1. Introduction

>Hello fellow short kings and queens. Are you bored? Are you getting tired of staring at the same old rock formations from the balcony of your apartment in Anvilwright? Is your axe itching for an adventure. Obviously, you could scoot on over to Escann but... Who can be bothered to deal with all of that Corin-business anyway? I got an idea for you! Did you know the glorious capital of Amldihr fell over 7000 years ago? Did you know the descendants of those ontologically evil invaders are still squatting in the ruins? I say, we go do something about that. Naturally, we won't be able to do it alone - just the few of us. We'll have to find a new pack to run with. Plenty of choices after all...

>"Kûrgûn Gemseeker with the Ruby Company?"
"Nah... those guys are craven Ruby dwarves..."

>"Captain Duran Blueshield? I heard he's assembled quite the legally distinct fellowship..."
"Sounds lame."

>"Khuznoli Hammerfall and the Forgemasters?"
"That guy's less pleasant than a kick in the crown jewels."

>"The Mithril-Arm people?"
"By Balgar's left nut, they must have overslept. I'm not waiting that long for them to show up! I've got places to be and orcs to relocate."

>Say, I know just the guy who'll take us. Captain Dwosgraeg Blackbeard! That guy's a total BADASS!! Yeah let's go with him.
The Blackbeard Cartel?!?!? Are you out of your mind? Aren't they half the world away from where we're trying to go?

Artist's rendition of Blackbeard.

Yeah, you'd be quite right. There's a lot of old rail between them and the Kingsrock. 14 provinces to be precise. 13 years of migrating through dark tunnels. What's the point? Isn't that just a waste of time?

Well... maybe it is. It probably actually most certainly is. But there is still quite a lot we can accomplish in that time. Let me show you. I think you'll be surprised with what we can do.

2. The Opening

Humble Beginnings... Humble not for long.

Here we are at the outset of our adventure. Here's our starting moves:

• Migrate north to Argrod 14 immediately.
• Hire a military advisor (Morale or reinforcement guy are preferable but anything works)
• Use the "Promote Adventurer Unity" button once to kickstart your economy. Once.
• Spend the rest of your money on recruiting infantry.
• Do NOT set a mana focus. Balance is key.

Unpause for a day and grab a powerful marcher as an heir. Their stats are irrelevant. Turn him or her into a general. Reload Cast evil dark magic until they are at least a two-star. A few shock pips and minimum two or three siege pips are a must for what we're doing.

Here we enter a bit of a waiting game. We'll sit back, relax, roll with the punches of the random events and move further north on EXACTLY THE 11TH OF NERAMENT EVERY YEAR. Good dwarves are NEVER late.

3. The First War(s)

After a few years, we should arrive at the intersection of the Argrod and the Gorrod. Here is where we make our first elite play. We walk most of our stack off of our province and towards the further Serpentreach. We'll keep migrating north while they stay here. It should look something like this:

Say goodbye to our friends. We are never seeing them again.

By this time you should be sitting on roughly 10 crowns. Hold onto those.

We continue to migrate further north. Eventually we'll run into the Wretched Skull clan and rival them. Simply ignore them otherwise. If they block our way, savescum travel to an alternate universe where they don't cause us any confusion and delay. The 11th of Nerament deadline is holy. If you border them, declare war on them using the anti-monster CB, peace out for their money and their province, and use the "Purge Warband" decision. If you don't border them yet, you probably will later as you go further up the road. Using the Purge Warband decision fulfills an age objective, thereby letting us get the +1 dev for colonies ability sooner. This can also be used to get them out of the way if they're blocking you (I did not do that this run as this was pointed out to me in the comments by the effervescent u/terrario101). You may choose to delay your army splitting and kill them immediately (should they migrate closer to you) or simply do this in step 3.

Around the time we enter into the main Serpentspine, we should have enough sword mana to get mil tech 4. Like parts of the Dwarovkron, our 10 bucks, mil tech 4 and 10 spare sword mana will come together and allow us to take the "Mapping the Dwarovar" mission and grab us a conquistador.

Put that guy in charge of the stack we left behind and march him towards Ovdal Lodhum. March him into Ovdal Lodhum. No, I mean really march him in there. No-CB them and destroy their army. Our superior numbers and superior tech are enough to stackwipe them. Besiege the Hold Where Love Lives. Take the Hold Where Love Lives. Make them bend the knee to Dwosgraeg and vassalize them. Take their swag and steal their patio furniture.

Sidenote: when you do the no-CB, be sure to stab back up immediately. Negative stab really drains Adventurer Unity - aka our economy.

We probably needn't have sacked the place. That was a little excessive... Oh look a shiny gem!

3. Migrating North and the next Wars

The Garnets under new management and the sapphire in hand, we continue to make our way north. Always on the 11th of Nerament naturally. You could try and walk our friends back from Ovdal Lodhum but they will be accosted by natives nonstop, so it's not really worth it. Delete the army (assuming you're not bordering the Wretched Skull right now otherwise they will come knocking) and use our ill-gotten gains to hire new infantry. From here on, we are going to want to try and reach the force limit. On top of that, we want to spend the next 500 sword mana on maxing out our Adventurer Unity. With Dwosgraeg's excellent stats and our advisor, we'll still reach mil 5 before any of our opponents do. Also be sure to set Ovdal Lodhum onto scutage. They're so far away, they won't help us anyhow. The money is also needed.

A little sidenote here: As you may have noticed by now, in the Serpentspine, countries must border each other to be rivals. Logically, as soon as they stop bordering each other, they stop being rivals. So far so simple. However, every time we "lose" a rival, the game counts it as having eclipsed them and gives us 10 PP. In my demonstration game that I did for you guys, the Wretched Skull and I actually bordered on three different occasions, (as I only ran into them post-split) netting me 30 PP in the process.

