Anbennar Players/Modders who are interested in improving Kobold gameplay, I wanted to help improve upon Kobold gameplay with some suggestions here. Perhaps I am too fond of Kobolds from my PnP D&D days, admittedly. Just bear in mind that my approach to this is almost as if "anything goes" and I realize some of my suggestions may be beyond the capabilities of changing "hard-coded items" from EU4 that may restrict some of these.

- Estates are instead isolated to a single estate named "Monstrous Tribes" when the theme of all Kobolds in Anbennar is their cult-like religion to bring back Dragons. Thematically it would make more sense to at least have two Estates: one for their Dragon-worshipping Religion that has parallels to base-game EU4's Estate for the church; and one as a Burghers/Merchant-type that counts the money (there's so much in-game about spending money, donating money "for the cause" and in most lore references across many games for Kobolds they are always depicted as interested in money or items of wealth). If a 3rd Estate was attempted it should not be royalty/noble related but instead could be the Scroungers or such because thematically they're supposed to care about finding and picking up everything in hopes it can be put to use one day. Sort of "dumb artificers" like wannabe dwarves.

- The other problem with a single Estate is that the "Summon the Diet" is really broken as result, because you get a single mission choice for the single estate, yet that choice can be a denial of what you must accomplish for the Kobold Mission Tree. I saw this right away, as I was supposed to conquer Red Kobolds for Mission Tree yet the Diet mission wanted me to Subjugate Red Kobolds. Ultimately, this single Estate gameplay leads to isolation of Diet Mission choices and it's unfun.

- Put a fork-in-road for either "unification of all Kobolds" under one Kobold leader or the other path to kill all other Kobold races with another subset of desire to kill off everything they can on the map. There should be more of a diplomatic vs genocidal choice of how each Kobold type steps off into the game. If it's not easy to code out for all Kobolds to have this fork-in-the-road, then maybe differ Red vs Blue vs Green Kobolds' individual Mission Trees (and make Red Kobolds the ones who want to be genocidal against everything, blue for "bring everyone together" and green could be biased to just kill other Kobolds but not genocidal for all other creatures aside from non-monstrous ones perhaps(?) as "a way" to thematically differ their Mission Trees). There's a lot that could be developed from these differing pathways. Potentially, each of the 3 Kobolds could have their own unique Mission Tree (mostly the same but differing in subset branches, maybe).

- Only 4x total Kobold starting points. The 3x different colors of Kobolds on the Dragon Coast (each have a Custom Mission Tree), then the only Kobold start (Red) underground in the Adventurers' area (but no custom Mission Tree). Lore-wise, I think there should be at least 3 or more additional Kobold starting points but they start as Vassals to either Orcs, Elves, or Trolls, with their province right up against the race they're subordinated to (thematically, Kobolds were always supposed to be close by and doing the grunt work for a more superior race so in dungeon-crawling you knew you were getting close to a more powerful race when you hit the layer of Kobolds - the pawns). I think this could be well represented on the current map without a lot of modifications, and there are some starting Orcs out there that could be especially helped with a single Kobold province as vassal-state next to them.

- As a similar suggestion to the one prior, one way this could also be set up for an isolated Vassal Kobold province, is to have just a single province tucked into a mountain/ridge and the only province that it connects to, is the "master" Orc, with another uncolonized province connected to the Kobold province. So essentially, if an enemy were coming into the mountain to try and get at the Orcs, they'd have to take the "tunnel" province first where Kobolds are at, before going deeper in and then finding the Orcs inside (and this could be done for dwarves who could also have Kobolds as a vassal).

- Every continent with a Mountain(?), and that Mountain represents a different dragon? Just a thought, would be quite interesting if every continent or major section of each blob of starting points always had a Mountain inside or nearby where a Kobold start-point existed for a different dragon type.

- The colonization system that Russia has in EU4, where you use a different way of colonizing into Siberia; that same system would be very interesting for Kobolds inside Mountain/ridgeline underground provinces. Think about it. You'd have to play formed Russia in EU4 then do the Siberian special method of colonizing to see what I mean, except transpose that in some way for underground settling by Kobolds. This would also help replicate the fast expansion of Kobolds.

- Ships. Just seems that Kobolds should only be able to build and operate transport ships like Cogs.

- Green Kobold starting point is Dead-on-Arrival (DOA). Seen this several times now in game test plays. Green Kobolds have such a small footprint with only 3 provinces, nothing underground, and Human Gawed just rolls over them every time early in game, especially if it's Normal difficulty (and would be assumed even worse in Harder modes). You cannot play Green Kobolds unless you start on Very Easy unless RNG is your friend with multiple Lottery Odds events. "Anti-Monstrous" Casus Belli easily get used early in game. If you redesigned their area so at least one province is underground with the other 2-3 provinces outside so that an enemy must "run the gauntlet" to take them down, Green may at least last longer than one war, especially if you give them a better fortress capital perhaps to start, although that may not match your theme of Blue having the only mountain exit.

- Consider Kobolds as the monster race that wants to use Mercenaries once they are established more. Thematically they need help, which is why they get enslaved and vassalized, so their "Kobold Ideas" should get a relook for at least one Merc buff. Consider the potential "wrapped around your finger" a la The Police song as the servant is your master, progression for Kobolds moving away from being Vassals to becoming dominant, as a potential way to relook Kobold Ideas and many other aspects of their progression in gameplay.

- Attrition should be higher in Kobold areas for them fighting other Kobolds as well as outsiders. Kobolds are very willing to blow themselves up, accidentally or on purpose when invaders come in on them. Plus they're supposed to be "dumb artificers" and make mistakes so Kobolds get killed along with enemies as it plays out (the pawn aspect). Just like desert regions or certain environmental areas devoid of food would have higher attrition, a Kobold area should cause more attrition for invaders because of all the laid traps and bombs expected to go off.

- After multiple play tests as Blue Kobold (to have the best defensive position among all of the Dragon Coast starts among the 3) -- I can confirm that the AI is going to stomp all over Kobolds every time, near guaranteed, even did multiple tests in Very Easy mode also. Gawed has an aggressive AI to it no matter if Very Easy, and once it can use the anti-monstrous Casus Belli, it's Game Over everytime, and you'll lose at least half if not all of your provinces. This especially runs right into the Mission Tree for Kobolds, which wants you to destroy all other Kobolds while preparing to take the Gnomes. Problem is that Gawed is the primary enemy in that region, and it's not even factored into their Custom Mission Trees. If anything - you'd think the Kobolds would all ally to face the Gawed doom-stacks together. I've had EU4 Ottomans level doom stacks rolling early in game from Gawed, it's almost insurmountable to have to face the in the early game. I think the Kobolds need a totally different starting point in Anbennar, it's "no contest" - it really isn't.

This is just a start, will pause and await replies and crank out more of this thematic stuff at a later time. Hope others are also interested in giving some love to the Kobolds in-game.