Assassinations are intended to wound characters, and knock them out for varying amounts of time.
Fair enough. However, I have frequently seen mentioned that "assassinations" are one way to remove Royal Dukes from office, and that people should be using this option. However, I could not find anyone who could quote a time in which this actually has happened. If this is in fact NOT a potential point of using an assassination then MORE methods need to be implemented to remove characters from royal positions that are ruining the fun for other players.
The reason infils so rarely knock councilors out of office is complicated:
First, because there are relatively few assassinations, as compared to battle or preaching wounds. Both of which , by the way, I have seen remove characters from duchies, government offices, and region lordships, all in the past three to four months.
Second, some continents, notably Atamara, have often had negotiated "No councilor attacks" treaties. And I've seen this on other islands as well. Councilors often to do not march with the army on fight on the front lines, and often have large troops of men. Many realms also take a dim view of allowing assassins to operate out of their realm. (With notable exceptions like Talerium and Perdan.) That makes councilors harder to attack, and harder to successfully attack. Thus, council level assassinations that remove from office would have to be one of the rarest events you can find.
Third, successful infiltrator assaults depend on many factors, such as infiltration skills, sword skills, and just plain dumb luck. No, the actual equation for determining how wounded you are from an infiltrator attack is not the exact same as the equation for wounds from combat or preaching. But once the actual wound level has been determined, all wounds proceed from there down the same path to recovery.
1. I would assert that one reason assassinations are so few is that there is very little benefit to making the assassinations. Players "for the most part" don't care about wounding a character for a few days. People want to use assassinations for one of three reasons: A. Accomplish a strategic objective, B. Remove someone from their positions, C. Take revenge.
A. Accomplish a strategic objective: Such as getting rid of a Duke before an attack on a city, or getting rid of a martial that is leading enemy troops well. Under these circumstances, the bounty board will not be used.
B. Remove someone from their positions: As you have stated this is apparently not the purpose of the bounty board. However, I would argue this is one of the major reasons players would want to utilize an infiltrator for an assassination.
C. Take Revenge: The number of characters actually seeking true RP'ed revenge and using the bounty board are very few in number by my experience. Many players recognize that using the bounty board for this is much less effective than simply offer a public bounty for attacking a player, and giving out the gold personally, or getting revenge in other means. Because the attacks are not likely to remove a noble from position, then they don't even gain anything from their region. Which makes the bounty board "wasted gold" right now.
That's because the bounty board is not intended to be a "knock these people out of office" board. It is quite possible that people on the bounty board do not even hold a position. You can put someone's name on there, and hope that they will eventually lose their office over it. But if that's what you want, then you take the chance that it just won't happen, and all your money will be wasted.
The money is already wasted. I don't think you can find 5 players who honestly feel their gold was well used by placing it on the bounty board. My proposal makes the bounty board actually relevant.
I will however make two new feature requests which tie directly into this issue. They should all be considered together though.
