lucky, you are Austria you kill King of france while he has no heir, you have a royal marrige with france you get PU, you do the same thing with Poland-Lithuania- and Denmark. Then reform the HRE and you own all of Europe before 1500.

BrokenSky · Oct 25, 2015

magnusvejby said:
I disagree, this could be used for PU abuse, and since Paradox don't want to add a advanced dynasty system, it's gotta be a no from me. In CK2 the assassination system works fine coz there can be 100's of heirs but in EU4 there is (Almost) ALWAYS only 1 heir.

Imagine if you get lucky, you are Austria you kill King of france while he has no heir, you have a royal marrige with france you get PU, you do the same thing with Poland-Lithuania- and Denmark. Then reform the HRE and you own all of Europe before 1500.

Hence the need for harsh penalties for getting caught doing it if you have royal marriage or same dynasty.

Gaussia · Oct 25, 2015

No, on behalf of all thoose times I would get my good rulers assasinated by the AI and replaced by a (1,2,0).

BrokenSky · Oct 25, 2015

Gaussia said:
No, on behalf of all thoose times I would get my good rulers assasinated by the AI and replaced by a (1,2,0).

Invest in spy defense.

magnusvejby · Oct 25, 2015

BrokenSky said:
Invest in spy defense.

Well currently you (Almost) can't really do that, but since they are reworking the espionage system they might add something, but I feel the AI would not know what to prioritize, should they invest in spy defence more light ships, developing provinces and so on.

And if the AI don't get much spy defence, the player can use this to a GREAT advantage, if the player just can kill off any good ruler another country might have, putting him self in a (Almost) permanent TECH and Idea advantage. Not to mention constant legitimacy at 0 at other nations.

A way to prevent exploits is to set a timer: You can only do this once each 20 years, but that would just remove a lot of immersion.
Or make it cost monarch points, but then would you ever do this? When you could use your points to developing provinces, coring land etc.

Denkt · Oct 25, 2015

While assassinations did happen I don't think it will be a fun mechanic for the game to have. It would be really messy with countries going for each other rulers, the only rulers that will surive would be completely incapable to rule which will lead to a passive game as nobody have the monarch points needed to do anything.

BrokenSky · Oct 25, 2015

magnusvejby said:
Well currently you (Almost) can't really do that, but since they are reworking the espionage system they might add something, but I feel the AI would not know what to prioritize, should they invest in spy defence more light ships, developing provinces and so on.

And if the AI don't get much spy defence, the player can use this to a GREAT advantage, if the player just can kill off any good ruler another country might have, putting him self in a (Almost) permanent TECH and Idea advantage. Not to mention constant legitimacy at 0 at other nations.

A way to prevent exploits is to set a timer: You can only do this once each 20 years, but that would just remove a lot of immersion.
Or make it cost monarch points, but then would you ever do this? When you could use your points to developing provinces, coring land etc.

This is true, but I was assuming that it'd be hard not to fail if your offense was equal (say) to their defense, and the penalties for failure would be harsh. Negative, cumulative dip-rep penalties, reduced better relations over time, maybe AE? Also a (double?) stab hit and reduced AI willingness to enter / renew royal marriages if you assassinate family (same dynasty or have royal marriage).

You'd only have good odds if you had significantly better spy offense vs them than their defense. I was also assuming this would be part of a bigger espionage update which would presumably allow more ways to boost spy offense / defense both general and against specific countries?

GMOEU · Oct 26, 2015

Assassinations would be difficult to do and most would fail, creating massive AE and opinion against you, so you would have to consider very carefully whether you want to try it.
It would cost a lot of MPs so you would have to prioritize where you want to invest your MPs.
It would give everyone another option and something more to do during peacetime.

SilasW · Oct 26, 2015

I'd say if we're going to have assassination make it a more grounded thing, so assassination of general/admirals, maybe certain agents could be assassinated and thus be unusable for a certain amount of time. Assassination of advisers might also be a thing, but starting with monarchs seems like a bad way to begin such a system.

magnusvejby · Oct 26, 2015

SilasW said:
I'd say if we're going to have assassination make it a more grounded thing, so assassination of general/admirals, maybe certain agents could be assassinated and thus be unusable for a certain amount of time. Assassination of advisers might also be a thing, but starting with monarchs seems like a bad way to begin such a system.

This is acutaly something i could back, you shoud create a new thread about. Here take my +1

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Assassination of rulers and heirs

GMOEU

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War_lord

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Martin_Mortyry

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War_lord

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BrokenSky

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