Guide

Introduction
Seeing there isn’t a guide to the most awesome god in this game yet, I thought I’d make one. So behold, here it is: My guide to Gaia
I won’t be focussing too much on build orders. Mostly because I don’t use any BO’s other than the standard grush, 6:25 fh, 4:05 rush or the 4:35 one, so I’m mostly going to give general info about the strats

Overview
As many of you will know, Gaia is a very defensive god. This is mainly because she doesn’t have any good units to use vs. buildings in classical and her attacks can be worn off quite easily with a good myth spam. Gaia is simply better when defending because her Gaia forests can prove very useful in defence. In some situations, you can still be aggressive though. But this is kinda hard to pull off.

The minor gods
Let’s start with a summary of all minor gods you can choose. Gaia has a lot of useful and strong minor gods, but, as you should know, no Prometheus. This is exactly the reason why Gaia is a LOT different to Oranos or Kronos.

Classical gods
Oceanus and Leto.
Oceanus is usually your best bet. Simply because Leto is kinda useless in almost any situation. Though there ARE some useful things about her, which I will explain later.


Oceanus: Everything Oceanus gives you is simply awesome. You get the ability to:
-Cast carnivora. These man-eating plants are in one word: AWESOME. They deal hack and crush damage with some sort of range and their special deals 1-hit kills to any human unit. The amount of things you can use them for is incredible. Some useful uses:
1. Cast them behind an enemy dock, (on the land, so the docks cant hit them) and you got yourself a dock-killing vegetable. How cool is that?
2. Cast them in a battle so they can do a lot of damage to your enemy’s troops, or use them as a meat shield so you get some free attacks.
3. Cast them right next to a tc an enemy is building, and their crush damage will slow the building time down a lot. Often giving you enough time to plant a building next to it (see: the uses of lush below)
4. Cast them behind your enemy’s ships in a naval battle to get the same effect as in a land battle (see 2.)
5. Cast them between two houses or wall sections protecting a tower. Their long tentacles will still be able to hit the tower!
-Train caladria’s. These lovely myths can fly at an amazing speed of 6.00 making them a great scout. Even better is their healing ability and the fact that they can lure projectiles by flying back and forth over the enemy’s archers. This gives you a lot of free shots, but don’t use it when there are Greek ranged heroes or priests nearby because they are able to hit your lovely little caladria
-Train servants. These water myths are pretty helpful on water maps, where you can use them as early pressure on your enemy’s fish, or as scouts to find the enemy docks and plant a carnivore. They can also heal your units, but I wouldn’t recommend training more of them because they die quite fast.
-Research two awesome techs for murmillo’s and katapeltes. The murmillo tech gives them a huge attack boost. The katapeltes one gives them a pretty nice attack boost and a speed boost as well.


Leto:
Leto only has some rushing capabilities, but absolutely sucks as soon as the goal of the rush has failed. Use her to quickly put pressure on an opponent’s food or gold source with automatons when you up fast (3:30 or 4:05)
The spider lair god power is decent, but by far not very useful.
In short: use oceanus for grushes or general, defensive strats. Use Leto for fast pressure on the opponents food or gold.

Heroic gods:
Theia and Rheia. Theia is often the better choice, but Rheia also has quite a lot of options and advantages.


Theia: Like Oceanus, Theia is a good choice for any match-up. Her hesperides tree god power gives you cheap, pop-free myths and can be used as a shield vs. god powers.
Her myth, the Stynphalian Bird, is a slow, flying myth that is excellent vs. most other myth units, and it is a great unit for raiding on closed maps because it can fly right over water, forests and cliffs. (and use them to flee!)
Theia’s techs focus on your contarius. She has a tech for improving the speed and attack of all your contarius, and a tech for your hero contarius. Giving them a bonus vs. buildings and additional attack.
She also has a tech that grants extra line of sight to all human units.


