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 I’ve been thinking about doing a Let’s Play for a long time, and I’ve been sinking hundreds of hours into this bad boy so might as well put that time to use! What is Anbennar? Anbennar is a fantasy mod for paradox map game Europa Universalis 4. To quote it’s steam page(https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1385440355): “Anbennar is set in an fantasy world evoking themes from D&D, but through lens and time period of a strategy game like EU4. See how a fantasy world changes from an age of adventurers and good vs. evil to an age of gunpowder, colonialism and magical decadence” Originally started by one man (JayBean) as a passion project, it now has a fairly big community and a bunch of devs working on it. It’s updates are frankly huge, and in many ways it has more content than base EU4. It has a patreon and even a merch store! (I bought two shirts) There’s been quite a few Paradox LPs in these forums but Anbennar remains untapped. There’s a lot of stuff in this mod: huge Mission trees, new Religions, new Mechanics, etc. New Mechanics? Oh my yes. There’s a lot of new mechanics for this mod. I’ll go into more details as we encounter them during the game, but here’s a quick overview: - Fantasy Races! Every country gets a modifier for who’s in charge of the administration and who makes up the bulk of the armies (they can be two different races!), and every province has one or more modifiers representing the majority and minority(ies) present in the province. These change depending on how accepting you are of the various races. Will you purge the other races or accept them? - Magic! The brand new Mage estate is available to all countries with mages and can be used to cast spells for various effects. Also, if your ruler is a Mage you get the Ruler Magic menu from which you get access to all kinds of unique spells depending on which of the 8 schools of magic they know. And if your ruler is Legendary skilled in a School, you have access to special projects like trying to become a Lich! - Artificers! Usually shows up in the late game but some countries and/or races get access early. A new Estate that can research inventions, who are then selectable through the Artifice menu. - New Government Reforms! There’s a lot, some of which are unique to certain Mission Trees. Do you want to be a Magocracy, a Technocracy, a Parliament of Holds, or an Adventurer Band? - Dwarven Holds! Deep in the Mountains are these huge dwarven cities built over centuries. They can be expanded by DIGGING DEEPER. - Expeditions! In the mountains you can also send troops to look for treasure. Hope you gave them enough supplies, or maybe they’ll never return. Maybe you’ll even find a Dungeon? - Disasters! So many new disasters. Many are unique to certain regions or races or even specific nation Mission trees. Can you handle the Dwarven Hoardcurse? - There’s also special mechanics available only to specific regions or nations, like the Raj or the Sunrise Convocation. Those we’ll see if they come up. - Monstrous nations! Basically a rework of the earlier non-westernized mechanic, monstrous is more of a social and political distinction than anything else. Some nations are considered monstrous, and can de-monsterize eventually to be seen the same as any other non-monstrous nation. So how is this going to go? I’m going to play one of the nations in this mod as far as I can. I’m decent at this game, but not an expert so I might fumble along the way. Another thing this mod adds are brand new super disasters so that should be fun! I’ll poll the thread for some decisions along the way since there are often branching paths and decisions. Do we tolerate all races or purge the orcs? Do we go with one religion or the other? Playing the same nation twice can often lead to entirely different outcomes! The first big thread decision is going to be the nation I play as. Wait we choose the country? But we don’t know the setting! I could have chosen a country myself, but I am weak. There are sooo many fun nations to play! So here’s how it’s going to go: the first poll is going to choose a region to play in. I’m going to list the various continents of the world, with a quick description, and then the thread is gonna choose one that sounds fun. Once that’s done I’ll have a poll of a couple nations that I find fun and interesting and from that we’ll choose what we play as. Easy peasy! Spoiler Policy It might sound weird to say “no spoilers!” in a map game, but this isn’t our world history. Some WILD stuff happens in some of the Anbennar Mission Trees and hopefully not everyone who reads this thread will have played the mod. Talking about the lore or mechanics is okay, but saying too much about what happens when you click what seems to be the last Mission of a Tree might spoil some fun surprises. The first post will be the Setting/Region overview and the first poll.
