Gaea, Cradle of Forests (3.08 compatible)

[Foodstamp]

Version 1.02

Item slot bug introduced in 3.08 is fixed on all units


Version 1.01 now available

The new version of this mod is attached to this post and the reply with the list of changes.


----------------------------------------------------------

Attached is a mod I did as a self indulgence. I always wanted to play as a nation that was themed around Nature's Wrath. Where the forest becomes sentient and works towards reclaiming the world from civilization.

This mod is not balanced towards vanilla. It is more difficult than the standard nations to play against the AI due to the special limitations on the nation and it's units. Surprisingly, the AI plays this nation half way decent because it can ignore certain limitations (Bug I am sure) that the player cannot ignore.

I don't want to give away too much of how this nation works because part of the fun is discovering how to use it effectively. I will give some basic information to help the player devise a strategy.

The nation has no recruitable commanders or units. All units either come through freespawns dependent on the commanders you have, or through summoning.

In order to lead your nonmagical freespawns, you will have to use creative thinking involving the Nymph commander.

This nation only has access to nature magic. In order to gain access to other paths of magic, you will need to recruit independent mages or design your pretender accordingly.

I hope the above helps someone playing the mod for the first time develop a strategy for playing the nation without me giving too much away on how the nation works.

It is important to note I have included a Pretender from Nova Deus, the World Tree, using the graphics and the exact stat setup from that mod. The original creators of the mod are Zepath, Wauthan and Endoperez.

All other custom graphics in the mod (There are only a few) come from Age of Wonders and the Civ3 mod community.

I created this nation on a whim, and it is one of my favorite custom nations I have created to play. It adds a different feel and an entirely new playstyle in single player. I hope you enjoy it as well.

[BandarLover]

Excellent mod Foodstamp. One of the more unique playing styles for sure. I'm only about mid game with them, and I've been concentrating more on their summons but here are my thoughts thus far:

Seducing commanders is awesome! Granted, I guess I don't know the mechanics behind seduction that well. Can you only seduce in provinces adjacent to your capital, or must they be next to a province you own with a fort? I had no trouble seducing at the beginning but when I roamed my nymphs further abroad, was unable to bring back any commanders, said I had no place to take them. Granted, I didn't expand with mercs like this nation so obviously should, what with all the gold and noone to recruit it on. Which leads into my next thought.

The dominion spawn rate seems a bit slow. Again, I don't know all the mechanics behind these things (like does a stronger dominion spawn more? My Druid pretender had a dom strength of 6) but it takes FOREVER to spawn a force big enough to expand with. Again, mercs are the sure fire way to go here early on so maybe my point is moot. And are there more flavors of domspawns? All I've seen so far are forest zealots and sprites.

Also, I think all the Ent commander summons should come with some magic. Only because my ancient ent simply sits at my capital doing nothing, the lazy bastard. I like the idea of the ent hurler, just wish he could move so I could see him in action.

Overall, an awesome mod. I highly recommend it. Though it may be more for experienced players instead of novices. But you get the hang of it quick.

[Shovah32]

Would i be correct in guessing that only ancients create freespawn? If not, what else summons units.

[Endoperez]

I think the seduction is similar to that of Nagini of LA Patala: they can't fly, so they must be next to a friendly province. Any friendly province works, though.

[Shovah32]

Endo is right with that one. Honestly squads of nymphs summoned by my starting ancient were my expansion force, seducing all commanders in a province then moving on, leaving only 1 behind to rout the un-commanded troops.

[Foodstamp]

Ancients and the standard Ents produce freespawns. I gave the Nymphs seduction 15 and sometimes even your normal indy commander unit would resist.

Let me know if your able to use this tactic of Nymph hording throughout the entire game vs the AIs, I didn't mean for them to be massed expanders and they may need to be toned down. I have an idea as to how I can do that, but I did not implement it because while their success rate was high in my test games against indies, they failed quite a bit when they came across other nation commanders.

If they are too powerful, I am going to lower their seduction a step or two, and copystats from a unit that dies away from home, like the Naiad or the Hamadryad.

Are you liking the overall theme of the mod?

[Shovah32]

Im liking the theme but the military seems far too weak(almost no battlemagic, alot of immobile units, no recruitables, weak or rare dom summons ect), particularly for a nation with only 1 path of magic.

[Foodstamp]

Does the military being weak make playing with the nation a challenge, or does it make you want to pull your hair out? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[BandarLover]

Not quite pulling hair worthy to me. It's a challenge expanding with only domspawn units, for sure. I'd like to see more variety in troop types, but that's just me.

