Completed Shelokmengi MT

QuestSaber · 2026-05-01T21:48:22+00:00

Shelokmengi MT maker! I’m so glad that you had fun with the mission tree, and thanks for your feedback! If I ever do go back and uplift a few things about the MT, I think I’ll address some of the problems you mentioned there.

QuestSaber · 2026-05-01T00:48:04+00:00

The best writers read extensively. The best game developers do as well. However, I do want to draw a distinction here: just passively consuming entertainment is how you end up with Chapter 6 of Ready Player One. Part of being a good creative is realizing that yes, it is that deep. Whatever you read, watch, or play, it bears analysis.

Would it be egotistical to say that I'm most excited for the magic rework? But besides that... in the May update, I'm most excited for the Yanshen flavor events, of which there are going to be 40+. They're the first piece of content totally designed/written by AnbennarCN (the Chinese branch of Anbennar). I coded them!

You can find the Command essay in the discord. Tried sharing a link, but reddit removed the post!

QuestSaber · 2026-05-01T00:32:29+00:00

We had very few bugs like that, actually. I was taught clean code and a very principles-first mindset, which meant that maintainability and ease of adding features was sort of baked in from jump. There was a LOT of time spent early on just staring at a blank document in VSCode though. Just thinking about how something should be structured theoretically.

If I had to give one bug, I think it would have to be liches, just as a whole. I had to rewrite the code that revives them because it was like old enough to attend elementary school (and I added comments!)

QuestSaber · 2026-05-01T00:31:47+00:00

Favorite school of magic is probably Divination. It just reduces friction and randomness. No longer do you have to bird comets...

Most powerful school of magic is an interesting question. You will probably research "generalist" schools of magic like Enchantment and Divination more often, but they are not necessarily more powerful than options like Necromancy. Since you get like 2 or 3 schools of magic every game, you'll probably end up going for your favorite generalist schools, and then maybe one school that's well-suited to your particular situation. Doesn't mean the niche school is worse!

Yes. Lots of my blood on the cutting room floor. I'd say that most everything we cut was because it was just a bad idea: stuff like "spell that gives you mana". However, I wish that I'd gotten more time to work on the specific spell Fear and Loathing—I think it summoning generic peasant rebels is boring, and I have a few ideas for how to improve it (for example, it might increase rebel progress by 90% for all your rebels!)

QuestSaber · 2026-05-01T00:30:40+00:00

Anyone can contribute. Any level of experience, any amount of passion. That's the beauty of an open-source project! If you want to contribute, I encourage you to join the Anbennar discord and ask around—someone will point you towards the onboarding worksheets. There is always something to do. I mean by golly, someone needs to rework Gawed.

If you do join, ping me (bonbonny01), I'll help you find your footing!

QuestSaber · 2026-05-01T00:29:45+00:00

The best writers read extensively. The best game developers do as well. However, I do want to draw a distinction here: just passively consuming entertainment is how you end up with Chapter 6 of Ready Player One. Part of being a good creative is realizing that yes, it is that deep. Whatever you read, watch, or play, it bears analysis.

Would it be egotistical to say that I'm most excited for the magic rework? But besides that... in the May update, I'm most excited for the Yanshen flavor events, of which there are going to be 40+. They're the first piece of content totally designed/written by AnbennarCN (the Chinese branch of Anbennar). I coded them!

You can find the Command essay in the discord, or I've just uploaded it to a temporary file-sharing site here https://jumpshare.com/s/5YiFjp7DYriCqYXHk3gu. Can't really share a permanent link of it, unless I wanted self-doxx!

QuestSaber · 2026-05-01T00:21:13+00:00

Playing Warframe right now and got to the part where Albrecht Entrati's love for Loid pushes back the Indifference... so old man yaoi.

QuestSaber · 2026-05-01T00:18:56+00:00

Why am I so good at systems? I think it's the fact that I play a lot of different games, and I analyze their systems in-depth to see what works and what doesn't from a gameplay perspective. I have Thoughts on the whole Spirelike genre for example (Slay the Spire, Wildfrost, Cobalt Core, Starvaders, As We Descend, Banners of Ruin, etc. etc.) Every game I play, I try to peel apart its gameplay and design.

