When planning a battle, maps are helpful things, but an illusion of the chosen battlefield would be even better.
If the battlefield has been inspected beforehand an easy lvl 5 Cr/Im spell (base 1, +2 voice, +1 concentration, +1 intricacy) should do the trick, and a Perception + Finesse roll would indicate how detailed and accurate the illusion of the battlefield is.
Now, if the battlefield is not inspected beforehand it's probably not a big problem if you're close to it. A low level In/Im could give the mage a birds eye view of the battlefield by using one sense (sight) at a distance, but if you're not able to get close to the battlefield things might be a little harder.
This is where I'm at a loss.
There are Cr/Im spells to create images, even an image of the magus hundreds of miles away from where he is (haunt of the living ghost) and there are In/Im to see what goes at far away places (summoning the distant image), but none for creating an image representing another place (think aerial photography). So what I'm trying to wrap my head around is a spell that creates a miniature illusion of an area without going from the memory of the caster. Haunt of the living ghost uses an Intellego requisite to enable the use of two senses in an otherwise normal Cr/Im spell.
Would a an Intellego requisite be enough?
Range would be where the Illusion appears, but should I increase target to include the whole area I want the illusion to depict?
Sense the feet that tread the earth uses +1 part and +3 size to collect information from a circular area with a diameter of 1 mile, would that do the trick for such a spell?
Any thoughts?