The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHvrRuha1K8
[Promoted to front page. -stabguy]

Getting inside the merchant king's palace just prior to the cutscene (non-story) is something I have wanted to do in a while. Here's the setup.

Infiltration
You need a vigilante for this. Luckily there's a group of them not far away from the palace. You would first want to kill the guards in between where you want to lead the vigilante. Have a guard fight you to lead the vigilante. This could take a while since most of the time is spent watching the guard struggle with him. But then the guard pushes him away and comes again after you. This is how you lead the vigilante. Make sure the guard doesn't get too far from him or the vigilante gives up and goes back to the others. Lead them to the door of the palace that Abul Nuquod exits out of. You will encounter a group of guards. Kill all but three guards uncluding the one used for the vigilante (this doesn't seem to work if there are more than three guards). Now here's how you get into the palace. If you jump on the platform by the wall of the door the guards will think you are on the other side of the wall and go there. It is a little common in the AC games for guards to think you are somewhere else, especially if it's by a wall. Getting guards to go after you by jumping while crouching is known as the Pathfinding Charm, discovered by IanXO4.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRdq6ioX8NE
This is where the vigilante comes in. You need to be locked onto a guard so that you are in battle mode and can counter kill your way in the palace. Jump only when the guard and vigilante are struggling so you don't have the guard also trying to go in the palace.

Exploring the Palace
After you get in stay close to the wall to avoid the memory starting. Take the path shown in the video. Notice how the rooftop archers are all gone. Now for Abul Nuquod. Unfortunately you can't get to him without the memory starting. In fact he and his bodyguards don't even appear until the memory starts. So just drop by and say hello to them before starting the scene. So infiltrating the palace doesn't have much use besides saying it's possible.

I've gotten out of the palace by dropping from the roof, gone a far distance away, and come back. From the front door I can see the bodyguards are no longer on the balcony, and possibly also Abul Nuquod, but with no way to get inside it's unclear what has changed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peU2IVE4Ngs
[From the forums - stabguy]

Here are some assassinations I did on Abu'l Nuquod the merchant king.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfD_ILLdOgk

Collection of Assassin's Creed cheats and shortcuts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE8pasIfL14

The Turkey Shoot: The goal in these assassinations is to immobilize the target so that you can easily stab him/her with the hidden blade. Of course, the developers never intended such assassinations to be possible, so you have to rely on several exploits in order to pull off these types of assassinations.

Here are video walkthroughs for the assassinations shown in "The Turkey Shoot".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIIM2_i9w6c

Here are some extremes of hiding in plain sight.

William: After William is done lecturing his men, he goes to his desk to study a map. You can climb down behind William and blend right next to him. If you bump into the table, William will notice you, so you need to be careful as you approach the table. In this video, I line up Altair's shoes with William's shoes to ensure that Altair doesn't bump the table.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-u0iVW3vv8

Version 2.0 contains updated blitzes of Tamir, Abu'l, Majd, Jubair, Maria, Robert and Al Mualim.

Blitz assassinations of all the main targets. The concept of this style is to assassinate as quickly as possible, while remaining Anonymous before the kill on certain targets: Tamir, Garnier de Naplouse, Abu'l Nuqoud, Majd Addin, William de Montferrat, Jubair Al Hakim and Sibrand.

Blitz assassinations of all the main targets. The concept of this style is to assassinate as quickly as possible, while remaining Anonymous before the kill on certain targets: Tamir, Garnier de Naplouse, Abu'l Nuqoud, Majd Addin, William de Montferrat, Jubair Al Hakim and Sibrand. (In this video I fail to remain Anonymous on Abu'l.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Eh6z3oQsYc

Frequently Asked Question: I'm on Memory Block 4 and there's nothing left to do on my map. What now?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXkuHPS6L2M

You all know by now that I'm a big fan of air to assassinate. Ubisoft must have rushed it in at the last minute because both they and Prima failed to document how to do it. Whenever someone on the internet asks for help, at least one well intentioned player comes to their aid with advice like, "Jump at your target and hit the attack button when you get close." That's what I call a "jump assassinate" (or "stunt assassinate" if the fall is high enough to cause partial desynchronization). Air to assassinate is actually easier and more reliable. The problem with jump assassinate is you have to judge where you will land and make sure it's close to the target. I usually end up jumping way over the target's head.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UxpKxTN1k8

We've already seen plenty of the air to assassinate move. Let's mix things up with a traditional, low profile, stealth kill (and then get right back into the air assassinations ). Of all the targets which are possible to stealth assassinate, Abu'l Nuqoud is the most difficult to stealth assassinate. You'll earn style points just getting into proper position on this one.