Rheia: A very strong god which can prove to be excellent in some match-ups. Mainly vs. eggy. Her behemoths are great siege myths and can be used to take down important buildings faster than a colossus, but the behemoth isn’t as durable.
Rheia’s godpower, traitor, turns one enemy unit into one of yours. That’s great for disposing of those annoying enemy myth units quickly.
Rheia’s techs improve your favour generation and decrease the favour cost of your temple upgrades. The last one is quite useless.
Rheia is my personal favourite to use vs eggys. mainly because of the behemoths, but also because traitor can turn the tide in the important earlygame battles. Besides, priests counter your birds and dryads better than behemoths.

Mythic gods:
Hekate and Atlas. Both very strong and useful gods in their own ways.


Hekate: Very useful if you have a lot of myth units on the field or are planning on building a titan. Her godpower, tartarian gate, is very strong and can be casted right on enemy buildings. Causing them to collapse. (this even works on an underworld passage!) The godpower constantly sends out myths that are hostile to all with a great hack and crush attack until the gate gets destroyed, so the best thing to do with this pearl of a godpower is to cast it right on top of enemy towers and palaces, close to an enemy tc. Use a Gaia forest next to the gate to make a wall vs. attacking melee units.
Hekate’s techs grant you regenerating myth units (very useful) and faster training myth units (useful in combination with the dryad tree)


Atlas: an extremely strong god for making comebacks or improving your buildings in late-game.
His godpower implode sends down some kind of orb that sucks in any unit standing in its range. Including yours. It damages EVERY units that gets sucked in. The damage gets higher the more units are sucked in. In the end, it explodes. Sending out any surviving units and damaging any building close to the implosion. Awesome godpower to use vs. rag, because it sucks in a lot of those little heroes if you cast it at the right time.
Atlas’ techs provide you with more durable buildings, (increasing their hack and crush armour) and a higher line of sight for all of your myth units.

Now that we’re done with all minor gods, let’s take look at Gaia’s pro’s and cons:
Pro’s:
-Very cheap economic ups: You can get hunting dogs, handaxe and pickaxe within two minutes. You can also get handaxe and pickaxe very fast on watermaps, and, in most situations, you will be able to boom with 1 town center by simply researching more eco ups.
-Availability of lush. This spreads out of your buildings and prevents your enemies from building on it (more information at “the uses of lush”)
-Cheaper fishing boats and caravans, and they have more hitpoints.
-A very useful archaic godpower (Gaia forest). This has a lot of uses (see “the uses of Gaia forest”)
-A strong tech (channels) which allows your villagers to move faster. Very useful for fleeing from raids or to get at a crucial location to plant a building faster.
-A pretty good minor god line-up allowing lots of possibilities.
-Very strong on watermaps.

Cons:
-EXTREME weakness to myth units.
-Atlantean villagers are quite vulnerable to raids.
-Atlantean civs have no good ranged siege siege

As you can see, Gaia has a lot more pro’s than cons. So why is she so underpowered? Simple. Because the weakness to myth units is so extreme she can be countered quite easily. Your best bet is to make as few of your expensive heroes as possible and micro them very well. Heal them with your caladria when damaged and act like they cost over 1000 resources each.

The strats
There are a lot of things you can do with Gaia. You’ll probably be using the 2tc boom and 4:35 strat the most. Simply because the 4:35 is a simple one, and the 2tc boom can be very, very effective in some situations.