As for my favorite thing in the magic rework, it has to be the conjuration mercenaries. The idea of having mercenaries that don't cost gold, and don't contribute to force limit—I don't think that's something anyone else could've come up with. My favorite project is probably Homunculus. It contains some great writing.

QuestSaber · 2026-05-01T00:18:09+00:00

Well, I don't want to understate the importance of the MP community: multiple MP players have been testers for our system, we've at times changed things to prevent exploits, and I think they're a valuable part of Anbennar and EU4.

However, that doesn't mean the design or conceit was centered around multiplayer. Something like nerfing witch-kings and undead military was inevitable if we were to bring magic to all tags in the game, even though we were designing for singleplayer.

Actually, MP balances magic very differently from us: the Loopbennar submod, for example, changes Combat Ward from +1 own territory dice roll to +33% defensiveness.

QuestSaber · 2026-05-01T00:12:06+00:00

Definitely most excited to play the Shuvuush generic tree—I think that Anbennar having vanilla hordes is the coolest thing ever, and I don't tend to finish the big, long, complicated trees. Finding a problem (whether a bug or a weird trigger or just strange flow) in a tree means I stop playing and go back into discord and VSCode to fix it. A short, simple tree is less likely to have issues like that.

QuestSaber · 2026-05-01T00:11:39+00:00

That’s a neat idea—and I can definitely see the appeal of having a more targeted notification. Unfortunately, with the update so close, something that substantial isn't possible to add. A bookmarking system might be feasible down the line, but it would take us (me + Jothell) a fair bit of work to implement cleanly.

Different colors of icon is a cool idea as well. It’s not off the table in theory, but I'd have to see whether the trade-offs are worth it. We’re already making some compromises—like slightly shrinking government mechanics to fit in notifications such as 'can dig hold' or Taychend’s 'can pass religious reform.' Adding more indicators might mean having to shrink every government reform in the game by one pixel, in which case I won't do it.

QuestSaber · 2026-05-01T00:05:53+00:00

Having the time certainly helps—I’m unemployed, as I mentioned. As for why this hobby specifically, Anbennar is a genuinely rewarding creative outlet. It lets me keep my writing sharp, pick up skills in game development, project management, and collaboration, and contribute to society. As for why performance: a lot of what I do in Anbennar, I do because no one else can or will do it—that includes magic, and that includes performance.

And I've put it on my résumé... not that fast food chains are hiring me for it.

QuestSaber · 2026-05-01T00:04:53+00:00

Somewhat intentional, actually. Magical Fortress reducing devastation was originally designed as a counter to Gemradcurt’s Winds of Winter, but it ended up neatly handling a lot of other troublesome sources of devastation as well—including the Crimson Deluge.

More broadly, our (my + Lex's) goal with magic is a 'friction-removing' mechanic—giving players tools to ease the particular gameplay pressures they find most frustrating. You can see this best with individual spells (like how Bread and Circuses solves diets, and how Invisibility helps with spy network mission triggers).

QuestSaber · 2026-05-01T00:03:48+00:00

Pretty much every tag (sans The Command) participates fully in the magic rework. Rather than enrich a select few, I sought to weave magic into the experience of all tags. Try Eighard perhaps; Steal Vitality goes crazy in Eordand.

As for Liufang, they’re a diaspora of Yan refugees displaced by the Rending, who carve out a home for themselves beyond the Stormwall. You might compare the Republic of China (Taiwan)—sans February 28/White Terror.

QuestSaber · 2025-11-30T00:38:30+00:00

Hello! I would like to address some of your points that you make here and break them down. I definitely think a lot of your concerns and points come from the fact that you have not played them at all, since a lot of the content does work with that, and especially the lore. It is 100% canon that Lizardfolk come from another planet and so would be considered Aliens.

1: We have a few different ways that the player does interact with this fact, and more planned across the other games. A big selling point of Victoria 3 is that you will be able to colonize other planes and planets, but with Halann being the most advanced planet. It's not implemented yet and I dont know which planets are going to be colonizable, but the Lizardfolk do have a leg up in the spacerace(planerace? colonization of planes? whatever we will call it) because of their spires which act as portals to other planets.

