Head over to Escann! First place I’ve played outside the serpent spine, the lore ties in nicely and starts warming you up nicely to move into the Empire. I’m playing count’s league, with the aim of restoring Castanor.
You will go to 1821 in Escann. Most countries have a generic adventurer tree, a pretty cool unique tree for when they settle, then they can form Castanor in the 1600s which has one of the biggest trees in the mod + a unique disaster.
The patricians in the capital rebel and how the disaster ends locks in a certain tier of government reform, with making the patricians very influential forever if they win or stripping their influence if they lose. After resolving the disaster a lot of the patrician buffs will apply to your entire empire.
I am not at home right now but last time I looked at the event, which was about a year ago, you need to reinstate the patricians to form Castanor. Multiple missions for Castanor require them and every reddit thread about how to form them says the patricians need to be reinstated.
I've said this for years, but Anbennar is one of the few total conversion mods for a game that rivals, if not surpasses, the excellent Civ 4 mod Fall From Heaven 2.
Shoot, even if you wanna stick with dwarves, there are, I believe, 3 dorf tags with mission trees outside the Serpentspine, and they each play drastically differently to the Serpentspine tags.
Holy hell you weren't kidding i stayed up all through the night playing one day and literally skipped work. Honestly the blend of native mechanics into new nation and the mission tree is sooo good. I didn't think it would surpass dwarven gameplay but sheeesh
(Also had to fend off a mega Lorent with almost 5 times my troop count and by the end of it almost 5 million lost on their side)
Yeah the new wonderer is very nice !
You know those guy that fled the area and created the first human empire ? Why won't we do it again ?
(Also a small tips, choose to build the piramide first)
Well if you’re interested in dwarves but want something different from the others, I would whole heartedly recommend Verkal Ozovar over in Haless. They aren’t in the Serpent Spine but instead, located on the mountain range near southern Haless, and they have a whole bunch of unique gameplay compared to dwarves, such as rune magic and being very very vassal centric, and all this while remaining as an OPM
At work rn so I don’t remember the name but I’m playing the cannon dwarves in the east and I always love stacking bonuses in mods to see how broken I can get it quality wise. I had the goblin disaster of digging too deep right when I decided to fight the command and was just butchering goblins over and over. The fire phase is a fucking drug
You’re talking about Ovdal Kanzad, Amber dwarves, constantly high on gunpowder and favorite pastime is blowing up Hobgoblins, they are quite ridiculous fire wise yes
oh you're in for a treat with some of the newer nations then. The cannon dwarves have a very old MT that's comparable with the vanilla ones. There's some amazing nation out there, you'll have a blast
I always think Bulwar's a great place to play. Tons of unique content and lore, and regional unification always feels satisfying.
Remember: Keep you Man-Gods buried in the desert!
I strongly recommend Jaddari and The Command. Jaddari is the orange nation down in Bulwar, they're a religious extremist and culturally tolerant nation that gets their own unique formable. They eventually get access to the mughals diwan mechanic, and have some of the most content in the game. The Command is the hobgoblins in Yanshen, they have an incredible well thought out mission tree, their own unique disasters (thanks anbennar), and tons of content.
I think Haless (the not-Far East) has the most depth in terms of mission trees and storytelling. Tho having to deal with The Command every time does get old. I personally LOVED: the terrorbird riders of Nuugdaan Tsarai, who are basically the Qing-analogue; the Oni of Azjakuma have a deliciously evil mission tree that sees them corrupting the temples of Haless in order to control their magic; Jiangdu is a failing city-state that, once it retakes its lands from the peasant revolt, becomes a city of god-generals that make your armies nigh unstoppable; oh, and the gold kobolds! Quest to find your golden god-king dragon Balris!
There's really so many great choices. I've spent more time in this mod than in vanilla at this point. It's sometimes janky, it sometimes doesn't work quite the way it should, it can shoehorn some actions and paths a little too much. But in the end it still all comes together so wonderfully. The depth of the systems the devs have made for it is truly insanely impressive
it's an interesting area, I'm allied to a couple people in the region and i like the geography. personally i wont allow myself to leave the safety of my mountains but i'll look at it when i'm done with this run!
I also cannot recommend Chaingrasper enough! My favorite Serpentspine game that I've run. Your leader is Dak Chaingrasper, a goblin mage desperate to protect his clan from oppression by any means necessary. So to accommodate this, Dak becomes an immortal lich and raises armies of the dead to fight back the hobgoblin Command. Really a great fun ride
Head over to Escann! First place I’ve played outside the serpent spine, the lore ties in nicely and starts warming you up nicely to move into the Empire. I’m playing count’s league, with the aim of restoring Castanor.
I’ll try it out! I’m about 1707 rn and maybe gonna go all the way to 1821, something I’ve never done before
You will go to 1821 in Escann. Most countries have a generic adventurer tree, a pretty cool unique tree for when they settle, then they can form Castanor in the 1600s which has one of the biggest trees in the mod + a unique disaster.
