Less Well Known Anbennar Strategies:
Hey guys,
In my excessive hours of playing the mod, I've discovered all sorts of random optimization strategies that I've started to use consistently when playing in certain regions. I thought I'd share some of my own below... feel free to drop yours as well!
Permanent Province Modifiers: Many mission trees in the mod slap permanent modifiers on provinces, some of which persist even after the province gets annexed, and some of which give national bonuses. You can exploit this by having a vassal state complete the mission for you or helping the AI do it and then annexing them. Some of the best to grab:
Birsartanses: If they dev their capital to 25, the trade good becomes paper and the province gives its owner permanent 10% gov cap.
Varamhar: 10% permanent mage loyalty and influence for paying 100 ducats and some MP.
Magisterium: 10% all power costs and permanent Damestear from the Adrail tower. This can be hard for the AI to get because it requires a high stat ruler, but you can easily push the AI to a mid tier tower for 5-7.5% APC.
Anbenncost: HUGE province modifiers and nation buffs on Anbenncost city. Some of the missions are time gated, so its worthwhile to wait until the 15/1600s to annex them. They need to take plutocratic ideas, which is common but doesn't happen every game.
Be careful, some mission tree province modifiers disappear if you integrate or annex the nation that earned them. The best of example of this I can think of is Eborthil's huge buffs to Tef.
The Eborthil Springboard: At the start of its mission tree, Eborthil's missions give it claims on EVERY island in the Divenhal. Conveniently, it also costs slightly less than 100% warscore to vassalize Eborthil in 1444, and they are remote enough that the AE isn't terrible. If you can, sniping Eborthil as a vassal early on can give you a bunch of free avenues to expand (consider attacking Verne and making them a co-belligerant if you can't reach them, as Verne is usually their only real ally) AND a free badass navy.
Easy Tag Chains: Want to smash together a bunch of mission tree reward modifiers and create a monster nation? There are a couple of very good cultural reformable tags that can be used to get more rewards and set up your next swap! In Cannor, the best choices are Verne (Verneman) and Arannen (Arranese), both of which have good-sized culture groups but are easy enough to kill and reform. This lets you do fun stuff like:
Speedrun the Magisterium's mission tree for 10% APC (doable in the early 1500s), reform out of the locked government type and either continue the campaign as Verne in a mega strong position (elector controlling the Damesear) or prepare for more swaps.
Dip into the easily-completed Arannen tree for a few permanent economic/gov modifiers before swapping out.
Blademarches also gets a special mention, given just about any nation with enough South Castanor provinces can form it. This can be used to flip almost any human tag into the Escanni culture group and form Castanor, which can be really fun to do with weird starts (ie: Bulwari humans).
Enslave the Colonizers: Unlike in Vanilla, many of the colonial states in Anbennar are relatively weak and isolated nations that can be forcefully vassalized for < 100% warscore. Do keep in mind you need to let them take exploration/expansion before you vassalize them, but they will colonize merrily for you indefinitely once they do. If you vassalize Venail, Deranne, Reveria, and Eborthil before 1500, you'll have a big chunk of Aelantir locked down for free without owning a single colonist...