Mediterranean Defense

The Basics

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Unlocked in Sequence 03, the Mediterranean Defense metagame is both a great source of income and the means by which you can access the Master Assassin Missions: twelve significant episodes with fantastic rewards.

Once you have acquired your first Assassin, we advise that you liberate all Templar Dens in Constantinople as a matter of urgency, as this will enable you to have a full twelve Recruits working on contracts (and, as a consequence, gaining in experience and levels) from an early stage in the story.

To access the Mediterranean Defense interface, either visit a Pigeon Coop situated next to a Crafting Table in assorted locations throughout Constantinople, or interact with the maps found inside all Assassin Dens, the Assassin’s HQ, or Piri Reis’s shop in the Grand Bazaar.

When you open the interface, you have two options: Assassins and Mediterranean Defense. The Assassins menu enables you to study your current roster and spend Skill Points on armor and weapon upgrades. Assassins acquire Skill Points every time they gain a rank by accumulating experience points (XP).

The most efficient method of earning XP is to send them on Mediterranean Defense contracts. This menu features a list of cities. Select these to study missions that Assassins can be sent on.

Every potential mission has up to six primary characteristics:

Requirement: Certain unique missions require a cash investment from Ezio.

Difficulty: A general indication of how hard the mission will be to complete; this is expressed with greater accuracy in the Odds of Success rating once you assign an Assassin (or multiple Assassins) to a contract. There are two main varieties of missions.

Generic missions (marked by diamonds: ♦ ) are always replaced on completion, and are never in short supply. Unique missions (marked by stars:★) can only be undertaken once. It is an Assassin’s rank alone that governs their Odds of Success in all missions.

Money: The funds that Ezio will receive on successful completion of the mission.

XP: The total experience points available on completion of the contract. If multiple Assassins are sent to complete a mission, this sum will be divided between the participants.

Synch Duration: The number of minutes in active play time before the contract will be completed. As with the Rebuilding Constantinople system, the game clock is frozen whenever an interface screen is open. Assassins sent on contracts are unavailable for duties via the Assassin Signal button until they return.

Templar Control: This indicates the effect that the mission will have on Templar hegemony in the city. See overleaf for details.

Once you have selected a mission, you can assign up to five Assassins to undertake it. After choosing an initial candidate, the Odds of Success bar will be filled to show the probability (as a percentage) that he or she will successfully complete it.

If it is less than 100%, you can increase it by selecting additional Assassins. Any mission that you begin with an Odds of Success rating lower than 100% carries a chance, however slender, that the assignment will fail. Should this occur the Assassins will be killed (with the exception of Den Leaders – more on which overleaf), and must be replaced by new Recruits.

Each Assassin has a specific weapon specialty displayed beneath their portrait. Some generic missions can only be undertaken if you have a particular type of specialist available. However, after they have been assigned to the mission, you can boost the Odds of Success rating if required by adding Assassins of any type to the contract roster.

When you send Assassins on missions, you will receive a notification once the contract has been completed, plus information on any levels gained. To collect the rewards, study additional information and assign Skill Points (if applicable), visit the Mediterranean Defense interface via the nearest access point.

Assassins Guild: Training Strategy

Once you have liberated Templar Dens, the most important task to accomplish in the Mediterranean Defense system is to rapidly advance six Recruits to Level 10. At this point, you can assign each of them to your Dens throughout Constantinople. This transforms them into Den Leaders.

Complete the first Master Assassin Mission that this unlocks, and you can then level them up even further. When a Den Leader reaches Level 14 with a full XP gauge, you can complete the second part of their Master Assassin Mission to elevate them to Level 15. At this point, no further progress is possible.

To train Recruits rapidly – especially your first six raw enlistees, who will be the most likely candidates for Den Leader status – focus on contracts that offer the best XP return.

to generic contracts are only worthwhile if you have no other option at lower levels. Once your Recruits reach higher levels, start to send them in groups on more challenging generic contracts, or the easier unique contracts.

Save unique contracts with extremely high XP returns and generic contracts for Den Leaders alone until they all reach Master Assassin status. Those where you can send a single Den Leader on a mission with a 100% Odds of Success rating allow for very rapid advancement.