[HoneyBadger]

Ooops, sorry, I posted to the wrong thread.

[Foodstamp]

BandarLover,

What kind of units would you like to see? I want to keep the nation focused on only nature magic so keep that in mind. Any new units I add are going to be dominion based spawns, using the summon ally command or new nature spells.

Also keep in mind that in my mods, I like for the unit to fill a certain role.

[Shovah32]

Well summoning creatures of the forest with summon allies could work(maybe let nature magic summon the creature in commander form who can summon more of his kind in unit form?), hopefully.

[Foodstamp]

So your just wanting more variety in chaff units? If so, rather than give standard unit forms of some of the commanders, what type of new units would you like to see added?

[Shovah32]

Its not chaff in particular im looking for. Just trying to think of ideas on any sort of unit to add.

[Foodstamp]

I am just checking the boards while I take a break from yard work. All my best mod ideas come while I am on the lawnmower. I will try to cultivate some ideas for new units while I devastate the Gaea that is my yard.

[Foodstamp]

How about bringing the animal aspect of the forest into the mod? I was thinking of incorporating Lycanthrope Druids that can shapeshift into Werewolves. These commanders will be able to use summon allies to summon in standard werewolf units.

I would also like to include a werewolf ranger unit that can double as a scout and will be able to lead a small contingent of normal units.

I would like the strategy behind these units to be buffing up in standard form, then shifting to werewolf form to wreak havoc as a thug.

I am also going to look into creating some battlefield combat spells that will be added to the nature path as national spells.

[VedalkenBear]

My concern is that there is really no reason not to take really bad scales (like, LE Ermor bad) and have 10 Dominion, good Luck, and good Magic scales. IOW, you have very very little you need money for. (Like, buildings.)

And it feels very much like a hair-pulling issue with the commanders early. It's like a crapshoot to see when you get your first leader. Especially bad if (as in the first game I tried) your first Nymph dies while trying to seduce.

I would add in at least one commander at the beginning of the game who could move your domsummon troops around.

[Shovah32]

If your nypmh dies summon another, they arent expensive. How did your nymph die? Set far back and ordered to fire rearmost i have yet to lose any.

[Foodstamp]

To get the Nymphs and the Dryads, summon them. They are both conjuration 0 national spells.

Even with just the starting Ancient, you should start running into money issues as you progress, the Forest Zealots are free, but they cost quite a bit of gold upkeep (Kinda like the pangaea freespawns).

In my tests the Nymphs seemed to have an overwhelming chance of success seducing the independent commanders. In contrast, the good national commanders resist the seduction quite a bit. I am going to test this again, because admittedly I may have been facing commanders that are naturally resistant to this sort of attack.

Either way, the Nymph is gonna get overhauled. I am not trying to balance towards vanilla, but she is a bit too much. I am going to bump up her summon cost slightly, and I MIGHT take away enslave mind from her. If I do take away the enslave mind, I will probably give the nation "charm" at a lower research level to compensate.

Guys, have any of you received the multi hero "Force of Nature" yet? I am curious of how he performs as a supercombatant or thug.


Thanks for the great feedback. I am noting it for the next version of this mod. It is greatly appreciated and it inspires me to continue working on mods.

[BandarLover]

I like the Druid werewolf idea, but would hate to see you totally change your vision for this mod. I'm just a guy that likes variety. I don't care how crappy a unit is (O.K. besides militia) I generally recruit everything when playing. It just looks cool in a battle. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I could definitely see animals easily getting in the mix, but you already have 'call animals' or some such spell in conjuration. Same thing with vine people. I guess I should brush up on some nature based fantasy for unit ideas. Besides elves, of course. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Foodstamp]

Elves shall be avoided like the plague! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[HoneyBadger]

How about army ants? Nothing says "nature" like ants.

[BandarLover]

Now that's something. Perhaps large versions of insects (like ants or beetles) or other woodland animals. Think 'Night of the Lupus'with giant rabbits...uhhmm, on second thought don't, that was terrible. But I like the bug idea. To a point. We don't want this to turn into the unofficial insectoid race people have been clamoring for.

[Sombre]

Vaettihiem is already rammed full of wolves. Amos' insectoids are sort of alien insect monsters, not giant beetles and whatnot. Machaka already has spiders,.. Ulm has some bear stuff. Bandar's barb mod could ramp up the werebear aspect,...