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Dec 22, 2022 17:59
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Index Chapter 0: The World Chapter 0.5: The Country Chapter 1: Heartgrinder Chapter 2: Ghûrad's dream Chapter 3: Surprise Bonus Province MonsieurChoc fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Feb 9, 2023 |
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Dec 22, 2022 17:59
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Chapter 0: The World Okay, so what’s the world like? Your basic d&d setting? Kind of, but it’s more interesting than that. By having the world follow the Eu4 rules it evolves by being subject to the same socio-economic forces that appeared in the real world. It makes it feel more alive than most, imho. It does start from a familiar fantasy footing. You’ve got your fantasy Europe and Asia and stuff. It’s when you get into the details and lore that things get more interesting. And boy is there a lot of lore. You get most of it in-game through descriptions of National Ideas, events, loading screen tips, etc. There’s a wiki that goes deeper into it. I’ll cover the Lore as it comes up but people can feel free to add more information or look stuff up, as long as it doesn’t talk too much about the future. Short History Speaking of the future, here’s a (very) basic history of the world. It is the year 1444, same as in vanilla EU4, but years 0 in Anbennar is when The Day of Ashen Skies happened. A huge cataclysm happened that destroyed the ancient empire of the precursor elves. The surviving elves either stayed behind and got all mutated into ruinborn elves or escaped in huge fleets of boats eventually making it to the other continents where their arrivals caused big changes. The big recent historical event is the Greentide. Orcs were historically disunited, organized in clans and tribes. They worship their god Dookan and think strength is everything. A super strong orc appeared calling himself the Dookanson, united the Orcs and started a big conquest of the continent. They seemed unstoppable, until Corin. Corin was a young red-headed woman who died during battle, but came back to life as an avatar of the fallen god of war Agrados. She then led a ragtag army of adventurers against the invading Orcs, defeated the Dookanson in combat and then ascended as the new god of war. And now OUR story begins What region to play? Here we come to our first big decision: where are we gonna play? I’m gonna give a quick overview/sales pitch for each region and we’ll see which own gathers more interest. A. Cannor  The fantasy Europe we’re all familiar with. Dominated by the eponymous Empire of Anbennar (a fantasy version of the Holy Roman Empire), it is also home to rival great powers Lorent and Gawed. It has just come out of a big war known as the Lilac Wars which changed the political landscape, including the current Emperor, and there’s still a lot of resentment between the winners and the losers. This could spell opportunity for many an upstart. B. Escann  A shortened version of Eastern Cannor, this is where the battle against the Greentide took place. The ancient kingdoms of Escann are fallen, leaving only roaming bands of adventurers, orcs and goblins. These bands will settle down and either reform one of these ancient kingdoms or form an entirely new nation. Depending on which adventurer or orc ends up on top this region can look very different from one game to the next. C. Gerudia  North of Cannor is a land of raiders and ice. The Gray orcs who refused the call of the Dookanson have conquered their own spot of land and dream of building their own kingdom. The disunited lords of the Reach could also unify themselves against the raiders and orcs. D. The Dwarovar  Also known as the Serpentspine mountains, the Dwarovar separates the various regions of the continent. Once home to the empire of the dwarves, Aul-Dwarov, it has been overrun by orcs and goblins in the day prior to the Greentide. It is now home only to a few remnant Holds, goblin and orc squatters and newly arrived dwarven adventurer bands trying to repair and reclaim the Holds of old. Will the remnant awaken? Will the adventurers succeed in bringing back the glory days, or even surpass them? Or will the goblins or orc forge something new in the dark of the mountains? E. Bulwar  This region could be seen as a fantasy middle east. The birthplace of humanity has long been under the domination of the New Sun Cult which holds elves as the chosen of the only god Surael. The cult is weakened in recent years though as a rebel human king attempts to bring back the Old Sun Cult, demon-worshipping gnolls invade, and in the desert a new sun cult has been created, the Jadd, which holds that all are equal under the light of the Sun. Which Sun Cult shall emerge victorious in these troubled times? F. Rahen  The fantasy India is united under the Raj, an empire ruled by the tiger-like Harimari and enforced through a brutal caste system. The Raj has become corrupt and is falling apart, and in the north the great Hobgoblin Command is threatening everything. Fwiw, the Command is kind of a final boss in this game if not stopped. Although the recent update has given them a new Mission tree with unique disasters that can really destroy them. G. Haless  The easternmost continent of the world does not really have a China equivalent. In the south warlords battle through the jungles, in the middle various temples fight to show the strength of their respective styles, the north is home to numerous city-states never united navigating ever-shifting alliances and even farther north the terror-bird riders are starting their own conquests. Oh, and there’s the Onis of the mountains too. Honestly, there’s a lot there! H. Aelantir  The ancient homeland of the precursor elves is this mod’s equivalent to the “New World”, as major powers rediscover it and attempt to colonize it. The surviving elves, the ruinborn elves, won’t necessarily be happy to see these would-be colonizers appear! By the way, that big circle sea? A crater from the Day of Ashen Skies. It was a big cataclysm So those are the choices. There’s actually two more regions I choose not to include in the poll: Sarhal, as it is not in the mod yet (it’s supposed to be the next big content update), and the Forbidden Plains as it even more isolated than the other regions and it doesn’t “click” with me as much as the rest. Gonna wait a bit to gauge interest and in a couple of day we’ll hopefully see which region gets the most vote.
