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Assassin Tips/Strategies?

periwinkle

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Hello everyone! I’ve never tried assassin before. Is there like an unwritten rules I should know about (e.g. no diplos in 3 player games etc.) before I try it out? I gather I should try to kill my target and my assassin, but keep everyone else alive? Or something like that....I’m a bit clueless. Thanks in advance! Cheers!
 

F15FreeEagle

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Hello everyone! I’ve never tried assassin before. Is there like an unwritten rules I should know about (e.g. no diplos in 3 player games etc.) before I try it out? I gather I should try to kill my target and my assassin, but keep everyone else alive? Or something like that....I’m a bit clueless. Thanks in advance! Cheers!

Of course the object is to kill your target. First player that kills their target, wins the game. Do not kill anyone else but your target, or that (dead) player's assassin wins. Even an awol player can win if someone else kills their target. (That has happened.) :rofl:

Yes, you want to keep everyone else alive. So it really becomes a delicate balancing act (in a good assassin game anyway) of attacking your target to keep them weak, not allowing anyone else to become extremely weak to the point that their assassin can kill them, and not allowing any one player to become too strong. Pay very close attention to what everyone else is doing (figuring out who is trying to kill who.)
 

once

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f15 covered all that i can think of at the moment. an interesting variant (imo) is 3 player assassin. there everyone knows who is going after whom (since everyone will be assigned a unique target), and the balancing that f15 mentioned really takes centre stage. in larger assassin games some players may just turtle & wait silently for their opportunity to strike, making it difficult to work out who they are going after. this isnt possible in a 3 way assassin, which can make them quite exciting. i *love* 3 way assassin on nukes, the divided map brings an additional element into it, but that is probably not a good place to start. but keep it in mind for later. and send me an invite.
 

periwinkle

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Oh...I didn’t realize that the first person that dies, the assassin wins...huh....that does make it interesting! So...i guess the diplo tab a little busy or does everyone use the chatter tab?
 

Pariah

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I play to many games to pay much attention to my assassins games and just attack attack attack my opponent, it's not the advised strategy but not a terrible one. You can follow the players moves though and try to figure out who each persons opponent is, how to block them if necessary to drag the game out long enough to kill your guy, or just get an idea of how fast you need to progress your plans or take riskier ones. It certainly helps to figure out whose trying to kill you and where he will attack you next (do you need to kill your targets men in that area before your own assassin wipes you out in that area.. little things like that... but ye.. helps to know what everyone is doing. I never do when i play :-D
 

youredead

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As f15 said, it is a balance. You have to keep your target under control, but without weakening him/her too much if you can't kill him soon. The ideal thing is to cage the target in only one area, where you can devote all your troops to finish him/her. But you should do it in a clever way. For example, imagine there is a 3-terts-command occupied by you, your target and the target of your target. The stupid thing is to attack your target first, because you know that he must attack his target sooner or later, so you can wait for that and when he has 2 terts you take them and get the region.

Knowing who targets who is very important, it is very simple and in 4 rounds at most everything is clear. If you have looked correctly and you don't know who is the target of some players, it's because they're catastrophic.

Assassin should be very fun but as there is always somebody who plays crazy, it is usually desperating :) The extreme version of the "turtle" that once spoke about is very common, say, somebody who "disguises his intentions" by attacking everybody but his target, letting him have bonuses of every sort. He never wins, obviously, and if you're his target congratulations because victory is much closer. The opposite is the guy who attacks his target non-stop from the beginning, cashing his sets soon, leaving his target with no chance of attacking... In this case the target of his target is the lucky one.

I would say these extreme cases happen in every assassin game I have played, so it's basically a russian roulette.
 

NewSheriffInTown

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I always start with making a chart or table and trying to figure out who is attacking who.

For example, I would put all the players across and down

00 p1 p2 p3 p4 p5
p1
p2
p3
p4
p5

Then I would fill in the chart as I figured out who attacked who

00 p1 p2 p3 p4 p5
p1 xx xx Y xx xx
p2 Y xx xx xx xx
p3 xx xx xx xx Y
p4 xx xx xx Y xx
p5 xx Y xx xx xx

And then this give you an advantage in positioning your troops and figuring out what the next player might do.
 

once

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I always start with making a chart or table and trying to figure out who is attacking who.
that is a good tip. searching the record tab is also very useful in assassin games.
i also like to make notes to myself in the chatter tab. i have not created a table like sheriff yet, but i will usually make notes based on the attacks others did, first guessing then hopefully later confirming who people are going after. but that really is just a shorthand for the information in the record tab. by searching terms like "newsheriffintown took" or "took from newsheriffintown" for instance you can gather a lot of relevant information.
 

clarkenfeld

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Oh...I didn’t realize that the first person that dies, the assassin wins...huh....that does make it interesting! So...i guess the diplo tab a little busy or does everyone use the chatter tab?

I'm relatively new to assassin but I think it's a brilliant format. Love it. Waiting for a couple of them to start at the moment. I've not done that well yet but it's been such a good mental challenge - a really different kind of approach. I love the fact that it's kind of team work the whole time, as long as you're playing with switched on players, but at any moment the knife will come out. And after a few rounds you get a decent idea of who's after who.

I don't think the chatter tab gets that well used though in assassin?

Let's play!
 

periwinkle

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Thanks everyone for your input...I think I’ll jump onto a game (and probably get my butt kicked) once finish some games. Cheers!
 

ericjkline

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It’s a fun format. It’s best when all the players play well. One player not knowing what they are doing does kind of throw things out of whack. 3 player assassin is a great side game for settling stalemates. It’s completely symmetrical, like a Mexican standoff!
 

clarkenfeld

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It’s a fun format. It’s best when all the players play well. One player not knowing what they are doing does kind of throw things out of whack. 3 player assassin is a great side game for settling stalemates. It’s completely symmetrical, like a Mexican standoff!

The only assassin game i won was a 3 player no reinforce against Empirejeff and a Player Who Shall Remain Nameless. At one point PWSRN complained that he felt he was being targetted... oh that was funny.
 

th-child

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The-Swede

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I have an assassin game with some odd settings if anyone wants to try it: https://www.majorcommand.com/games/496199/

To contribute to the thread though i think it is most important to identify who is targeting you, who is targeting the person targeting you and who the person that your are targeting is targeting. Phew, that was a mouthful. Those are the most important but as a tool for a better analysis you should do what i read somewhere on these forums but can't remember where to give credit... anyways write the players names in a list. Each name on a line, and then another list of the same names next to that. Then draw an arrow to each person's target. You should try to factor in what each person will do into your decisions.
 
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