What dangerous and different forest animals could be spawned then?

I'm tempted to make lemurs for mictlan to use at some point.

[BandarLover]

Lemurs...Nature's Assassin! lol Couldn't resist the Robot Chicken reference.

I know, the problem with woodland animals is their too damn cute. Like I've said, I know there are summons for animals, but to make them domspawn units would be a bit reduntant.

Hmmm...interesting conundrum this. I shall devote my life(or just a couple hours) to thinking of woodland units for Foodstamp. But now I sleep, it's getting late.

I really should work on my barb mod too. I like the werebear thing.

[HoneyBadger]

I'm trying to gain permission to release a sort of alien insectoid themed nation mod, as soon as I hear back from Uh-Nu-Buh. It's his mod though-I just did the artwork, and hopefully he'll either release it himself, or let me release it, in which case I'd like to polish it a bit, but it shouldn't take too long to release-since most of the work is done, unlike the majority of the mods I've created.

In the meantime-and back on topic-giant versions of very common insects are pretty universal, and I don't think it would be fair to even mentally restrict them to a "type" of mod. Even undead nations-and if anything is an antithesis to nature, it's undead-could thematically have insect recruits and summons-think spiders, maggots, worms, flies, all the wriggly, scary things that live in dark, damp places among the Dead. There could even be a fun mod of a skeletal nation that feeds their own flesh to giant insects in return for their services, and then build and armour their own bones into undead constructs.

[Shovah32]

Instead of larger versions on insects how about swarms of them? They could start off with multiple attacks, 1-2 health and slightly above average defence and when that form gets killed they could lose an attack, go back to 1-2 health and gain some defence. I would love to just get swarms of little insects stinging enemies to death http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[BandarLover]

That's an interesting idea Shovah. The way you describe them, they could work like large elementals, the more damage they take, the smaller they become. Might be tough to do.

After sleeping on this, one word keeps popping into my head:

Jabberwocky.

Since this is suppose to be nature rising in rebellion against the other nations, and carrion Woods is taken by Pangea, perhaps all the dark, disturbing legends of the forests are waking too. And the Jabberwocky (sp?) is definitely a disturbing creature. Or it was when I was little. This would prolly have to be a summons though.

As far as domspawn units, I hesitate to suggest satyrs. But perhaps, like the forest zealots, they could have wandered deep into the forests, disillusioned by the course Pangea has taken (with they're bronze age), and turned themselves over totally to Gaea. Ofcourse, little to no armor and spears for weapons.

That's my two cents worth of ideas.

[VedalkenBear]

I've gotten the multihero. It's kinda amusing, but I was so excited at getting a leader that can actually lead troops that any thug-like qualities were overlooked.

[PvK]

This is a very nice, creative mod. I like the theme.

Was there an update to the version since yesterday?

The nymph seduction chance seems very high against standard human males.

Some feedback:

* Is it intentional that Nymphs are one of the best casters, in addition to being completely full-time useful as seductresses?

* Maybe remove their ability to build forts except in forests? I was offered a Mountain Citadel project in the mountains...

[Foodstamp]

I am compiling a list of changes currently.

I am going to lower the Nymph seduction by one step. If I lower it beyond that, I am afraid she will stand no chance of seducing national commanders in the late game. I am also going to raise her summon cost a bit to discourage hording her. I am going to leave enslave on her.

I am also going to add a few new summon spells to the nation , I haven't ironed out any specifics on that yet.

It seems at the moment, that everyone agrees that the nation is challenging, which is what I wanted. But, massing Nymphs is too powerful and people are wanting a larger variety of units to field.

So this mod will see atleast one more version it looks like. When I update mods, I like to accumulate as many changes as possible before updating, that way there is not a new version of the mod every few days. This mod is still version 1.00 and will probably see a 1.01, a 1.02 at most.

[PvK]

Sounds good. The Nymphs are currently very good at seducing, though I have now seen it fail occasionally. They usually win anyway with the enslave mind attack, though, if scripted to Fire Closest (if not scripted and Tangle Vines is available though, they can get themselves killed).

Nymph spam is definitely currently the way to go, at least at first, even if they didn't have N3. They seem like by far the best deal at 15N, and are the clear choice for using gems to expand.

The first two summons (hurler and ent) seem overpriced, particularly since they are immobile. I don't yet see how it can be true that ents will become the backbone of the army.