The 4:35
The most simple Gaia strat there is. Very similar to Oranos/Kronos’ 4:30.
Your aim with this strat should simply be raiding, defending and booming all at the same time. Works best on high-hunt maps or low-hunt with hunt very nearby to your base.
-1st vill builds eco guild, then goes hunting (research hunting dogs)
-2nd vill goes hunting as well. Research hand axe as soon as you can (usually right after hunting dogs)
-3rd vill goes chopping wood from the first Gaia forest. (research pickaxe as soon as you can)
-4rth vill on gold. Build manor with this one as soon as you get 25 gold
-5+6th vill on hunt (build temple with your gold vill when you can)
-7th vill goes to closest food source.
-Up as soon as you can. You got two god choices here. Your choice depends on what you’re planning to do (see above)
-When up with Oceanus, order your eco to 2 on food, 3 on wood, 2 on gold. As soon as you’re up you should immediately build two crax (counterbarracks) and maybe another rax (normal barracks) if you don’t immediately get the bow saw upgrade. Keep pumping out turma’s from your crax and raid/defend with them. Use your caladria(s) well for scouting, healing and combat. You will very likely be able to research the bow saw upgrade as soon as you’re up. Do this if you’re not planning on making murmillo’s.
When up with Leto, put 1 vill on food instead of two, and make sure you have 3 on gold because you’ll have to make automatons as well now.
You use a variety of the 4:35 where you simply build one extra villager before upping, making it a 5:00 up.
On low-hunt maps without any hunt nearby, you can still do a 4:30, but in this case you cant get handaxe before going up.

The grush
Your main strategy on watermaps. You can use this on any watermap vs. any god.
The BO:
-1st vill builds dock, then goes chopping the Gaia forest you plant in the neighbourhood of this dock. Keep building fishing ships.
-2nd vill on food
-3rd vill wood, build a manor with this vill when you can and then send it to herdables
-4rth vill wood
-5th, 6th and 7th vill food. Build a temple when you have about 130 wood so you can keep on building fishing ships.
-When going up, (Oceanus is a must here) plant a new Gaia forest somewhere in your base and arrange your eco to 5 wood and 2 gold. (or 4 wood, 2 gold and 1 food if you have crappy fish) build a manor and an eco guild when you can, and build a 2nd dock with the vill closest to the water as well. Research hand and pickaxe from the eco guild
-When up, immediately send your servant to scout for the enemy dock and plant a carnivora behind it. Keep pumping out biremes out of both docks and raid their fish. Don’t forget to research some more eco ups.
-If you won the water pretty fast, build some, usually forward, rax and crax and go get yourself a few tc’s. If you don’t win the water fast, either do the same and put a lot of pressure on your opponent’s land or advance to heroic for siege ships.

There’s a variant on this strat that works well for Midgard. Simply use the same start, but arrange your villagers to 2 food, 3 wood, 2 gold. Don’t make an extra dock.
When you get up, build 2 crax and 1 rax (or 2 rax and 1 crax, depending on your fish placement) and spam turma’s and murmillo’s. Act like you’re grushing by pumping out arrow ships from one dock and raiding their fish, but put pressure on their land at the same time.

The supergrush:
Same strat as the grush, but you’ll be classical at about 4:10 here by training one villager less and much less fishing boats.
BO is the same as the grush, but you cant make as much fishing boats here. Getting eco ups is also a little bit harder.


The 2tc boom
Your aim for this strat is to get an awesome eco as fast as you possibly can by quickly building a second tc. There are a lot of variations on this strat depending on how fast you get to classical. Always keep in mind that you can get your eco ups very fast on high-hunt maps, and that you should start building a new tc in archaic age, you should also put two villagers on building it if you are going up late, because you will be very vulnerable to any myth units spotting you if your tc isn’t done yet.
When you go up, make sure you are pumping out villagers from both town centers.
When up, you can get some more eco ups if you like, but you should always immediately build a few crax and a rax and spam turma’s and, if your eco allows it, murmillo’s.
Keep playing the way you play when you go up 4:35, but keep in mind your later up also means its harder to be aggressive.

Other than the 4:35, the grush and the 2tc boom there are a lot of other things you can do, which I will be talking about now.

