<header class="guide-hero"> <h1>Agents</h1> <p class="lede"> Agents are your non-military characters — spies, scholars and agitators who win wars off the battlefield. Napoleon: Total War has two agent types in the main campaign and three more in the Peninsular Campaign. </p></header><section> <h2>Grand Campaign: two agent types</h2> <p> Unlike Empire, Napoleon’s short timeframe means <strong>there are no priests</strong> (no religion to convert). You get: </p> <h3>Spies</h3> <ul> <li><strong>Scout.</strong> Long line-of-sight — slip into enemy territory to see armies and regions.</li> <li><strong>Assassinate.</strong> Remove enemy generals, gentlemen or other spies.</li> <li><strong>Sabotage.</strong> Damage buildings in a region capital, or sabotage an army so it cannot move next turn.</li> <li><strong>Infiltrate.</strong> Enter a city to see everything; stay five turns and you build a spy network revealing the whole region.</li> </ul> <h3>Gentlemen</h3> <ul> <li><strong>Research.</strong> Station one at your university to speed up technology.</li> <li><strong>Tech theft.</strong> Plant one in an enemy university to steal (or slow) their research.</li> <li><strong>Duel.</strong> Challenge rival gentlemen or revealed enemy spies to remove them.</li> </ul></section><section> <h2>Peninsular Campaign: three more</h2> <p>The Peninsular Campaign adds agents built around guerrilla warfare and political alignment:</p> <ul> <li><strong>Priests</strong> (Spanish & Portuguese, from religious buildings) — convert the populace, boost happiness in friendly regions and lower it in enemy ones; they also passively detect spies.</li> <li><strong>Provocateurs</strong> — spread pro- or anti-French sentiment to shift a region’s political alignment.</li> <li><strong>Guerrilleros</strong> — spy-type agents who harass enemy units with attrition, assassinate generals and infiltrate; they also unlock guerrilla military units when you liberate Spanish regions.</li> </ul></section><section> <h2>How to get agents</h2> <ul> <li>Agents are <strong>not recruited like units</strong> — they spawn automatically in your intellectual centres.</li> <li><strong>Gentlemen</strong> appear based on your education buildings (e.g. the University).</li> <li><strong>Spies</strong> appear based on your intelligence buildings (e.g. the Secret Society).</li> <li>To use an active ability, select the agent and right-click a target character, army or settlement.</li> </ul></section><section> <h2>Using spies offensively</h2> <p> A forward spy is the cheapest early-warning system in the game. Park one just inside enemy territory and you see armies mustering before they cross the border, which lets you concentrate your field army instead of garrisoning every province. At higher levels a spy can assassinate an enemy general — removing a high-command general can trigger a morale collapse in the battle that follows, so the ability scales into the late game. Sabotage is the subtle option: knocking out a region’s buildings or freezing an army for a turn can undo an enemy’s whole campaign plan at the critical moment. </p></section><section> <h2>Using gentlemen for the tech race</h2> <p> Research compounds, so a gentleman parked at your best university pays dividends every single turn. In a long campaign the difference between one and two gentlemen on research is the difference between finishing the military tree before your rivals and finishing after them. The offensive use — planting a gentleman in an enemy university — is riskier but can stall a leading rival’s artillery or naval tech at exactly the wrong time for them. Just remember a planted gentleman is vulnerable to the enemy’s own gentlemen and revealed spies, so it is a raid, not a permanent garrison. </p></section><section> <h2>Counters and attrition</h2> <p> Agents duel each other. A gentleman can challenge and remove a revealed enemy spy; a priest in the Peninsular Campaign passively detects spies, which is why espionage there is harder. Keep your key agents moving and avoid leaving them adjacent to known enemy agents for multiple turns. When an agent’s mission fails, it can be wounded or killed, so treat them as valuable but expendable — never let one agent carry your whole intelligence or research plan. </p></section><section> <h2>Tips</h2> <ul> <li>Keep one Gentleman parked at your best university every turn — research speed adds up across a long campaign.</li> <li>A forward spy network is worth more than a stack of cavalry for early warning.</li> <li>In the Peninsular Campaign, winning the propaganda war (Priests + Provocateurs) is how you hold conquered regions.</li> <li>Level your agents by using them — an experienced spy sees further and assassinates more reliably than a fresh one.</li> </ul></section><section> <h2>How many agents you actually need</h2> <p> You do not need a spy in every province. A lean, effective intelligence setup is one forward spy watching the enemy border, one gentleman on research at your best university, and a second gentleman held in reserve or planted in an enemy university if you are in a tech race. Beyond that, extra agents mostly sit idle and drain the pool of a faction's limited agent spawns. The Peninsular Campaign is the exception, where the propaganda trio — Priests, Provocateurs and Guerrilleros — earns its keep because holding conquered regions there is a political problem, not a military one. </p></section><section> <h2>Leveling agents efficiently</h2> <p> Agents gain experience by acting, so the fastest way to a high-level spy is to send it on low-risk scouting and assassination missions early, building the skill ceiling before you need it for a critical kill. Gentlemen level by researching and by duelling, so parking one at a university quietly improves it while it works. The trap is to hoard agents unused "for later" — an agent that never acts never improves, and a level-one spy sent on a vital assassination is far more likely to fail or die than a seasoned one. Use them constantly; their experience is free once they are spawned. </p></section><section class="related"> <h2>Related</h2> <ul> <li><a href="/guides/government/">Government & Diplomacy</a> — political alignment and relations</li> <li><a href="/guides/technology/">Technology & Research</a> — why Gentlemen matter</li> <li><a href="/guides/editions/">Editions & DLC</a> — the Peninsular Campaign is DLC</li> </ul></section>