I am thinking it would be good to give them cheap/easier versions of the nature spells which are thematic for Gaea but not so efficient for other nations, like animal summons, Sprits of the Wood, Strength of Gaia(!), Wild Growth, Faerie Trod, Faerie Court, Enchanted Forest, Beckoning, etc.

[BandarLover]

Everything PvK said. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I still love this mod very much, looking forward to an update.

And it would be cool if hurler and ent could move, just make them....move.....really.............slow.

[UninspiredName]

Really neat mod, but the lack of commanders, especially mobile ones, is sort of annoying. The freespawns don't really accomplish much just sitting in your provinces. Maybe if Dryads could command?

[Sombre]

Dryads can seduce commanders. That's the idea.

[PvK]

Ya, I have more commanders as Gaea than as anyone else (except as Ashen Ermor).

[UninspiredName]

Hm, didn't think of that... Sorry about that.

[Foodstamp]

Version 1.01 of this mod is now available. Just download this attachment for the new version.

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.

[Shovah32]

Sounds very nice, will try out soon.

edit: My ants and dragonflies dont do anything and die very quickly. They are mindless and magic and seem to be dissolving accordingly.

[Foodstamp]

Yeah, they dissolve without magical leadership. Even so, they can lock up part of an army for several turns if you have one of the nymphs scripted to cast it.

If you have any passive defense in a province at all, you can use the spell defensively without them dissolving because of the Ent commander.

Try casting it with the Ancients, it should yield more permanent dragonflies and ants for the duration of the battle.

Either way, good catch. I am going to leave it as is because the both creatures are actually existing vanilla creatures and the issue only comes up when trying to use the spells aggressively with the Nymph in the early game. Later on you are probably expanding with atleast a Firbolg or two leading your forces, so the spell can be used more aggressively.

[PvK]

Nice changes!

So much for cheesy massed long-range enslave mind using groups of nymphs during battle. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

I will practically never use 5 nature gems to get 12 wolves. Compare to Call of the Wild, which I think is a bit pricey at 15N for 20 wolves and a werewolf who can summon infinite wolves at 3 wolves per month. Wolves are not very strong units - they have their uses but I think I would only tend to sometimes choose to use the new wolf pack spell if it cost 1 N or maybe 2N.

[Sombre]

The next version of Vaettihiem has a spell calling 7+ wolves for 2 nature gems. I spam it quite a lot, but it's very hard for wolves to be overpowering at any cost.

[Foodstamp]

The usage of Call of the Pack isn't so much getting the wolves as it is having a farsummon that is readily usable by the Nymphs (Nature 3). The spell is mainly intended to take provinces that have no or very little PD present. Getting the units after the fact is icing, or atleast that is the way I see it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[PvK]

Does it come with a leader wolf? Or do you have to combine it with something that gives a leader?

[Foodstamp]

It comes with a leader werewolf just like Call of the Wild. It seems the monster you put in the damage field determines your commander when you create a farsummon.

If you put the unit number for the wolf, you get a werewolf commander. My guess is that it works the exact same way with other farsummon spells that have units and a unique commander.

Also, Call of the Pack is more effective in forests, just like Call of the Wild, once again I think this is determined by the unit you put in the damage field.

[Foodstamp]

A new version of this mod will be up soon with a fix to the headslot issue introduced in 3.08.

[BandarLover]

What's so wrong about two-headed Dryads? lol http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Foodstamp]

Dryads have lost a head!
3.08 compatible version is attached to the original post, enjoy!


I will be working on an overhaul of this nation in the future. I plan to replace the in game graphics and some of the exterior graphics with new custom graphics, as well as adding more summon units and tweaking some existing spells.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Without combing the thread for spoilers, am I supposed to not have any commanders with map move AND magical leadership?

[Foodstamp]

yup http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif. I will give you a hint though. Summon Nymphs and have them "persuade" commanders to join your forces. Since you did not want to read through the thread, the nation is supposed to play different than any other nation and be very challenging for a human player. The AI ignores the 0 map movement and plays this nation quite well if you want to use it as an enemy in SP games.

P.S. The Change to swarm pretty much broke one of the national spells as far as balance goes. When I update the graphics and overhaul the spells, I will be fixing that.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Thank you for your answer. So no magical leadership. I was confused because I misread the following to hint that there was magical AND mobile leadership. There is certainly pleny of magical leadership, just not mobile. Thanks for clarifying, guess I have to go find and seduce the wolf tribe now. Unfortunately, all I've found are the Amazonian women, and they don't swing that way.