The 6:25 FH
You will be using this strat a LOT vs. norse players, and it is suitable for both high-hunt and low-hunt maps (low-hunt only if you get a decent amount of herdables (about six or seven). In this case, get husbandry instead of hunting dogs). Your aim is to raid his villagers as soon as you can (except if you are getting rushed, of course) with Theia birdies and an arcus/murmillo spam.
The BO:
-1st vill eco guild, then goes hunting. (research hunting dogs, but NOT handaxe)
-2nd vill hunting
-3rd vill goes chopping on Gaia forest (research pickaxe ASAP)
-4rth vill on gold (build manor when you get 25 gold)
-5th vill on hunt
-6th vill on hunt (build a temple with your wood vill when you can)
-7th vill on gold
-Go up with Oceanus, and keep the way your villagers are gathering. (4 on food, 2 on gold, 1 on wood) If you have 175 wood, switch your wood vill to herdables.
-When up, build one extra vill and send it to herdables. Your wood+food vill should immediately build an armory and get back to food.
-Up with Theia as soon as you can. Arrange your villagers to 2/3 on food, 3/4 on wood and 2 on gold and research handaxe and, if you have a good amount of hunt, bow saw ASAP. Also, build two rax and a manor (still whilst upping)
-When up, immediately AQ birdies and arcus from both rax. If you eco is strong enough, get another rax and train murmillo’s as well.
-Keep on balancing your eco and getting upgrades. Build a second tc when you can and don’t stop raiding their villagers. If there’s a tower in the way, get it down with a carnivora.

You can also do a 6:50 FH instead of a 6:25 one. Just build one extra villager in archaic in this case (you can also get handaxe right after hunting dogs)

The murmillo rush
Can be used on high-hunt maps and works well vs. norse. Your aim is to keep pressure on him and be able to outboom him in the end.
The start is similar to the 4:35 strat, but when you go up, you have to balance your eco to 4 on food, 2 on wood and 1 on gold. You shouldn’t get any new eco ups when you get up.
When you get up, immediately build 2 rax and spam murmillo’s out of them. You might want to put one of your food or wood villagers on gold after a little while.
Keep putting pressure on your opponent by continuously attacking him and healing damaged murmillo’s if they are about to die. Try to boom in the meantime.

The 3:30 Gaiarush
Very similar to the krush. The only real useful thing about this strat is the surprise effect.
Aim for getting up at 3:30. (all vills on food, 3rd vill builds a manor and temple before gathering)
When going up, (Leto is usually the best choice here) balance your eco by putting 1 vill on food, 2 vills on wood and 2 vills on gold.
When up, immediately build two crax (one with a wood vill and one with a gold vill) and spam turma’s from them. Put automatons on AQ.
Use the automatons for destroying key towers and use your turma’s for raiding his food and gold sources. Use your Gaia forest at his goldmine if he has side or forward gold.
In the meantime, try to get some eco ups and keep on balancing your eco. If everything goes right, your eco should get quite strong after a while.

The 4:05 rush
Similar to the 4:35, but you make one vill less before going up. You can also use the 3:30 strat here.
The BO:
-1st vill builds eco guild, then goes hunt (research hunting dogs, but not handaxe)
-2nd vill goes hunting
-3rd vill chops from Gaia forest (don’t get pickaxe)
-4rth vill goes to gold. (build a manor with your WOOD vill when you have 105 wood)
-5th vill goes hunting (build a temple with you gold vill when you can)
-6th vill goes hunting
-Up with Oceanus or Leto, depending on what strat you are going to use (see “The 4:35” and “The 3:30 Gaiarush”)

You can also do this on low-hunt, but you wont be able to get hunting dogs or husbandry. For a 4:00 on low hunt, do the same BO as in the 3:30 but let your third vill chop for 5 wood before building a manor and a temple. You can make an extra villager this way.


The 4:05 fake rush
Similar to the 4:05 rush, but you fake it. particularly effective vs non-agressive eggy players.
Use the same BO as in the normal 4:05 rush (this strat only works well with starting hunt). you should still build 2 crax when hitting classical and pump out some turma's, but stop when you have about ten of them and keep on raiding.
Now, save up some resources and go get yourself some town centers and eco ups!
If everything goes well, you should have your third tc up at about 9:30. Keep on booming villagers from all three town centers and start building turmas again. you might want to make some extra rax or crax to ensure a good defense for when he attacks you. try to keep the pressure at him with non-stop turma raiding and eventually go up and finish him off with your superior eco and early siege.

