Narwhal: I actually disliked that mod. While there is a lot of works and quite a lot of ideas, it looks more lke an accumulation of mini-mods than a well-designed maxi-mods. I could do without 90% of the stuff, the quality of the "new creatures" is EXTREMELY irregular, and finally the new campaigns are absolutely horrible (I only tried 2 of them, though).
Finally, I carried on playing without the mod. I d like to just add a few creatures and maybe type of towns without having all the crappy units (all the "UNIT XXX painted white : ICE XXX. Unit YYY painted red : Fire XXX)- but I believe it is impossible.
Too bad.
It is a terrible mod. I could speculate all day about why some (I think it is mostly younger players) like this mess but it's problems are many.
First of all, the whole thing comes off as a 'duct tape and chicken wire' expansion. Like they ran with any and all ideas that were ever sent their way or proposed by anyone without really asking whether a 'feature' was needed or added anything or could really be pulled off in a way that did not jar the senses.
Imagine someone wants to make their bicycle go faster so they take some twine and super glue and add a go kart engine to the bicycle. A very heavy, barely not falling apart engine that frequently shifts direction sending the rider into curbs and light posts without warning.
THAT is what this 'expansion' is like.
But it is even WORSE than that because the bicycle guy decides it is not enough to just go faster right into curbs and brick walls. He decides to add a half dozen mirrors, (using more duct tape to do so), a solar powered flashlight, a car bumper, vinyl hand grips...and so forth, using yarn, scotch tape, duct tape, chicken wire, rusty nails etc.
Just too much 'meh' stuff that is strapped to the game with very shoddy workmanship.
And the campaigns...my word! They are so bad that you will honestly wonder if the whole project was not an elaborate troll by some hackers! I cannot even call these badly designed and badly scripted because that would be an insult to bad writers and bad level designers all over.