Operatives

Spies, Assassins, Thieves, Saboteurs, Terrorist cells, Cult masters, Secret police; all are grouped under the heading of operative. They are your shadowy people that perform nefarious acts in the dead of night (or if you order it, day).

Seeing secrets

Spies are very hard to use for the simple fact that they need to be told what to find and then to find it. If the enemy hasn't written battle plans then your spies cannot find those plans. To use spies, send them to a country and then ask them questions, you can ask these questions through MSN or a specific topic on your team forum. If you can get spies onto the command staff of an enemy army then they can sometimes deliver crucial information to you about the enemy battle plans, during the battle. This can quite easily change the course of the battle if you can react to it.

Burning buildings

Sabotage is very useful for removing your opponent's buildings, ships and supplies. The effects of a sabotage are very circumstantial, it depends a lot on the defenses that your opponent uses. Used well and it can bring down walls.

Assassination

Assassination is a very popular tactic, mostly because a dead enemy is probably unable to kill you. Timing is everything with assassination, killing your enemy the night before a battle is much more effective than a month before. To perform an assassination you must provide orders for how to get to the target, how to kill the target and if possible, how to escape.

Bought and paid for

Operatives cost materials, training and supplying 1000 men may cost 5 materials, you get far less in the way of operatives for 5 materials. All operatives have a grade, the higher it is the better they will be at their task. The table below lists the cost and level of task that each grade is normally capable of achieving. Operatives take 6 months to train.

Grade	Materials	Spy	Saboteur	Assassin
1	1	Gauging military strength	Setting fire to houses	Killing squad leaders
2	2	Discovering military makeup and organisation	Setting fire to many boats	Killing officers
3	4	Finding a hidden person or object	Setting fire to buildings	Killing generals
4	8	Reading military plans	Setting fire to well guarded buildings	Killing chosen