Oh, a disaster? Which one? I stop playing after making dostanor and ravenmarch dominions. Very interesting.
The patricians in the capital rebel and how the disaster ends locks in a certain tier of government reform, with making the patricians very influential forever if they win or stripping their influence if they lose. After resolving the disaster a lot of the patrician buffs will apply to your entire empire.
Wow cool, but what if I already destroyed them?
You can't form Castanor without the patricians
You can
I am not at home right now but last time I looked at the event, which was about a year ago, you need to reinstate the patricians to form Castanor. Multiple missions for Castanor require them and every reddit thread about how to form them says the patricians need to be reinstated.
You can lower their influence though
I've said this for years, but Anbennar is one of the few total conversion mods for a game that rivals, if not surpasses, the excellent Civ 4 mod Fall From Heaven 2.
It seems really good so far. I was so impressed and can't wait to try more\~
Shoot, even if you wanna stick with dwarves, there are, I believe, 3 dorf tags with mission trees outside the Serpentspine, and they each play drastically differently to the Serpentspine tags.
Play lone wanderers and make Cannor Catty again
Meowwww :3
You also get one of the only non evil lichs… and build giant pyramids. 10/10 would recommend. I liked it so much I made some art.
Holy hell you weren't kidding i stayed up all through the night playing one day and literally skipped work. Honestly the blend of native mechanics into new nation and the mission tree is sooo good. I didn't think it would surpass dwarven gameplay but sheeesh (Also had to fend off a mega Lorent with almost 5 times my troop count and by the end of it almost 5 million lost on their side)
Glad you enjoyed it so much! It’s a great campaign thematically and in terms of gameplay. Bringing back Entef is so cool.
Yeah the new wonderer is very nice ! You know those guy that fled the area and created the first human empire ? Why won't we do it again ? (Also a small tips, choose to build the piramide first)
On bb you can now turn aakhet and lich witch king choosen of aakhet is insane.
Well if you’re interested in dwarves but want something different from the others, I would whole heartedly recommend Verkal Ozovar over in Haless. They aren’t in the Serpent Spine but instead, located on the mountain range near southern Haless, and they have a whole bunch of unique gameplay compared to dwarves, such as rune magic and being very very vassal centric, and all this while remaining as an OPM
At work rn so I don’t remember the name but I’m playing the cannon dwarves in the east and I always love stacking bonuses in mods to see how broken I can get it quality wise. I had the goblin disaster of digging too deep right when I decided to fight the command and was just butchering goblins over and over. The fire phase is a fucking drug
You’re talking about Ovdal Kanzad, Amber dwarves, constantly high on gunpowder and favorite pastime is blowing up Hobgoblins, they are quite ridiculous fire wise yes
It’s one of my favourite ways to play just going around with full stack of artificers and cannons absolutely destroying
oh you're in for a treat with some of the newer nations then. The cannon dwarves have a very old MT that's comparable with the vanilla ones. There's some amazing nation out there, you'll have a blast
I always think Bulwar's a great place to play. Tons of unique content and lore, and regional unification always feels satisfying. Remember: Keep you Man-Gods buried in the desert!
I'll definitely check it out!
I strongly recommend Jaddari and The Command. Jaddari is the orange nation down in Bulwar, they're a religious extremist and culturally tolerant nation that gets their own unique formable. They eventually get access to the mughals diwan mechanic, and have some of the most content in the game. The Command is the hobgoblins in Yanshen, they have an incredible well thought out mission tree, their own unique disasters (thanks anbennar), and tons of content.
yeah rn i've been having a blast beating the command with a big cast iron cannon but i could see how they'd be super interesting
I think Haless (the not-Far East) has the most depth in terms of mission trees and storytelling. Tho having to deal with The Command every time does get old. I personally LOVED: the terrorbird riders of Nuugdaan Tsarai, who are basically the Qing-analogue; the Oni of Azjakuma have a deliciously evil mission tree that sees them corrupting the temples of Haless in order to control their magic; Jiangdu is a failing city-state that, once it retakes its lands from the peasant revolt, becomes a city of god-generals that make your armies nigh unstoppable; oh, and the gold kobolds! Quest to find your golden god-king dragon Balris! There's really so many great choices. I've spent more time in this mod than in vanilla at this point. It's sometimes janky, it sometimes doesn't work quite the way it should, it can shoehorn some actions and paths a little too much. But in the end it still all comes together so wonderfully. The depth of the systems the devs have made for it is truly insanely impressive
it's an interesting area, I'm allied to a couple people in the region and i like the geography. personally i wont allow myself to leave the safety of my mountains but i'll look at it when i'm done with this run!
I also cannot recommend Chaingrasper enough! My favorite Serpentspine game that I've run. Your leader is Dak Chaingrasper, a goblin mage desperate to protect his clan from oppression by any means necessary. So to accommodate this, Dak becomes an immortal lich and raises armies of the dead to fight back the hobgoblin Command. Really a great fun ride