The brush
Yeah, funny name, huh? Brush stands for behemoth rush and is a variation to the 2tc boom.
You will probably only be using this strat vs. eggy on high-hunt maps. Your aim is to rush their migdol with a behemoth+arcus+turma combo as soon as you possibly can.
Start with a 2tc boom, but aim on going heroic at about 7:00-7:20 (so you’ll be up at 8:00-8:20.). You will have to have some idle tc time for this at both tc’s.
Whilst upping, AQ vills at both tc’s again and build 2 rax and a crax if you havent done so already. Make sure you’ll be able to spam behemoths, arcusses and turma's as soon as you get up.
When you get up, AQ behemoths and arcus from both rax(build turma's whilst upping from classical to heroic). Immediately scout around with your caladria to see where he is building his migdol, (usually at a gold spot) and kill this migdol ASAP whilst you keep on booming and spamming behemoths and arcus. (and some murmillo’s later on)
If you get his migdol down, it will be an enormous blow for him. Keep putting pressure on him and try to get map and gold control.
In case of fighting Isis, you will have a huge chance of him casting a+e on your army. If this happens, either flee or, if you have enough res, upgrade your arcus to heroes and fight it. Then kill the migdol.



Now we’ve gotten through all the strats, lets take a closer look at two very important things for Gaia, namely the Gaia forest and the lush.

The uses of Gaia forest
There are a lot of different things you can do with Gaia forest.
The most simple use is to simply have a safe, close or simply better source for wood. This is very useful for defending vs. rushes and raids.
Now, onto the more “difficult” uses of this beautiful godpower:
Cast it right within the two poles a tower stands on and it will grow around the tower, giving you an awesome wall of trees for your tower. This is also very strong vs. rushes
Another use is to simply plug a hole in your defences.
Vs Zeus, I'd recommend using your first gaia forest right on the front of your tc so you can counter hoplite rushes a little better.
A very nice and aggressive use for the forest is as a raiding option. Cast a forest right in the space between an opponent’s mining camp and the gold mine and he will have to walk further to drop the gold off, but it also gives you easier raiding.
And last but not least, my personal favourite of using the forest: creating a wall of trees between, for example, two cliffs on alfheim and start building a titan gate where no one can get. (make sure your villagers are in this “natural wall” before you cast your forest, or it wont make any sense) To make the idea more clear, I will add a rec of Hotcha doing this vs. Cyclone.

The uses of lush
Lush is the ultimate Gaia lame machine and can win you games if you use it right.
Some very effective uses of lush:
Build a building right next to an unfinished tc the enemy is building (or still has to build) and he wont be able to finish/start building it.
Build some buildings next to gold mines so your enemy won’t be able to build a mining camp nearby. I like to call this “lush gold control”
Spam buildings close to your trade route so your enemy’s villagers won’t be able to obstruct it with walls, towers or fortresses.
As a counter vs. underworld passages or tartarian gates: build buildings everywhere where you don’t have lush yet and the lush will prevent the placement of the god powers.
Lush is also very nice in lategame. just spam buildings EVERYWHERE on the map to prevent your opponent from sidebuilding.

What to do in what match-up:
Vs. Zeus on high-hunt: (preferably) 4:00 with hd. otherwise, 4:35, 5:00, 6:25 fh (micro odysseus out with arcus) or 2tc boom (when doing a 2tc boom, watch out for a potential cent rush)
Vs. Zeus on low-hunt: (preferably) 4:00 with hd 4:30, 5:00, 6:25 fh or 2tc boom
Vs. Zeus on watermaps: Grush or midgardvariety

Vs. Hades on high-hunt: (preferably) 4:00 with hd 4:35, 5:00 or 2tc boom
Vs. Hades on low-hunt: (preferably) 4:00 with hd 4:30, 5:00 or 2tc boom
Vs. Hades on watermaps: Grush (sentinel kills off midgardvariety)

