EU4 – BC Server for Victorum Universalis Update

BC Server has been running the Victorum Universalis (VU) Mod for three years and have made several updates in the past two months that will be deployed to the next run. For those new to the mod, BC Server attempts to cover the gap between VU start date of 1444 and our preferred start date of 1215, allowing players to have various fantasy map starts that create a more dynamic experience when loaded into vanilla VU. As we continue to add more historical, ahistorical, and pure fantasy events, we’ve been updating players who participate in our map generation. If time permits, I will start posting those publicly in the hope of collecting some additional feedback or events that are interesting for others to see.

The Angevin Trade Route

One of the biggest changes to the latest version is the return of the Angevin Trade Route. This made a brief appearance in a VU update in December 2024 with the expansion of trade nodes before that update was removed for performance reasons. The Angevin Trade Route was centered on the western-most trade node of the Angevin Empire, Bordeaux. In the 13th century, as the reliability of sea trade grew through advancements in technology, sea trade took a dominant role over land-based travel to it’s relative reliability and speed.

In fact, it’s one of the principle reasons why Aquitaine is of importance to much of the English nobility at the 1444 start. However, prior to this, remember that much of what we regard as English was actually French. The Angevin court was actually held in the areas between Normandy and Aquitaine, the rulers spoke french, and some never even set foot in England. As a result, the true trade capital at the 1215 start would have been Bordeaux, not London. But given the VU mod is covering a larger portion of history, this can be forgiven.

In BC Server, we have re-installed the Bordeaux to Southampton trade lane. Visually, this will appear as a line to the Irish Sea, but it serves the same purpose. The reason for this cosmetic gaffe is due to my limited understanding of the nudge tool in EU4, and because it is truly cosmetic only, it wasn’t worth the hassle. This is something that can be corrected over time if there is enough interest in me doing so.

In tests, this greatly improves the English/Angevin starting position at 1215. In vanilla VU, England usually loses its dominant trading position in Aquitaine within the first 10 years and never recovers is. Now, with proper steering and merchant placement, this can be kept above 50% with little effort, but at the same time strengthening many of the minor powers in Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. While it may not be completely historical, this is a nice addition since these Lordships and Clans are at a significant disadvantage for the time period.

Merged Graphic Mods

We have re-sized the major graphic mods to work with VU. This is one of the hardest elements of VU to maintain because the map is much larger than EU4’s vanilla map, and every asset has been re-sized. Along with the actual changes to the file, we have created a conversion script which will re-size all art assets to their proper sizing going forward. This should speed up any changes we need to make in order the have compatible unit graphics.

The following graphic mods are now compatible with BC server. We recommend having them installed if you participate in the perpetual multiplayer experience, but should technically be optional if you choose to keep with the original graphics instead:

• BC Server Graphics (included in BS Server Mod)
• Xangelo7 Unit Packs (and Basileus’s fixed version)
• 100 Years War Unit Pack (MEIOU & TAXES)
• Balkan Units Pack
• Crusader Units (should also include Crusaders of Europe but not tested recently)
• All DLC Unit Packs

To be clear, this doesn’t include any of the models from these Mods, except the BC Server Graphics which is included by standard because you can no longer download this separately. To use these, you will have to have that mod installed. All we are doing is allowing BC Server to recognize if it is installed and update the graphics accordingly. This is in line with our policy of adding to, not updating/replaceing, features form existing mods wherever possible.

Ages Recognize Vassals Properly

One of the last editions to the is update is to make sure the new vassal system is recognized by the Ages. As an example, in vanilla VU if you convery a Personal Union to one of the new PU types available to various countries, you will lose out on the Splendor associated with that Personal Union. That means it made no sense to convert a PU until after you were out of the Age of Discovery. Since 90% of all the changes take place within the Age of Discovery, this made little to no sense and removed a significant game mechanic for early game, and defeated the point of BC Server which is to collect as many vassals and unions as you can for the 1444 start.

This change was fairly straight forward, but we wrote a script for this so we can easily identify and update any future missed items that come up. I fully expect that this is on the VU team’s radar already, so it will be fixed in the future as they move towards more improvements on this vassal system. As a result, we are also ready to roll back any updates we made in order to support their ongoing development.

National Idea Re-Alignment

We continue to make refinements to the Ideas for the 1215 start. We found a few more cases where ideas are being given to nations who would not have selected them in 1215. While we are hesitant to completely reconfigure national ideas, we have significantly lessened this impact to the point where it seems fairly balanced. The biggest change to this is the re-structure of National Ideas and the speed you can obtain them.

Despite our best efforts, this remains a tough nut to crack. The main reason is that Paradox wasn’t consistent with their implementation of this system when they introduced it. For example, France will gain “Lessons of the Hundred Years War” at the same time that England gains “The Eltham Ordinance” which, per its own description, shouldn’t be awarded until 1526, about 80 years too early. Still, this is better than VU’s approach which had these issued at the very start of the 1444 campaign.

