A mechanical guide to assassination in Dune: Spice Wars.
How To Start an Assassination Attempt
The Assassination Mission
To begin an assassination, you need to begin the Assassination Mission for the desired faction in the Espionage tab. As shown in the mission requirements, you’ll need 1,000 Solari, 500 Intel, 1 Information Level in Arrakis, 1 in Spacing Guild, 1 in CHOAM, 1 in Landsraad, and 3 in your target faction. This demands 7 Agents but can be accomplished with as little as 2 if you combine the Smuggler advisor Drisq with a Bene Gesserit Agent. Having as many Agents as possible will increase your Intel gathering rate, making your eventual Assassination Attempt much easier.
Infiltration Cells Missions
You’ll notice that the last 2 Agent Slots of a faction start the game locked. To unlock them, you’ll need to utilize the Infiltration Cells Mission, which requires 100 Intel and at least 1 Information Level for the target faction.
You’ll unlock the 2nd Agent Slot with your 1st Infiltration Cell in the target faction and your 3rd Agent Slot with your 2nd Infiltration Cell in the faction. Losing your second-to-last or last Infiltration Cell will re-lock a Faction Slot and unassign its Agent.
Creating an Infiltration Cell is done by selecting the appropriate mission and placing it in the target faction’s village. You can’t place a cell once the Assassination Attempt has started, so keeping them protected is important.
You are limited to 2 Infiltration Cells. You can increase this cap with the Nefarious Contacts development or the Whisperer’s Hub Major Underground Headquarters Extention (Smugglers only), but having more than 2 only gives you an advantage in redundancy.
How To Successfully Complete an Assassination Attempt
Progression
For an Assassination Attempt to succeed, you’ll need to get the Progression Track from 0 to 100. The Progression Track increases by the Total Progression per day. This means that an unmitigated Assassination can succeed in as little as 16.7 days.
Base Progression is equal to twice the number of Agents assigned to that faction in the Espionage tab. If you lose enough Infiltration Cells, you’ll lose Agent Slots, which means fewer assigned Agents and a smaller Base Progression. Since you can’t lose your first Faction Slot for an alive opponent, you can always have at least 2 Base Progression.
Progression_Base = 2 * Intelligence_Agents
Total Progression is the Base Progression, times the Progression Factor percentage, rounded up.
Progression_Total = ⌈ Progression_Base * Progression_Factor ⌉
Progression Factor begins at 100% and is reduced by 6% per day per enemy Agent assigned to Counterintelligence. This means that your target can completely freeze the Assassination Attempt in as little as 5.6 days.
Progression_Factor_Rate = -6% * Counterintelligence_Agents
The displayed number of days until completion takes all of these factors into account. As long as the numbers of assigned Agents remains the same, success is guaranteed within that many days. If this info isn’t displayed, then you currently don’t have enough progression to reach 100.
Upkeep
Assassination Upkeep is 2 Intel and 2 Solari for each whole day that the Assassination Attempt has been active. Running out of Intel doesn’t have any immediate effect. You can still make progress, but you now have the Intel Deficit debuff. The debuff increases the capture rate of assigned Agents, so you can expect them to start dropping like flies. You also won’t be able to buy Assassins, which cost Intel.
Solari_Upkeep = 2 * ⌊ Days ⌋
Intel_Upkeep = 2 * ⌊ Days ⌋
Assassins
Assassins are a unit that require the Spying Logistics development and can be purchased for 200 Intel, or 100 Intel if you have the Nefarious Contacts development. If you target an enemy unit with an Assassin; it will sacrifice itself and destroy the enemy unit. You can also target one of your Infiltration Cells with an Assassin; it will sacrifice itself and reset your Progression Factor back to 100% for the faction that has your cell.
Detection
As shown on the tracker, your Assassination Attempt is either Undetected or Detected. With the default detection chance, you have 4 to 6 days before it becomes Detected. With the Stealth Gear development, this takes 50% longer, so expect 6 to 9 days.
(This data is anecdotal.)