"In order to lead your nonmagical freespawns, you will have to use creative thinking involving the Nymph commander."

Any chance of talking you into modding in an equivalent male commander so I can seduce those hetero amazons?

[Endoperez]

No way seducing women ATM. The only way to get women (besides the expensive Charm and other such ways) is Belial the Lord of Corruption, who has the Dominate Monster ability.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Dang. And here I was looking forward to hot pixel on pixel action.

[Sombre]

It seems a bit odd too, what with all the male gods seducing women in mythology. Swans and streams and bulls oh my!

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Well, then, it looks look I should try modding Belial, and renaming him Hermaphrodite.

Seriously, though. Do charm and Dominate Monster abilities work from stealth? Or is seduction the only option for that, and changing the gender of the unit doesn't enable the proper seduction.

Unseriously, though, I just wanted to get in that joke since that comment by Sombre. Greek mythology would be right at home on modern day soap operas. Homer's Odyssey would be right at home on Jerry Springer
"All men are pigs." - Circe
"My husband cheated on me with a nymphomaniac." wife w/regards to Calypso.
Etc. Etc.

[Burnsaber]

This nation is all about getting moving magical commanders, right? On turn 3, my first nymph seduces Jaguar Tribe shaman (with fire random, so he's N1F1 !), but on the same turn I get two random events, which give me N2 animist and A1S1N1 Lore Master.

Also my pretender is a lich, who also can ferry troops. So I've got 4 moving magic commanders at turn 3!

Got a screenshot right here: http://xs116.xs.to/xs116/07261/Imaluckybastard.png

[Gandalf Parker]

Foodstamp said:
The AI ignores the 0 map movement and plays this nation quite well if you want to use it as an enemy in SP games.


Thank you for that. We can always use more nations that make use of AI pros and cons.

It would be fun to play with this one set as allies to Pangaea and Oceania. A 3-way empire to play against.

[Foodstamp]

Burnsaber said:
This nation is all about getting moving magical commanders, right? On turn 3, my first nymph seduces Jaguar Tribe shaman (with fire random, so he's N1F1 !), but on the same turn I get two random events, which give me N2 animist and A1S1N1 Lore Master.

Also my pretender is a lich, who also can ferry troops. So I've got 4 moving magic commanders at turn 3!

Got a screenshot right here: http://xs116.xs.to/xs116/07261/Imaluckybastard.png



You got very lucky indeed http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. I usually grab a few mundane commanders and lead around some forest zealots until I can acquire magic commanders. I focus on conjuration and soon I have Firbolg commanders because I normally take Pangaeaish scales for this nation, Magic 3, luck 3, turmoil 3, sloth 3 etc.

@Gandalf

Originally the bug annoyed me, but after playing against the nation in dozens of games, the bug allows the AI to use the nation at a level equal to the vanilla nations in the game. Sometimes Gaea loses early as an AI (If the starting Ancient dies early), sometimes it is middle of the pack, and sometimes it dominates.

[Gandalf Parker]

Usually when a nation dies early I find that its due to the game making really crappy pretender and scale choices (ex; Mictlan). Creating a pretender and scales for Gaia would probably help alot.

[BandarLover]

I can attest to Gandalf's post. In an SP game of mine, I created the pretender for Gaea and then turned it to AI. The starting Ancient was turned into a prophet and began soloing providences like crazy!! Was prolly the first scary Normal AI nation I'd faced. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[TamLin]

whenever i play this mod it seems kinda...broke. no units ever spawn regardless of dominion strength and there are no national summons. ive started three games and played two of them into year 2 without having a single unit spawn anywhere. any thoughts?

PS same thing happened with the insectoids mod except then there where national summons.

PPS. im running it on a mac, does that make a difference?

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

No real knowledge of what's going on, but here's a wild guess.

Mac OSX is based, in part, off of Unix. Unix is case sensitive. Maybe the mod isn't?

[Sombre]

Are you using 3.08? Earlier versions don't support all the mod commands 3.08 does.

[Foodstamp]

I will look into the issue sometime in the future. Right now I don't even have time to play the very few MP games I am participating in, much less work on mods. If it is a issue with case sensitivity I will surely have it fixed with the update. All my mods I have released to the community I created before someone mentioned that Unix had problems with case sensitivity, although I thought I had made it a point to use uniform cases.

[Alderanas]

you have to get the most current update for dominions or the spawns will not work. It was doin the same thing for me but then i downloaded the update and they both now work fine. They are hard to play with but fun.