Age of Strategy Forums

The spec IS_MIRROR_UNIT is really confusing and insufficiently described in the descriptions provided in propsheet help under how to's

So, assuming the possibility of these (below) results , i carried some tests. But the results were not surprising because it had no impact upon the assumptions.

• Making a unit with similar propsheet json but with alt ids and naming the unit similar to an existing unit (in string file).
• The mirror defined unit will appear similarly ingame to the reference unit with the exact stats (even the cost)
• The opponent can be made confused with this setup while protecting the actual unit

But the ideals needed is

• how we can make a cost for the mirrored unit while still faking the cost in stats of the real unit (as the mirrored unit should be cheaper than the real unit)
• If the real unit is a legendary or unique entity, how can we fake the stats of mirrored unit with a legendary in it
• The mirror unit should be one-shoted by any enemy unit ie, hp should be 1 in actual terms disregarding the hp stated in stats and should always do 1hp damage while making itself vanish.

But the results were

• The mirrored unit behaved exactly as a normal one.

So, concluding my thoughts

• What should the IS_MIRROR_UNIT actually supposed to do?
• Is there any possibility to add such a resulting feature (as mentioned above) like faking an existing unit but with a hidden value of hp which is always "1"

i see it is not implemented thing (not appear in code)
i will remove from docs.

Is there any chance of it being implemented in the near future? It would be great for faking units (if it is as I mentioned)

i have no idea what was the idea here and how i imagined implementing it.

Ok, it wasn't clear how you planned the spec to be from the help topics.

I will make a new topic for that if the idea you planned and the idea I proposed isn't the same.

I was putting forward a way to fake a unit by making another unit with same stats and different id's and ofc naming it as same as the original one.

The fake unit should be cheaper than the original one and can be one shotted (probably just 1 hp) by any unit.
But the stats should be imitation of the real one .

The possibilities i believe is making new fields like fakeHp, fakepower, fakeArmor, etc.(basic stats which can represent a unit in help texts/automatically making these fields all 1 ) Which can be trigger activated by a spec (if its not mirror unit, something else), Which can overwrite the stat sheet aesthetically only.

That would be extremely inefficient to create new stats (which need to be saved everywhere) just to present something fake.
The spec idea was much better - just it must have been lost along.

Imho it was probably meant to work like:
- additional check in damage calculation - if attacker has IS_MIRROR_UNIT no damage is done
- another additional check in damage calc - if defender has IS_MIRROR_UNIT 99999 damage is dealt, regardless of attack (any max value - killed instantly)
- checks blocking usage of abilities, so that they are shown on propsheet, but cannot be executed by either auto-attack feature, AI or player
- probably a check for AI to avoid attacking if there is a risk of counter

This along with some possibility to just add this spec to summoned unit on summon would have some usage.

The question here is if it's worth the work (how many units would actually use this in all variants).
I can easily see this as not enough, as e.g. for AoWW mirrored units could be life-size models (like rubber tanks), but they would need to be discernable by spies and adjacent units.
E.g. AoF or some other variant with magic would probably ask for attack to be real or weakened, but non-zero damage (for stronger spells, like clone) and still left working normally for weaker ones (just mirage).
And there is also an issue of changing expectations of players.
Currently propsheet is displaying true informations (and getting more and more precise), while adding such spec is meant to deceive player, changing concept of such document a little.

And honestly without possibility to add effect on summon (use summoned unit as target for relatedEffect) and some variant training (adding effect to some set of trained units by specific training unit) possibilities to use such specs are very limited.