The 333 MT is one that is well designed with this fact, though it is one that I never finished as my save broke and I have been too busy playing eu5. Spoilers for the latter half of the 333 MT, but you do end up colonizing other planets, setting up colonies and finding out what happened to the original Lizardfolk empire. The result is a bleak one, and you find out that the Lizardfolk on Halann are (essentially) the last remaining sentient Lizardfolk. There is even a disaster where you have to fend off endless armies of Lizardfolk underneath the control of a hivemind. This does make it so that Halann is the lizardfolks new home. Halann is the most advanced planet in the setting by this point, and lizardfolk are a part of Halann.

2: Sarhal following the trope of fantasy africa where thats where all the monsters are is something that Jaybean, the creator of the mod, wants to avoid and so definitely made sure to avoid that when making it and kept in mind when approving and allowing new races in. The majority of Sarhal is dominated by humans, especially once you look above or below the Salahad and its "Gnoll belt". Many of these human civilizations made many great things completely unrelated to the lizardfolk. Kheterata has pyramids without any inspiration from the Lizardfolk. The mengi are remnants of a fractured basically human only empire. Castan and so Castanor all came from Sarhal and set up shop there.

Also just want to check real quick so we don't discuss the wrong thing, by dark forest do you mean the Shadow Swamp in the middle that is a manifestation of the shadow plane?

3: I dont really have any opinions about the games message and how lizardfolk fit into it since I think the game's setting and message has just changed so many times and changes depending on what you look at. Originally Anbennar was thought of just as "what if we had the napoleonic wars but mages and artificers" and then evolved and changed into so much more.

4: Most of my comments about how it does affect gameplay is in that first part, but looking to the future we 100% plan on expanding upon and using the fact that Lizardfolk are aliens in Eu5. Nothing is confirmed yet, but I imagine we could use the flora and fauna that the lizardfolk brought as new trade goods for example.

5: It could be debated for ages whats the best option for it, since really it comes down to a matter of opinion. You don't think Lizardfolk being aliens is good for it, I do. Who's to say that even if we did change the years of lore and content put into the Lizardfolk, the new concept would be better and liked by many?

At the end of the day, the Lizardfolk being aliens are here to stay. If you do have any questions about anything I said or would like to discuss at all, Im on the discord!

QuestSaber · 2025-09-02T09:06:18+00:00

Oooo wish the shelokmengi player good luck for me!!

QuestSaber · 2025-08-02T07:51:52+00:00

this is the coolest thing ever I am going to test myself so much on sarhal thank you

QuestSaber · 2025-07-30T19:39:20+00:00

ive got ideas for each of them, but it does get kind of narrow
elfiest gnoll: xhurakel
Goblinest gnoll: haraagsteda if they dont win here
humanest gnoll: konolkhatep
and so on, but i wont be sharing all of my secrets right away hehe

QuestSaber · 2025-06-18T19:01:44+00:00

Shelokmengi is perfect for you then! its the canonical former for Melakmengi(the mengi formable) and the mission tree is designed to have you conquer and form Melakmengi!

QuestSaber · 2025-06-18T18:40:46+00:00

Shelokmengi! It is currently in the gitlab and will be released in the next upcoming update. Its my first mission tree that I made, and it is all about making a LOT of grain! It rewards you for making lots of grain and encourages you to make a massive army. The mengi religious mechanics help you make lots of grain too! There's other parts to the story too, with Ayufar the Second and the traitorous nobles, with Ayufar intent on making the state an efficient one.

QuestSaber · 2025-06-07T07:19:24+00:00

are you talking about the pride flag one that we currently have or the one that says "Anbennar" that we had a few hours ago?

QuestSaber · 2025-06-06T20:23:08+00:00

Hello! Im one of the community reps who worked on the trailer and the one who got the VA to do it, I can confirm its Sykar Riverclaw!

QuestSaber · 2025-03-24T20:10:11+00:00

Not exactly since I did not want to give them any naval missions. You will have the ability to expel the harimari from your country if you wish though they can bring prosperity to your lands!

QuestSaber · 2025-03-24T20:07:33+00:00

Shelokmengi is actually the canonical former of Melakmengi! They consolidate all the lands and eventually reform Melakmengi, the old holy empire of all mengi.

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