In line with this change we have decided not to undo the update for the first idea group being given at Tech Level 5. I do not like the idea of being forced into a per-determined Idea Group at the start of the game, and the AI’s selection is downright dubious. Prior to the recent release, Portugal was able to select Exploration Ideas for example, which shouldn’t be available at the start of the game. I suspect the developer caught this and update the ideas for Portugal, but it shows how finicky the code is for this, and it’s best to just not have this happen at the 1215 start. So far the results show this decision was the right one in our multiplayer tests, so we aren’t changing it for now.

Changes to Peerages

The new vassal system is, quite frankly, the most interesting part of the 1215 start. A huge shout out to the VU team for creating this. BC Server has fully embraced this and around half of our coding changes now reflect the power of this feature. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say if you aren’t playing the Game of Thrones with BC Server’s 1215 start, you are missing out big time. This is in my opinion far more engaging than the warfare system. Part of that reason is because it meshed perfectly with the mechanics we had already implemented, such as levied armies, invasion planning, and coalition armies.

Let’s get to the specifics. We are removing the Peerage vassals from the decision menu for players. The vassal type will continue to exist and can be done through the moderator action and triggered event, but not as a diplomatic action for example. Instead, these actions will create a vassal that will in turn be transformed into it’s correct vassal type when you are ready. This took a lot of re-work, but I’m happy to say the results were worth it, and there’s nothing quite like watching a French vassal swarm crush Aquitaine in the Hundred Years War the way it was meant to.

Because VU’s default method of creating these new vassal states through diplomacy is downright confusing and provides next to no context, we have added new decisions that clear it up significantly. The diplomatic actions provide no context and the names of the action have no correlation to what you are doing, so most players are afraid to use it. Instead, the decision will set up the vassal in the correct level, and we even expanded it to include vassal types which are not currently available in VU such as Bishophrics.

But I think the best part of all is the AI is fully enabled to create these as well! Originally, the VU team said they were hesitant to have the AI adopt these because they weren’t sure of the results, but we went ahead and enabled it so the AI will set these up. And by everything holy, as soon as we turned this on the update became one of the most impressive updates I’ve ever seen! Combined with the changes made for overlord countries, the map has taken on a life of it’s own. Watching vassals change allegiances, impacting the dominion of various nations across the world, is so impressive no single screenshot can do it justice. You just have to try it for yourself.

Trebuchet Artillery

We are deprecating the old mercenary Trebuchet artillery for a new method using the tech tree. Now, instead of hiring as an army, you can built it through a decision using a similar method that the Ottomans had for building Bronze Cannons against Constantinople. This unit is available to any region where heavy siege equipment was historically constructed, and while the name states “Trebuchet” it really represents any of the regional variations of this technology where its impact in a siege would have been similar.

However, it’s incredibly expensive to build. I used War Wolf as the basis for this, and an idea of what it represents to the country building it. When you conduct a siege against a fortress, you will be given the option to built it but it requires a significant amount of money to build and maintain. However, once it is built, you will gain all the benefits of a cannon in a siege, and you can dissemble it and move it to future sieges if you wish. However, it’s important to keep it protected as it’s loss in battle can mean a significant loss of income.

In early tests, the AI has been seen building them against tough sieges. The player can build them as well, and is a vital purchase for an offensive operation in heavily fortified areas like France and Germany because sieges can otherwise take forever. However, the sooner you can move to cannons the better, as they are a cheaper alternative that offers the same benefits.

Aggressive AI Expansion

We have integrated even more features to help keep the AI aggressive when expanding it’s borders. As you have undoubtedly experienced, BC Server is focused on expansion through means other than outright conquest. This means increased focus on diplomacy if you did not start in a dominant territorial position.

The main change is the adoption of a more aggressive Independence action which will allow vassals to rebel with greater frequency, as long as they have enough support from other nations to do so. This will change things up a bit because the default diplomacy system tends to ignore distance as a major factor, which means if you support the independence of someone who isn’t your neighbor you could end up on the hook for a war in territory you never visited.

However, if you are neighbors with a vassal of a rival, this can create a case where that vassal’s territory becomes the key territory being ravaged by war. In a true sense of the term “Chevauchee” this happens quite often when you have two powerful rivals bordering each other. Bohemia, Austria, France, and England see the biggest changes in this update, but that’s not to say the war in Iberia is any less interesting that it already is.

The Impact of Disease

We continue to refine The Great Mortality series of events. What we aren’t going to do is make it any less potent. However, we decided that the mechanics for unrest are just not suited for this style of event and instead changed it to impact Autonomy (which in turn could lead to unrest). The real reason for this is that unrest which isn’t tied to a modifier is hard to get rid of on its own and, while the human player could work through it, the AI often doesn’t understand it and lets it fester until their country is fully broken. While the outcome met expectations, the method of having to watch the AI implode because of missing mechanics wasn’t interesting at all.

The hope is the change to autonomy has better understanding by the AI and will handle it appropriately. This is something that we will be watching and playing through. As long as the end result gets us where we need to be, which is essentially a complete reset of the European political and economic environment, then we will be happy with the results.

The HRE Interface Update

The last, thing to note is the changes to the HRE interface. Any one who has tried to become emperor knows that the current setup is untenable with all the added reforms. The new changes at least make it readable, but the long term solution is still to adjust all the icons, widen the interface, and hopefully as a scrollbar. But these are things that will need more time to fix, so it will be the focus of a future update.