Invisible in the woods

[Alexander82]

I was thinking about a tech that allows ents to become invisible if they don't act inside forest tiles.

[Sunrise Samurai]

Heh. In Battle for Wesnoth, their ent equivalent (called woses) have this ability. I *would* agree, except I don't want expensive, powerful units vulnerable to being stepped on. And with movement 2, someone can easily predict where one will be if they have already seen it, and deliberately step on it with decent accuracy.

[Alexander82]

We might think a way to avoid that

[Sunrise Samurai]

If so, this sounds good. Any ideas on how to deal with that though?

[Puss_in_Boots]

Ents, being pretty costly warriors, I suggest letting it trap and kill forces that step on it. Therefore revealing its location.

I don't know if that would be too hard to code or if the engine could handle it.

[Alexander82]

That would be too much. They are already strong units. This is a way to protect them from ranged fire arrows or surprising melee troops that are trying to take an easy way to an elven base.

[Puss_in_Boots]

If that's too much, why not make them invisible and unsteppable tiles? If players are unobservant they will be ambushed. It also allows them to not get targeted by range too.

[Alexander82]

Wouldn't be possible that if you step them you end up in one of the nearest tile or simply yo detect them inside your move range (units only)?

[Puss_in_Boots]

Wouldn't be possible that if you step them you end up in one of the nearest tile

I don't think the current engine can remember which tile your unit came from to step into the next tile.

*which might actually explain why they move diagonally through onstacles*

simply yo detect them inside your move range (units only)?

My idea above is simply the same, you can detect by selecting the unit and the movement options will appear.

If the unit cannot step on one tile that means there is a tough invisible unit.

[Sunrise Samurai]

Hey, if step on puts a unit in the closest free tile at random, it might work.

[Alexander82]

Yes, maybe puss idea is the best one after all

[Sunrise Samurai]

Puss's idea isn't truly invisibility, just untargetability. This being said, it goes a long way.

[Puss_in_Boots]

The thing is, when an Ent wants to hide in plain sight they would camouflage with their surroundings rather than bend light to become invisible.

If the unit comes close enough it can distinguish the features of the ent.

The player can possibly overlook the occupied space and move on without checking it out. If he doesn't figure out what's hiding in the woods the ranged units will have nothing to target anyway. It's sorta like military logistics, you don't waste ammo on what may not be an enemy.

[Alexander82]

The thing is, when an Ent wants to hide in plain sight they would camouflage with their surroundings rather than bend light to become invisible.

If the unit comes close enough it can distinguish the features of the ent.

The player can possibly overlook the occupied space and move on without checking it out. If he doesn't figure out what's hiding in the woods the ranged units will have nothing to target anyway. It's sorta like military logistics, you don't waste ammo on what may not be an enemy.

Good point

[Sunrise Samurai]

The player can possibly overlook the occupied space and move on without checking it out.

I doubt that. Any experienced player will check it out. Any inexperienced player will probably write a bug report about glitched movement and then wonder how they didn't see the ent when it walks up and hits them.

[Puss_in_Boots]

Isn't the first thing that they see are the version logs? I think you might be exaggerating a little bit there, it's still possible someone could see it as a bug. People, even experienced players, could make mistakes sometimes however I wouldn't count on it. This also forces them to draw closer to the unit if they wanted to attack it.

[Sunrise Samurai]

I think most players would figure it out soon enough, and send something to reveal it. This being said, if nothing is close enough to reach it, it is impossible to notice.

[Alexander82]

When you are in move range it is already too late if you play with no fog of war.

[Sunrise Samurai]

Instead of hiding ents, maybe this could be a tech to allow any stationary building, or at least parapets, to be built in a forest tile with stealth.

For example:
Hidden parapet
Cost 7 (2 higher)
Same stats as parapet, but with stealth.

While it might be fun to do with archery range, the ideal building really is the parapet, simply because it can hide an ambush or allow a hidden roadway with several in a series that troops can dart between to avoid being seen. Obviously the construction site would need to be hidden as well, for use in reveal games.

[Puss_in_Boots]

Sounds like it should work only for the outposts and paraphets. Hidden factories can become really annoying.

[Sunrise Samurai]

Okay. Like I said, it was mostly meant to go that direction anyway.

[Alexander82]

I think that an invisible tower with 4 fast archer inside might be too much lol xD

Anyway the basic idea was thet ents might stay still and seem like they are normal trees, like in lotr. That is the concept i wanted to give.

[Sunrise Samurai]

Okay, didn't think about how op that would be. Try this: hidden parapet is either limited to 2 spaces or else has 4 but you can't shoot from it.

My vote would be 4 space, but can't shoot from inside, while hidden outpost would function as normal.

[Alexander82]

But the parapet already can have 4 (treetop archery is in game). Being hidden until you attack might be ok but it isn't the unit itself that is attacking, so i don't really know if it is possible to do that at the moment (without new coding). Daniel should tell us that.

[Sunrise Samurai]

If it reveals on attack, then stealths again after a turn of not attacking, that would be great. If you could kill anything that could see it, then you didn't actually reveal it, assuming your opponent doesn't run in and see it before it is hidden again. If they do, they'll probably let it stealth and step on it, but that's what happens when you think you've got a good hiding spot and you get found out.

[Alexander82]

I think that once you know where it is it shouldn't hide anymore. Once you know that there is a tower in a certain spot you don't just forget that xD

[Sunrise Samurai]

That's in a 2 player game. Player 3 shouldn't know. Besides, there's a chance you might be able to wipe out anything that could see it, preventing that knowledge from reaching the player.

[Alexander82]

I don't know if it is ossible to make something hidden visible by a single player. I think not but I think it happen the same when a player discover an assassin. Another player can see it too.

[Sunrise Samurai]

Not sure. That's why I'm thinking it re-stealths after a turn of not being revealed. That at least preserves the secret if it wasn't really seen by anything still alive after the initial attack. Besides, I bet there's probably a few players who actually might forget where it is after a few turns believe me, I've played a few.

[Alexander82]

Yes that's why once you discover it you should remember where it is xD