Vs. Poseidon on high-hunt: (preferably) 4:00 with hd 4:35, 5:00 or 2tc boom (again, watch out for cent rush)
Vs. Poseidon on low-hunt: (preferably) 4:00 with hd 4:30, 5:00 or 2tc boom
Vs. Poseidon on watermaps: Grush or midgardvariety

Vs. Ra on high-hunt: 4:05, 4:35, 5:00, 2tc boom or brush
Vs. Ra on low-hunt: 3:30 or 4:00 if he has forward gold and bad tower placement. otherwise 4:30, 5:00 or 2tc boom
Vs. Ra on watermaps: Grush or midgardvariety

Vs. Isis on high-hunt: 4:05, 4:35, 5:00, 2tc boom or brush (all of these strats work slightly less effective than vs. Ra or Set because of a+e
Vs. Isis on low-hunt: 3:30 or 4:00 is she has forward gold and bad tower placement. otherwise 4:30, 5:00, 2tc boom
Vs. Isis on watermaps: Grush or midgardvariety

Vs. Set on high-hunt: 4:05, 4:35, 5:00, 2tc boom or brush
Vs. Set on low-hunt: 3:30 or 4:00 if he has forward gold and bad tower placement. otherwise 4:30, 5:00 or 2tc boom
Vs. Set on watermaps: Grush or midgardvariety

Vs. Thor on high-hunt: murmillo rush or 6:25 fh
Vs. Thor on low-hunt: 6:25 fh
Vs. Thor on watermaps: Grush or midgardvariety (or improvise an fh with fish)

Vs. Odin on high-hunt: murmillo rush or 6:25 fh
Vs. Odin on low-hunt: 6:25 fh
Vs. Odin on watermaps: Grush or midgardvariety (or improvise an fh with fish)

Vs. Loki on high-hunt: murmillo rush or 6:25 fh
Vs. Loki on low-hunt: 6:25 fh
Vs. Loki on watermaps: Grush or midgardvariety (or improvise an fh with fish)

Vs. Kronos on high-hunt: 3:30, 4:05 or 4:35 (play very defensive, though trying to raid with two groups of turmas can help)
Vs. Kronos on low-hunt: 3:30, 4:00 or 4:30 (play very defensive, though trying to raid with two groups of turmas can help)
Vs. Kronos on watermaps: Supergrush, Grush or midgardvariety

Vs. Oranos on high-hunt: 4:05 or 4:35 (play very defensive, though trying to raid with two groups of turmas can help)
Vs. Oranos on low-hunt: 4:00 or 4:30 (play very defensive, though trying to raid with two groups of turmas can help)
Vs. Oranos on watermaps: Supergrush, Grush or midgardvariety

Vs. Gaia on high-hunt: 4:05, 4:35, 5:00, 2tc boom or brush
Vs. Gaia on low-hunt: 3:30, 4:00, 4:30, 5:00 or 2tc boom
Vs. Gaia on watermaps: Supergrush, Grush or midgardvariety

Those hard match-ups
Woohooo! a new section
I'm going to be talking about the match-ups people ask me a lot on ESO in more detail, and the best ways to play these match-ups.
The match-ups im handling here are:
-Gaia vs Zeus
-Gaia vs Isis
-Gaia vs Loki
-Gaia vs Kronos
-Gaia vs Oranos

Gaia vs Zeus
Actually, in a lot of cases, this is easyer than a lot of people think. If you manage to get some good pressure on your opponent early on and you dont let him gather his res without any trouble, you should be able to win this.
Ofcourse, the big question is: How the fruit do i put pressure on him early on?
Well, the best way to do this is simply going for a 6 vill up with hunting dogs and just keep those turmae coming, mixing in some katapeltes or murms after a while.
You can ab-so-lutely NOT let him hunt safely anytime, anywhere. if you know where he's hunting in archaic, put a carnivora close to his vills and his granary so the carnivora is able to attack them both. he will very, very likely run away with his vills. if he doesnt, you got urself a free vill kill and your first turmas will be enough to force him to retreat. From here on, continue playing how you like to play. I usually aim for a full-pop army and a 4v2 tc advantage fast
Ofcourse, you won't always be able to go for a 6 vill start with hunting dogs. so what to do if you can't?
Well, then you're in some pretty big trouble actually he will get his hunt, which means he will get his mino's, which means he will very very likely get map control, which means he will very very likely win.
So what to do? well, a "semi"-fh (aim for 8-9 min) can work out if you just make sure none of your flying units die, and you will have to get a palace up to build some destroyers to take down the tc's he is stealing from you.
Alternatively, you can try to go up with 7 vills and try to compensate your later up by getting three crax inmediately, then try to play the same as you would with 6 vills.
And, if you feel like testing your luck, you can always try a 2tc boom

