Overview:

Play forest nothing and cut (clear) the forest with onagers, siege onagers, bombard cannons and trebuchets. This subtle mod intends to balance the different civilizations for the limited initial space and for cutting the forest.

Features (changes):

- Cutter Onager: new imperial age technology that upgrades onagers to cutter onagers, which are identical to onagers exepting they can cut the forest as siege onagers do. Available for all the civilizations that have onagers but not siege onagers.
- - Required research: Onager.
- - Research cost: 1200 food, 800 gold (a bit cheaper than the Siege Onager research).
- - Research time: 150 seconds (same as the Siege Onager research).
- - Research location: siege workshops.

- Trebuchets & Chemistry: the chemistry technology used to make it harder for trebuchets to destroy trees, not anymore. Now whether Chemistry is researched or not, any tree reached by the attack is destroyed, i.e.: non targeted trees and felled trees are also destroyed by the attack; trees are destroyed by attack ground too.

- Bombard cannons: can now target and destroy trees too, and they don't require any additional technology.

- Town centers: now provide double population capacity than before (chinese's 20 in total, the rest 10).

How to play (strategy):

Forest nothing maps are almost completely filled with forest, and the players start with a tiny space and are isolated from each other by the huge forest. To make more space and to connect to other players, they have to reduce the forest with lumberjacks and siege units.

Usually a very important strategy in a team game of this type, it is that some players from each team are chosen as cutters by their team to cut for them, having other players of each team as slingers to send them tributes (resources) to speed up the task of the cutters, whom may connect and make space for their allies, and/or rush the opponent.

As of units for cutting the forest, the most efficient one is the siege onager, but also the most costly to produce initially. It is followed by the cutter onager, not as efficient, but a bit cheaper to produce initially through the Cutter Onager research. The bombard cannon is way less efficient, but superior to the trebuchet, because they have a much better mobility, the lowest cost to produce initially, and can cut up to four trees in one shot if managed thoroughly, the trebuchet can only kill one tree per shot.

In this type of map and with this mod, the civilizations are benefited or disadvantaged in different ways:

- Aztecs, Celts, Koreans, Mongols, Saracens and Teutons have siege onagers for cutting. Amongst these civilizations, Koreans, Saracens and Teutons also have bombard cannons for cutting.

- British, Byzantines, Chinese, Franks, Goths, Japanese, Mayans, Persians, Spanish and Vikings have cutter onagers for cutting. Amongst these civilizations, Byzantines, Franks, Goths, Persians and Spanish also have bombard cannons for cutting. Chinese town centers provide 20 population each, the same as four houses, and they use the same total space, making the chinese become one of the best civilizations for booming in forest nothing, so consider buying stone or getting it tributed from a saracen ally (better market prices), to make extra town centers while booming with this civilization.

- Turks don't have onagers, but they have bombard cannons, and their free chemistry civilization bonus allows them to begin producing bombard cannons instantly after reaching the imperial age at a very low initial cost (no other technologies needed). This characteristics make turks perhaps the best rusher in forest nothing games, and fairly good at cutting for the team.

- Huns don't have onagers nor bombard cannons, but they don't have to build houses, so they are still a very nice civ to be played in forest nothing maps, still the best civilization for specifically booming in forest nothing, leaving celts and chinese in the second tier in this matter.

When a team chooses a cutter, there should be a balance between the skill of the player and the civilization he gets, in order for the cutting to be performed in the most efficient way for the team. Civilizations with siege onagers are the best suited for the task, followed by civilizations with onagers only and then turks (with their instant bombard cannons). Huns are left behind remarkably in this aspect.

How to use:
Play the mod in one of the many different classic or popular forest nothing maps.

Why to play this mod instead of the original game?:

Firstly, in the original game, with random civilizations, sometimes no player gets a civilization with a cutting unit like a siege onager, now the odds for that to happen are zero in team games, and very low in 1v1 games. Secondly, with this mod all the civilizations are more balanced for forest nothing maps, by making very few and very subtle changes to the original game. Finally, this mod is very easy to fully understand, it is identical to The Conquerors excepting the very few and very subtle changes.

Sample images: