Other houses' gold, food, peasants and troops are hidden (see What You Can See). Your thieves (a unit every race has) find them out, and can also steal and sabotage. Each thing they do is an operation; every operation this age is listed on Thieves' Operations.
Reports count troops by kind: soldiers, offense specialists, defense specialists and elites, each with its upgraded form included. They don't say how many are upgraded, and they never show thieves.
Kinds of operation
- Intel reads one part of a house: its estate, its muster roll, its ledgers, its archives or its recent news. A Full Dossier reads everything and costs the most.
- Theft takes a share of their gold, food, a material, horses or books, or kidnaps some of their peasants. What you get is capped by how many thieves you send.
- Sabotage delays their construction or training, burns a building type, poisons their wells, or kills troops or adepts.
- Subversion works on their affairs: cancels their market orders, bribes their main general to fight weaker, wins some of their soldiers over with propaganda, stirs unrest against their state's tax, or courts one of their generals or academics.
Nerve
Every house has Nerve, up to 100%. Each operation spends some (its cost is on the operations list). A failed operation costs 50% more on top. Nerve comes back at 4% a tick. When you don't have enough, you can't send that operation.
Vigilance
Every attempt against a house, success or not, makes it more vigilant. Its Vigilance cuts the chance of the next operation against it by that much, up to 80%, and fades by 4% a tick. A house can't be drained by a queue of thieves in one evening.
Chance of success
- Start from thieves per acre: yours sent, against theirs at home. Equal thieves per acre gives 50%; formally 50% × 2 × yours ÷ (yours + theirs), kept within 5%-95%. Thieves' dens make yours count for more; watch towers make theirs count for more.
- Multiply by the operation's own chance (intel is easier than sabotage).
- Take off their Vigilance.
The result is kept between 1% and 95%. Your operation's answer tells you the Nerve you have left, and roughly what the chance was: very low (under 20%), low, even, good or very good (80% or more). It never gives the exact number, because that would reveal the target's thieves and Vigilance.
If it works
- Intel comes back as a report. Everyone in your state can read it; it stays in your state's reports. The target isn't told.
- Theft is yours at once. Sabotage takes effect at once.
- For theft and sabotage, the target's news says what happened, but not who did it.
If it fails
5% of the thieves you sent are caught (at least one). The target's news says how many were caught, which operation it was, and which house sent them.
False Flag
Any operation can be sent under a false flag: you name a third state (not yours, not the target's), and it costs 10% more Nerve.
- If it works, the target's news says the thieves wore that state's colours, and the target state's hostility meter rises toward the framed state, not yours.
- If it fails, the flag is uncovered: the target learns who sent the thieves and whom they tried to frame, the framed state is told too, and your state takes double the meter points.
Courting
Court a General and Court a Scholar don't steal anyone. They make one of the target's characters waver: their best eligible general (most renown earned) or academic (most books supervised).
- The character wavers for 24 ticks. Its owner's whole state hears about it at once, but not who courted it.
- The owner can Reassure it for 500 gold plus 2% of its highest transfer fee. The wavering ends and the character stays loyal for 72 ticks; it can't be courted again in that time.
- If nobody reassures it, it goes up for auction in the Hall of Deeds for 24 ticks, at a reserve of 2,000 gold (or half its highest transfer fee, if more). For the first 6 ticks only the house that courted it may bid. The owner receives the price, less the usual fee, as in any sale.
Can't be courted: a main general, a general away with an army, a marked heir, a character still settling in after a trade, or one recently reassured. The character's record counts every time it was courted, reassured or auctioned.
If the target has nobody you could court, the operation still runs and costs its Nerve: a success then takes nothing. Bribe a General works the same way when the target has no main general. You can't find out for free whether their characters are away or loyal.
Limits
- No operations on houses in your own state, across a ceasefire, or while either house is under protection.
- Every attempt raises the target state's hostility meter toward yours: a little for intel (0.25 points), more for theft and most for sabotage.
- At war, thefts, fires and killings take a bigger share.
- Set Fires spends sulfur, win or lose.
- Some races resist certain operations (a lower chance) or are immune to them (they can't be tried); see each race's page.
- For subversion and sabotage the target's news says what happened, but not who did it; a failure names the sender.