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Dec 22, 2022 18:04
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I'm going to suggest C, A, or G C for Frozenmaw A for Deranne G for Azjakuma, the Oni!
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Dec 22, 2022 18:16
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Well, this looks interesting. Anbennar is my favorite way to experience EUIV nowadays, so it's nice to see it highlighted here on SA. As for starting location, given this is probably going to be a lot of people's first introduction to the setting I suggest somewhere in Cannor so that we can get the "intended" storyline experience the mod is built around. Unfortunately a lot of the big Cannorian powers have pretty dated content (mainly referring to their MTs) nowadays compared to the more recent stuff like what you see in for example Haless. For this reason, and in order to show off some of the more interesting differences between Anbennar and vanilla, I suggest starting in B: Escann, specifically one of the adventurer bands. Another good option would be Venail->Aelnar if you can stomach the all-round elf supremacist bent. NeverHelm fucked around with this message at 20:01 on Dec 22, 2022 |
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Dec 22, 2022 18:21
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I'm looking forward to learning more about this mod.  C, someone far north because I'm feeling very original.
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Dec 22, 2022 18:48
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D: The Dwarovar Let's delve!
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Dec 22, 2022 19:33
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If you're really hardcore (more so than I, certainly), then A for kobolds. Otherwise, B, there is a whole lot of cool poo poo you can get up to in Escann.
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Dec 22, 2022 19:35
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C is my vote! Grombar kicks rear end.
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Dec 22, 2022 22:01
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Setting question. Is the new world analogue still a post apocalyptic hellscape or have any larger or more powerful civilizations arisen there. Mayan or Incan or Mississipian analogues for instance? Or does it lean hard into the colonialist trope of primitive tribes only?
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Dec 22, 2022 22:22
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Soylent Pudding posted:Setting question. Is the new world analogue still a post apocalyptic hellscape or have any larger or more powerful civilizations arisen there. Mayan or Incan or Mississipian analogues for instance? Or does it lean hard into the colonialist trope of primitive tribes only? There are 'survivors' with actual full fledged still working societies, and way less 'cannon fodder' tags like in vanilla EU. The game also spawns a lot of pirate states, trade companies and exile states of religiously persecuted minorities and such once the colonialism age starts in 1500 Also, Obrtroll has to be chosen!
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Dec 22, 2022 22:40
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That sounds better and more interesting than base game.
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Dec 22, 2022 22:48
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In order, B, D, G. Reclaiming the dwarvenholds is always appealing, but taking the full D&D approach of taking an adventurer and forming your own nation sounds like something that could only happen in a mod like this.
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Dec 22, 2022 22:48
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I’ll vote B. The Greentide never ends, motherfucker
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Dec 22, 2022 23:12
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Voting B. We have a blank canvas to build on.
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Dec 22, 2022 23:26
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My vote is for B.