Until then, your opponent can’t see the Progress Tracker, can’t begin searching for your Infiltration Cells (unless indirectly), and can’t negotiate for you to stop the Assassination Attempt. A human opponent will probably still know what you’re up to based on detecting Infiltration Cells Missions and capturing assigned Agents with Counterintelligence.
Even if Undetected, an opponent’s Counterintelligence Agents will still reduce your Progression Factor.
How To Thwart an Assassination Attempt
Assign Agents to Counterintelligence
Your strongest weapon against an Assassination Attempt is Counterintelligence. Each Agent on Counterintelligence will help reduce your opponent’s Progression Factor, forcing them to send Assassins to the Infiltration Cells in your territory in order to reset it.
Counterintelligence can also act a preemptive measure, capturing Agents before the Attempt is ready, decreasing the time it takes to Detect the Attempt, and also slowing down Progression before you’ve Detected it.
Remove Infiltration Cells
Once an Assassination Attempt against you has been Detected, you’ll have the ability to start a Cell Search Mission. Cell Search costs 200 Solari and must be used on one of your own villages. The selected village and neighboring villages will then become searchable unless it has already been searched for in the current Assassination Attempt. Select a unit and right-click to search one of these villages. The search only takes 2 days. If the village contains a cell, it will be removed.
Opponents will often guard their cells by surrounding your village with units, so a strong army could be needed to push them off. As a last resort, you can always Abandon your villages that have cells in them. This will remove the cells that were fueling the Assassination Attempt.
Intercept Assassins
Easier said than done, but you can use Ornithopters to patrol routes that you believe Assassins will take to get to their Infiltration Cells. Then you just need something to shoot them down. They only have 50 Health and 0 Armor.
Bankrupt Your Attacker
Assassinations can get very expensive. Even if you can’t fully eliminate Infiltration Cells and Assassins, prolonging the Attempt and attacking their economy may be enough to force them into cancelling it.
Do All of the Above
Doing only one of the above actions is not enough to stop an Assassination. You need to be doing as many things as possible to stop an opponent that has invested a ton of Research, Intel, and Solari into destroying you. If you only remove cells, or only use Counterintelligence, you haven’t stopped the clock on the tracker.
General Strategies
Where To Place Infiltration Cells
There are two main strategies for placing cells.
If you place the cells close together and next to your own regions, you will have the easiest time getting Assassins to them, and guarding them with units. But, because they’re bunched up and in predictable locations, it may only take one Cell Search to find them all.
Alternatively, placing them spaced apart in random locations will make it take longer for your opponent to find them, but makes it harder (or impossible) for you to send units to them.
You can also try using a bit of both. You only need to protect 2 cells to progress at full speed. If you send your 3rd and/or 4th cells to far away regions, it forces your opponent to spend time dealing with them, while also dealing with your units on the front-line.
Protecting Your Infiltration Cells
Once your opponent detects your Assassination Attempt, they will likely send their units individually to begin searching for your cells in their many villages. At this stage, the best way to protect your investment is to pick off these individual units with a small, but fast, strike force. The best units for this strike force are going to be Air units, since they travel fast, ignore water restrictions, and can easily kill individuals. Doing this has the added benefit of depleting your opponent’s army for what comes next.
When your opponent have a precise lead on which villages probably contain cells, you can expect them to send a concentrated force to protect the search units. You’ll need to match this force if want to protect your Assassins and hold onto your cells long enough to complete the Attempt.
Assassination Is Not a Win Condition
In a 4-player free-for-all game, it’s basically impossible to Assassinate all 3 opponents.
After every Assassination, your opponents are going to be wiser to your intentions. Even if you did attempt Assassinations against everyone, you’re going to need a strong army to protect your cells. So why not pivot to a military strategy? It also takes much less time to win with a passive victory condition than it does to Assassinate everyone, so you’d likely lose to someone who is playing with a more specialized build order.
It’s more effective to win with an instant win condition and only Assassinate players that look like they’re going to fulfill their win condition before you. Gang-ups are also a great way to slow down the leading player.
