illusionist unit picture

[Eponymous-Archon]

If this is possible to set up then the next question is how the illusion moves?
Like the unit it mimmicks or as a flying unit with a fixed number of move (like 4 hex). Since it is an illusion it is not really limited in its move like the real unit. It might allows players/AI to spot some incoherence in the mvt (the illusion is not perfect) and it would avoid making illusion of fast unit too much superior.

Doesn't seem clear to me that it should move at all (see my previous posts).

But let's not jump the gun. I don't play multi-player games, but it seems to me that this has serious difficulties. Why wouldn't another human player realize what was going on right away? The AI, OTOH, could be made not to notice. Or am I wrong?

In order to play against another person, you'd probably have to have the illusionist double another unit on his team, thereby making it unclear which was the real one, or at least forcing the opponent to attack an illusion.

[turin]

why have anything that can create units other than the leader?
i don't really understand what your vision is for the illusionist, but i think that an illusion you summon as a different unit is somewhat...strange. i am not against it, but i am not for it. and if an illusionist is made, it should only be able to make illusions of itself, i think.

possibly an illusionist should have invisibility somehow?

[Eponymous-Archon]

why have anything that can create units other than the leader?
i don't really understand what your vision is for the illusionist

Well, the units aren't real, so it's not like the leader at all. In my suggestion above, the illusionary units can't really do anything themselves. They just cause other units to react to them as if they weren't illusions.

I can see two ways to go with this, depending on the opponent:

1. AI - Illusory units are treated as if they were real, except that they don't do anything to any other units themselves (e.g., attack). The AI's units would avoid or attack them as usual. I suggest that they have no hit points (or 1 hitpoint with 100% chance of being hit - though the AI can't know that or it would spoil the point of creating them). Illusory units could therefore be of whatever type we wanted to limit them to, since the AI would never "figure out" that they weren't real until it attacked.
2. Human - Real players would notice when that Illusionist suddenly had a new unit next to him that wasn't there before. Therefore this kind of illusory unit would be next to useless ("next to" because he could still have ZoC and the opponent would still have to "kill" him and use up a turn that way), though it might be able to provide cover or temporary shielding for the Illusionist and other units.
   
   In order to make this effective against live opponents, they would have to be uncertain as to the reality of the illusory units. One way to handle this is that the Illusionist would only be able to create illusory versions of units adjacent to itself (or maybe only itself), which could then switch places with the illusion (or not). In this way, the opponent would know that there was an illusory unit, but not which one it was.
   
   Under FoW, if the illusions could move about on their own, this could be very effective, as opponents could be going after completely illusory opponents, while the "real" units are someplace else entirely.

What other abilities such a unit might have remains a question. Maybe something like Mage of Illusionist's level - 1.

[Christophe33]

The question of the efficienty of illusion against human oponnent actually bring to another aspect worth discussing... Right now when you click/mouse over an enemy unit you can know everything about it, including Hp, even its name, how many Xp it has and needs to level. While it is very convenient, it allows players to make decission abut enemies unit based on thing that are not physicallly obvious (like name, traits, XP...). For example I would preferentially target an enemy unit getting close to level against one wich is not...and using the mos powerfull unit to avoid nibbling at it and making it levelling. If name and traits of enemy units were not displayed it would avoid this "cheating"...and incidently making illussion more difficult to track/distinguish... In fact the exact display of HP could be masked too (just the 2/3, 1/3 color bar) to add flavor to the game but many would scream against that. Maybe a "super fog of war option" masking all enemies unit info would be good, specially in multiplayer mode.

[miyo]

Illusions should look like normal units to enemy. When there is FoW, enemy does not know you created illusion as long as you do it so that he can't see you creating them.

- Miyo

[miyo]

I suggest that they have no hit points (or 1 hitpoint with 100% chance of being

1 hitpoint with normal defense... this way elusive illusion on favorable terrain can actually tie more than one enemy unit (as they try to get it killed).

- Miyo

[Christophe33]

I suggest that they have no hit points (or 1 hitpoint with 100% chance of being

1 hitpoint with normal defense... this way elusive illusion on favorable terrain can actually tie more than one enemy unit (as they try to get it killed).

- Miyo

I agree with Miyo
Otherwise the illusion would be really useless.
The big question is whether or not the illusion units can be code and if the coders are interested into doing so.

[Eponymous-Archon]

1 hitpoint with normal defense... this way elusive illusion on favorable terrain can actually tie more than one enemy unit (as they try to get it killed).

I agree with Miyo
Otherwise the illusion would be really useless.

Not really. As I've said above, if the illusion appears to be stronger than it actually is, opponents will treat it like that, and perhaps avoid it. likewise, if it has a ZoC, opponents will be limited by that. One can imagine a line of illusory units providing cover for real units to allow them to heal, wait out the night, etc etc.

I worry that it will be too strong otherwise.