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Dec 22, 2022 23:43
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Soylent Pudding posted:Setting question. Is the new world analogue still a post apocalyptic hellscape or have any larger or more powerful civilizations arisen there. Mayan or Incan or Mississipian analogues for instance? Or does it lean hard into the colonialist trope of primitive tribes only? They're not in the screenshot that OP provided but Aelantir has 4 native population centers that survived and are thriving. In the northwest there's Eordand, whose ruinborn were shielded by mountains and also made a deal with the feyfolk to survive. Right now they're season worshippers and are experiencing religious schisms between people who want to worship only one season and those who keep the old faith and worship all 4. Has a very extensive mission tree once you unite it. In the north is the Ynn river which you can just see the surrounding states of in the screenshot. These guys are basically the HRE except insanely obsessed with feudalism and knightly values. They mostly worship the Ynn river itself but there's a religious group in its northwest that worship a half-dragon that lives there. In the southwest there's the Kheionai, who are a bunch of citystates that are Greek-themed and live in shielded cities that were the former prison colonies of the ancient empire. In the south there's the Taychend, who are basically a cross between the Tamils of India and the larger native empires of America. This area's seen the least development out of the 4 native areas so I can't really give much of a summary. I'm helping develop an adventurer nation in Aelantir so it helps for me to know a bunch about the place :p although I'm hardly a specialist. Anyway, let's get in the Escannbowl. B
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Dec 23, 2022 00:30
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C. Grey orks? grey orks
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Dec 23, 2022 00:40
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I'll vote for D, or B. The experience of building a whole nation from scratch truly is a unique one to Anbennar, and Dwarves are the best.
Quorum fucked around with this message at 02:23 on Dec 23, 2022 |
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Dec 23, 2022 00:45
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Voting B, also requesting bigger screenshots
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Dec 23, 2022 01:00
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B, have you got the version that has the new Burger-Orcs tree (the southern formable)? That'll let you show off the demonsterisation mechanics and the reformation up-close
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Dec 23, 2022 03:14
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A little lore correction for the OP:quote:Corin was a young red-headed woman who died during battle, but came back to life as an avatar of the fallen god of war Agrados. She then led a ragtag army of adventurers against the invading Orcs, defeated the Dookanson in combat and then ascended as the new god of war. Unless I've somehow got things badly mixed up, Corin died of her wounds shortly after killing Dookanson and then ascended to godhood. AFAIK she was alive up until that point. Yuiiut posted:the new Burger-Orcs tree The what now? I've been playing the Bitbucket releases but must have missed hearing about this one
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Dec 23, 2022 03:21
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Gonna go with E
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Dec 23, 2022 03:23
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Yuiiut posted:B, have you got the version that has the new Burger-Orcs tree (the southern formable)? That'll let you show off the demonsterisation mechanics and the reformation up-close Yes, that was in the recent Children of Ruin release. Wafflecopper posted:A little lore correction for the OP: Things get fuzzy when dealing with myths. GunnerJ posted:Voting B, also requesting bigger screenshots I was told it's best to keep screenshots under 900 width but it's true that it makes the text hard or impossile to read. Should I replace the screenshots with the original far bigger ones?
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Dec 23, 2022 03:30
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Wafflecopper posted:The what now? I've been playing the Bitbucket releases but must have missed hearing about this one Barumand, the orc formable in South Escann. Their new/revamped tree (would need to check to see if the loc is completed) brings a new meaning to the Greentide by mending relations with humans and 'civilised' peoples and focusing on agricultural development MonsieurChoc posted:I was told it's best to keep screenshots under 900 width but it's true that it makes the text hard or impossile to read. Should I replace the screenshots with the original far bigger ones? Crop when dealing with events/battles/in-text images but use the thumbnail 'click to enlarge' option when showing whole-screen maps at the end of posts imo Yuiiut fucked around with this message at 03:41 on Dec 23, 2022 |
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Dec 23, 2022 03:38
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Looking forward to this, Annennar rules. Voting B and D
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Dec 23, 2022 04:11
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Oh I've always wanted to play Anbennar! This is going to be fun to see. Voting E and G. Kangxi fucked around with this message at 04:30 on Dec 23, 2022 |
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Dec 23, 2022 04:27
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Whatever region we pick, let's play as The Orcs. After that, it'd be fun to be F. The Command
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Dec 23, 2022 05:16
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Kangxi posted:Oh I've always wanted to play Anbennar! This is going to be fun to see. It's super fun as hell honestly. I'm looking forward to the next two big releases. Sarhall (which is the equivalent is Africa I believe) and the last untouched continent which... I don't know. I think that one's even more crazy magic than the rest? Also ditto. Voting E and G.