Gaia vs Isis
Once again, not as hard as most people think it is!
You have a good amount of options here, and you should pick one of them depending on the map.
Low-hunt: no starting hunt.
No starting hunt on low hunt maps like oasis usually means theres quite a poopieload of herdables on the map. So just get yourself an eco guild right away (like you pretty much always should) and start researching husbandry. If you find at least 600 food worth of hunt nearby, cancel husbandry and get hunting dogs. And if you even manage to get a lot of sheep, just get husbandry right after it. No problemo! This applies to any match-up by the way.
Anyways, what i like to do is aim for a (semi?)behemoth rush here. So your first important action is to get a second tc without getting damaged too much from his pharaoh/sphinx/whatever else he throws at you over there. Then split up your herdables so both tc's have some to gather food from (remember: villagers gather food from herdables quite fast when you have the husbandry upgrade) and aim for a heroic time of no later than 8:30 if ur going for a straight-forward behemoth rush. For a semi-rush, get two crax and spam some raiding turma's first. If ur lucky, he'll use a/e on your turms when you find him building his migdol.
Then get heroic before 11:30 minutes and spam a poopieload of arcus and behemoths and JUST GET THAT DAMN MIGDOL DOWN.
Low-hunt: starting hunt.
great! now you can do a 6 vill up with hunting dogs. Play whichever way you like (some idea's: 1.keep spamming turmas 2.only make a few and get some tc's or 3. only make a few and set up your eco in a way you can get heroic at a decent time
High hunt: no starting hunt.
In these rare cases (probably on savannah or alfheim) you'll just want to scout ur hunt asap and play whichever way you like. I personally prefer something with 7 vills so i can disrupt his food/gold in time
High hunt: starting hunt.
Do any strat you like. just remember: keep in charge of the game and always be the one setting the pace of the game. Best things to make that work are things like 6 vill ups or behemoth rushes

So in general: Just be agressive! Lush gold/tc control can work nicely if you have the space to do so, so always try it if you get the oppportunity. And, if you really hate the person you're playing against (or just hate to play vs isis in general), you can always just forest his gold mines in
Gaia vs Loki
Coming soon!

Gaia vs Kronos
Coming soon!

Gaia vs Oranos
Coming soon!


To finish, I’ll be posting some links to interesting Gaia games with funny uses of lush/Gaia forest, a game to show the murmillo rush, the 6:25 fh and the brush:

Lush gold control:
http://rts-sanctuary.com/index.php?portal=A...5
(link in game description is a game where hotcha does the same)

Gaia forest to defend titan gate:
http://rts-sanctuary.com/index.php?portal=A...75

Defending vs. a cent rush: http://rts-sanctuary.com/index.php?portal=A...65

Murmillo rush: http://rts-sanctuary.com/index.php?portal=A...86

Defensive murmillo rush:
http://rts-sanctuary.com/index.php?portal=A...8

6:25 fh: http://rts-sanctuary.com/index.php?portal=A...23

Brush:
http://rts-sanctuary.com/index.php?portal=A...69

Brush on water:
http://rts-sanctuary.com/index.php?portal=A...howtopic=124308

4:05 fake rush:
http://rts-sanctuary.com/index.php?portal=A...howtopic=127797

6 vill up vs zeus:
http://rts-sanctuary.com/index.php?portal=A...howtopic=127797

… and that’s about it!
Thanks for reading my guide