Exiled Family/Guide to Shadowstalking

So you want to know the ins and outs of the infiltrator career? This guide is for those who have taken up the career path distasteful to the refined nobleman yet inevitably vital for anyone who wishes to advance far in their career whether in terms of prestige, council positions, or land.

Actions

Part of the basics of the infiltrator career is knowing what you can and can't do. So I have devised a list of infiltrator actions and the risk associated with it, as well as what the suggested skill level is before you attempt it.

Taxes

Infiltrating the tax offices is really one of the backbones of the infil career, favoured by any self serving infil who can't get a bounty to chase. Different options have different risks associated with them, as well as different rewards.

Count only
Risk: 1/10
Counts the gold collected so far and tells you when the next tax day is. Useful for generals planning looting raids, or just training your skills.

Count and Steal
Risk: 5/10, 6/10 in cities.
Counts the gold as before, and you pocket 10%.

Grab and dash
Risk: 7/10
You grab 5-25% of all the gold in a region.

It is possible to be wounded (and still escape) undertaking this action.

Food

Simple stuff. Peasants put food in their granaries, you burn 'em down, they starve.

Low risk
Risk: 1/10
You'll burn down a few bushels, but break off if it looks too risky. good for training.

Medium risk
Risk: 2/10
You can burn down quite a lot with this. My current record is 226 bushels. Not bad for 3 hours work.

High risk
Risk: 4/10
Just tried this one twice and it worked like a charm. 415 and 425 bushels gone.

Assault

This is where the money is, if you take up the career of a bounty hunter.

Risk: Varies depending on how big the guys unit is, how much militia there is in the region, and how good your targets sword and infiltration skills are. About 4/10 is a good estimate. Whether you score a serious wound or a light wound depends upon your swordfighting skill and that of the other character, but a high infiltration skill should give you a bonus (because of surprise).

Fortifications

This costs the other guys big money and can do a lot of damage to the enemy if you get damage on before they finish building the forts, or before they have a chance to repair them. However, your bomb can be discovered before it blows, which wastes money and alerts guards. The higher risk option guards against this, but obviously increases your chances of being apprehanded by the pesky local militia.

Risk: 5/10
Cost: 20 gold

Murder Militia

The risk levels really correspond to how good your swordsmanship is. Highly skilled swordfighters will be able to take high risk options with impunity from a relatively low skill level. Any infiltrator with high infiltration skill should be able to get away with medium risk options, though.

Production

Does damage to the production. This is especially good for sabotaging city gold production, or breadbasket regions food production - and there's nothing more fun that ruining a family investment singlehandedly! Decently skills (60-80%) infils can do big damage here, especially in cities. Low risk does hardly any damage (usually ~5%), while medium is a huge step up (~25%) and high will do the most, but you're really running more of a risk for less reward than doing medium twice in my opinion (~30% damage).

Takes 6 hours in non city regions, 4 hours in city regions.

Risk: 2/10 (low), 4/10 (medium), 6/10 (high)

RC's/Workshops

I'm not sure if this option really works. Although it is implemented, the damage to centres or recruitment and paraphernalia code is opaque at best.

Risk levels

Whenever you do an infil action, the militia is alerted. there are several levels of alertness.

You notice slightly more guards than usual, and it will be a little more difficult to complete your mission.
Of course, you can also go somewhere else and/or wait for the guards to calm down again.

Risk here is probably minimal. Still, if it's a risky thing, you might want to hold out one more turn until the guards relax and go back to eating doughnuts and watching satellite TV instead of checking for you.

There are double guards everywhere, and the entire militia is at high alert. It seems this region is on high alert and it will be very hard to do anything.
Of course, you can also go somewhere else and/or wait for the guards to calm down again.

Here the risk is quite a bit tougher. Probably should add 1-1.5/10 to the risk previously mentioned, to be caught (if you're attacking RC's, nobles or militia, the chance of being wounded is not [as far as I know]increased).