After focusing specifically on maxing out your Den Leaders (and turning them into Master Assassins), you can use these as “trainers” to vastly accelerate the development of all other Recruits. The XP gained from a generic contract will cause a raw Recruit to gain several levels at once.

Complete Set 1 of the Assassins Guild Challenges to unlock a 10% bonus to the Odds of Success rating for the first Assassin assigned to a mission. Any subsequent Assassins added to the roster do not have this bonus applied.

Ezio can have a maximum of seven Master Assassins, including the individual assigned to you automatically during the events of Sequence 03. All other Recruitss can only reach Level 10: at that point, no further progress is possible. Den Leaders and Master Assassins also have a unique perk: they cannot die.

Even if they fail a mission, or fall in combat while assisting Ezio, they will survive any wounds they sustain – though they will be unavailable for a period of convalescence.

Generic Mission Details

Assassin Ranks

Assassin Upgrades*

Armor

Combat

* Skill Points assigned to Assassins only govern their effectiveness when called into combat with the Assassin Signal button.

There is a direct correlation between the time required to complete a contract and its XP reward: lengthier missions present the best returns. The opposite is true for money, where shorter assignments generally offer greater profitability.

That said, constantly returning to the Mediterranean Defense interface to assign Assassins to and missions can be a little tiresome; we prefer to assign them to , and contracts for the convenience. Protracted missions require more than one Master Assassin to complete, and so are inefficient as a method of generating income.

Reclaiming Cities

At the start of the Mediterranean Defense metagame, every city in the region has a 100% Templar Control rating. Each completed mission reduces Templar Control by the specified percentage, though the rating will slowly creep back up over time if you subsequently do not complete other contracts in the city.

To liberate a city from Templar governance, select the Reclaim the City unique contract. The difficulty of this assignment is determined by the current Templar Control percentage; the lower this is, the higher the Odds of Success rating will be.

Successfully completing the Reclaim the City mission for each region will switch control from the Templars to the Assassins. On your next visit to the Mediterranean Defense menu, you will be asked to select a new leader for the city.

Each liberated city has an Assassin Control rating. The rank of the Assassin you assign to the city determines the maximum possible percentage. An Assassin sent to a city is removed from your Mediterranean Defense roster, leaving a space for a new Recruit.

You can swap Assassins not engaged in contracts with those assigned to cities at any time (press the Primary Attack button while selecting a city to do so).

Cities living under the auspices of the Assassins generate XP for all Assassins garrisoned there, money for Ezio, and crafting ingredients. Funds accrued from a city are added to Bank deposits; the other rewards are credited directly.

Reclaiming a city unlocks a host of new unique contracts. The majority of those require Ezio to spend money to upgrade the city’s infrastructure. Installing each additional Assassin Den enables you to send another person to the region, boosting the maximum potential Assassin Control rating.

Most other unique contracts either offer a bonus to XP or Akçe dividends that the city provides every 20 minutes of play time.

The Assassin Control rating declines steadily over time, and can only be replenished by completing contracts in the city; increasing the maximum Assassin Control rating by installing new Dens and assigning Assassins reduces the chance of Templar attacks.

If you intend to conquer cities gradually, you could consider designating one city as a “training academy”, with a maximum number of Dens and XP upgrades. As you conquer each city and enlist new Recruits, you could then send them to this locale to reach Level 10 until you swap them out and assign them to another region at a later date.

Think hard before spending Akçe on unique contracts that contribute revenue increases. A mission that costs 1,500 Yarins for a 150 Yarin increment is a business venture that requires ten 20-minute dividend cycles (over three hours of game time) to break even. This is worth spending money on only if you still have plenty to do in Constantinople.

If Assassin Control ever falls to 0%, the city will be Contested. Until you send Assassins to complete the Defend the City mission that appears, you will receive no further dividends from the region. If you fail in a Defend the City mission, the city will fall back into Templar hands. All Assassins assigned to the region will be held as hostages until you retake it.

Sending Master Assassins to cities will not affect the status of their Den in Constantinople: it will remain immune to Templar attack.