Mod: Gaea, Cradle of Forests 2.0

[Foodstamp]

Version 2.1

Here is the latest version of Gaea. It fixes the conflict with the new Vanilla nations in addition to the following changes:

-Gave Ent and Ancient poor undead leadership.

-Gave tree folk recup

-Lowered gold costs on units

-Eliminated Druid

-Added Vineman pd enchantment as an easy to cast enchantment

-Added All Nature version of Carrion Woods

-Gave Ancients holy 1

-Added Daughter Oak Unique Hero

-Added Vine Ogre Hero

-Gave Sylvan Beauty map movement (2)

-Added Vine Wall summon



Version 2.0

-New graphics for all units

-Updated mod description

-Nymph research penalty

-Nymph can now gather Forest Zealots through "Summon Allies"

-Ancient research penalty

-Ancient no longer has any domsummons

-Ent no longer has domsummons

-Force of Nature research penalty

-New druid summoning.

-Wrath of Nature sends Forest Spider instead of Ancient Presence.

-Plague of Dragonflies spell removed

-Number of effects from "March of Ants" lowered

-Wrath of Nature lowered to research level 7

-Springpower added to most units

-Army of Gaea reduced to research level 3

-New spell "Initiate the Hunt" added

-New Spell "Locust Plague" added


Version 1.02

Item slot bug introduced in 3.08 is fixed on all units

Version 1.01

Here is a list of the changes!

Bug fixes------------

None reported


Unit Changes---------

Nymph

- No longer has enslave mind.

- No longer has fist attack.

- New ability "Enslavement" added.

- Attack increased by 2.

- Summoning cost raised to 20 nature gems.

NOTE: After further testing, I decided to leave the Nymphs with #seduce 15. With this seduction value, they succeed most the time against independent commanders and they have a chance of seducing the national commanders, which is how I intended this ability to be used to compensate for the weakness in mobility of the nation.

Ancient

- Gem cost lowered to 60 nature gems.

- Ancients now have nature 6 instead of 5.

Sylvan Beauty

- Sylvan Beauty no longer has enslave mind.

- Sylvan Beauty no longer has fist attack.

- Sylvan Beauty now has "Enslavement".

- Casting cost on "Consorts of Leaves" lowered.


New Spells-------------------



Fade into the Veil

This spell gives the caster body ethereal. This spell was added to give the Nymphs more survivability now that their enslavement is a touch attack. It is also useful for building thugs out of the more powerful units such as Force of Nature and The Ancient.

March of Ants

Gaea is limited on combat magic. This spell should help alleviate the issue a little bit. It is a combat summon that creates a small group of magically enlarged ants.

Plague of Dragonflies

Another combat summon spell. This spell summons a massive swarm of dragonflies that can impede enemy units. Unlike swarm, this spell costs no gems to cast.

NOTE: Dragonflies have a strength of 0. This can cause instances where combat sequences cannot play out, resulting in battle reaching 75 turns. I believe the devs are changing Dragonflies to str 1 next patch to fix this.

Call of the Pack

This spell works exactly like Call of the Wild except that it has less effects per casting, can be casted by nature 3 mages, and costs less gems.

Army of Gaea

This is a more powerful version of the Animal Horde spell.

Wrath of Nature

This spell sends an Ancient Presence to assassinate an enemy commander.

Nature's Migration

This is a powerful teleportation spell. It is castable by the Ancient, allowing him and his army to teleport to any land province on the map. This spell should allow the Ancient to join the fights in the late game.

[jscott]

Novice user of mods here, and I'm unclear where to put all the new image and art files? Where should the Gaea directory be placed? In the mods directory?

[Foodstamp]

Correct. Just dump everything in the zip file in the mods directory. That will create a folder in your mods directory called "gaea".

When you start the game, go to preferences, mods, click Gaea and that will enable the mod. Then create a new game in the early era and you will be able to select Gaea as a nation.

Keep in mind that Gaea plays very different than traditional nations, including the fact that there are no recruitable units.

Goodluck and I look forward to your feedback.

[Sombre]

I do like the new graphics. You've stuck with a very dom3 feel (like scaling down the lord of the hunt/forest or whoever to make the spirit of the hunt). The members of the hunt look particularly nice and show what can be done with minimal editing.

It's interesting that you have fairly easy access to H3 stealth preachers, though without domsummons dominion is less important to the nation.

What kind of bless would you suggest?

[Foodstamp]

I wouldn't really suggest a bless. The powerful holy unit is more for adding a second magic type to the nation, although a very limited one.

That being said, if I am going for thematics, I will usually take an earth 4/6, nature 6 bless Earth Mother. Even with this bless, you have to shoot for Nature's Migration to make use of the Ancients, which is single player is easy enough.

In spring, the Ancients have a whopping 256 hp, so they make great use of the regeneration and reinvigoration from the bless.

Other bless options would probably be centered around what type of magic paths you want beyond nature.

Maybe in the next version I will add a sacred unit, or convert some of the existing units to sacreds, the Members of the Hunt may be good candidates.

The forest spider may be interesting as a sacred with #onebattlespell bless as well

[Sombre]

Apparently some of the unit IDs fall between 2000 and 2100, which are now not allowed.

They must be 2200+ according to the new mod manual.

[Foodstamp]

I've bumped all my mods including this one up to 2300+. I will release it one of these days when I am not so busy.

[llamabeast]

Hi Foodstamp,

I understand you're on the verge of releasing a new version of Gaea. I was wondering if you could PM me when it's done so I can incorporate it into a new megamod for the Threelakes game. Thanks!

[Foodstamp]

Here is the latest version of Gaea. It fixes the conflict with the new Vanilla nations in addition to the following changes:

-Gave Ent and Ancient poor undead leadership.

-Gave tree folk recup

-Lowered gold costs on units

-Eliminated Druid

-Added Vineman pd enchantment as an easy to cast enchantment

-Added All Nature version of Carrion Woods

-Gave Ancients holy 1

-Added Daughter Oak Unique Hero

-Added Vine Ogre Hero

-Gave Sylvan Beauty map movement (2)

-Added Vine Wall summon