Powerful.

If you haven't killed and purged the Wretched Skull in step 2, this is probably where you are going to want to do it.

We continue on schedule. At Dwarovrod 15 we should find the Ruby Company, who will usually have settled into Verkal Kozenad. Wait a couple months for us to be able to rival them, then no-CB them and give them the Garnet treatment. By now, we should have enough troops to toss their salad and enough paper mana to stab back up immediately. Vassalize them and steal their wall ornaments.

These broke Ruby dwarves have no gem for us. Sad!

Your subjects should be pretty upset by now. Not that their disloyalty matters - the truce lasts long and they are completely isolated diplomatically so no one would support their independence. They don't even know of each other. Ameliorate the situation by spending some prestige on placating them and improve relations too. We need that sweet, sweet scutage money. The relentless push north continues - exactly on the 11th of Nerament because none of our wars last longer than 9 or 10 months.

4. Showing Strength

Nearing the end of our odyssey, we arrive at Dwarovrod 12 and border the Railskulker clan. Upon bordering them, we wait a few months for the rivalry. Here it's probably the optimal play to simply conquer them - but we're not here to form Er-Natvir - we have much greater, much funnier plans. Should they be colonizing Dwarovrod 12, simply declare war from Dwarovrod 11 and raze the colony just before peacing out so you can continue migrating. Declare a rival war, slap them silly, take their capital and carpet-siege them. Peace out for Show Strength. Mana-mog them. Continue the migration.

Racking up crazy resources.

The penultimate victim of our PP-maxxing crusade - the Mountainshark clan - should be sitting in or near Mithradhûm. Border them, wait for the rivalry, declare a rival war. Luckily, their 30k stack too, is built like a newspaper. You know the drill by now. Give them a detox on what it feels like to be alive and breathing, seize their capital and Show Strength. If they block the road with a colony, raze it. If they live on the road, simply beat them - they usually migrate right after losing. If you didn't run into the Wretched Skull on your way here, use a anti-monster CB instead and get your Purge Warband done.

💯PP

One or two final migrations later, we will finally have reached our destination. Dwarovrod 9, bordering Verkal Vazkron through the tunnel. Home is within reach.

Here we are. Exactly the 11th of Nerament 1457. Exactly13 years to travel 14 provinces.

5. Finishing Touches and a Look to the Future

Now all that's left is for us to take back what they took from us. Now that we border Shattered Crown clan, they will rival us within a few months. This time we use the Monstrous Conquest CB to invade. Unlike our previous victims, the Shattered Crown actually have hands are are well capable of beating our cheeks raw. So be on your guard.

This war unfortunately took two years. They had an actual army and a few forts.

After the war, we core the provinces with our saved up paper mana, repair the holds with the money we saved and took from their trophy pile. Send out your colonists into the reaches of the Serpentspine. Boost Pioneer influence for that settler bonus.

Here we are now. After exactly 15 years, Blackbeard sits on the Kronium Throne. Our hegemony enforced, our coffers filled to the brim and the Kronium Crown and the Sapphire of Dûr-Vazhatun in hand. The Ruby Company and Ovdal Lodhum our subjects, ready to be fed the lands of our enemies and then diplo-annexed. We have an obscene amount of PP which is actually totally useless because of how quickly it decays - but it is very funny.

At this point we can basically do whatever. I particularly recommend saving up our mana so we can dev the Renaissance when Amldihr is repaired. Make a push with our colonists toward the south to link back up with Ovdal Lodhum and feed them the entire Serpentreach. Annex the clans on the way. Another colonist pushes north towards the Giant's Anvil to prevent Krakdhûmvror from blobbing outside of it so that they can be full-annexed/vassalized in a single war. Diplo-vassalize all the other dwarven adventurers. Try not to have more than three vassals at the same time as they become hard to manage otherwise. Influence ideas are a pretty powerful pick here.

I don't really enjoy min-maxxing (after the opening). Still, with this setup, I have been comfortably able to form Aul-Dwarov by 1600. Assuming the Command collapses and we are able to get the Jade without starting the greatest war in history. The mountains are ours for the taking.

163 Power Projection. Have you ever seen this much?

6. Closing Thoughts

This strategy could probably be further improved. We could probably sneak in a humiliation war on the Wretched Skull somehow for even more excessive PP monster conquest and use the Purge Warband decision on the Wretched Skull (Cheers u/terrario101). We could also march our left-behind army towards Arg-Ôrdstun and vassalize them too - but that's very costly in paper mana, requires a lot of reloads to not get pelted by the natives on the way, and is just generally unfeasible as they are very hard to keep loyal. Besides, it's also not that hard to just feed the entire Serpentreach to Ovdal Lodhum.

Another note: I will not lie. The Amldihr content in base Anbennar leaves a lot to be desired. "The Amldihr Missions and Flavour Pack" (and the collection it is a part of) appear to unfortunately be abandonware. I've never gotten to play them anyway so I can't speak to their quality. The "Hold of Amldihr" submod is, while updated and functional, uh... ambitious. It features a lot of neat stuff but it is also very overly complex and unfortunately features 0 narrative. It still beats nothing though.

I may keep playing this and make an actual AAR. Let me know if you'd like to see that.

cough

LONG LIVE KING DWOSGRAEG BLACKBEARD!. LONG MAY HE SIT ON THE KRONIUM THRONE! AMLDIHR WILL NEVER FALL AGAIN! LONG LIVE AUL-DWAROV!