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Dec 23, 2022 05:33
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Lateinshowing posted:It's super fun as hell honestly. I'm looking forward to the next two big releases. Sarhall (which is the equivalent is Africa I believe) and the last untouched continent which... I don't know. I think that one's even more crazy magic than the rest? Insyaa, fantasy Australia, which is surrounded in an impenetrable (or... eventually penetrable) magic storm a la Discworld's Fourecks. It's also full of Kaiju and
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Dec 23, 2022 05:37
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Lateinshowing posted:It's super fun as hell honestly. I'm looking forward to the next two big releases. Sarhall (which is the equivalent is Africa I believe) and the last untouched continent which... I don't know. I think that one's even more crazy magic than the rest? Yeah I actually wish they'd done Sarhal (Africa) before at least Haless (East Asia) if not also before the Forbidden Plains (Russia/Steppes I guess? The centaurs are Mongols but idk if the Lake Federation really has an equivalent) and Rahen (India) because Sarhal (at least the fantasy Mediterranean Africa part that's in the game now) interacts with Cannor (Europe) and Bulwar (the Middle-East) a lot more than the others. The Forbidden Plains in particular feel like a really isolated separate arena that might as well be a different game. Honestly that's my only real complaint about Anbennar: how little the various regions interact. It was an issue in vanilla but I feel like it's especially pronounced in Anbennar. Wafflecopper fucked around with this message at 07:35 on Dec 23, 2022 |
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Dec 23, 2022 07:32
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E F or G
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Dec 23, 2022 07:35
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H for Malacnar or Avernynn (sp?)
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Dec 23, 2022 10:10
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D and to a lesser degree H for the biggest divergence from vanilla.Wafflecopper posted:Yeah I actually wish they'd done Sarhal (Africa) before at least Haless (East Asia) if not also before the Forbidden Plains (Russia/Steppes I guess? The centaurs are Mongols but idk if the Lake Federation really has an equivalent) and Rahen (India) because Sarhal (at least the fantasy Mediterranean Africa part that's in the game now) interacts with Cannor (Europe) and Bulwar (the Middle-East) a lot more than the others. The Forbidden Plains in particular feel like a really isolated separate arena that might as well be a different game. Honestly that's my only real complaint about Anbennar: how little the various regions interact. It was an issue in vanilla but I feel like it's especially pronounced in Anbennar. Sarhal is up on the most recent bitbucket version but it's still a work in progress. Anbennar's lack of interconnected regions is mostly the fault of the Serpentspine chopping the main landmass into little pieces, which is something I don't think can be fixed without either being massively confusing like putting the valley tunnels everywhere or requiring a whole new game engine to allow surface mountain provinces to overlap the tunnels and caves.
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Dec 23, 2022 10:57
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D Any dwarven tag
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Dec 23, 2022 13:06
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Heard a lot about this so looking forward to you showing it off. Voting for B an Escann nation.
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Dec 23, 2022 13:15
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E because I want to see my my man Jadder go off. I also like G for Haless because I like the One Xia a lot and wuxia harpies are never not funny.
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Dec 23, 2022 14:09
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A. 1 B. 10 C. 4 D. 6 E. 5 F. 2 G. 6 H. 2 It looks like Escann is winning so far. Gonna leave this up for a couple more hours then post the "Which country?" poll after work but before I have to run my WFRP game tonight. I'm really glad to see there's interest. 
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Dec 23, 2022 15:20
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Mysticblade posted:E because I want to see my my man Jadder go off. Maybe I should also vote for the Jadd because I recently wrote some decision localisation for it in the bitbucket version.
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Dec 23, 2022 16:09
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B, never played in escann and can't wait to see how it works there!
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Dec 23, 2022 16:52
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