EU4 Victorum Universalis BC Server – State and Fief Management Overhaul

It’s been a while since the last push, but it’s not from being idle. It’s more that I’ve been playing the mod instead of making it. This is a good sign that we are reaching a point where it’s starting to cover the key events I felt were missing in the base VU game. However, there have been updates, mainly to keep the mod updated with the direction that VU is going. I suspect in the near future there will be some significant revisions to this mod as the next update to VU intends to focus on the 1215 start, which means there will be some overlap on the fixes, events, and decision I’ve created versus what the VU team envisions.

But that is all a discussion for a future day. Today, I’ve checked in the mountain of small changes that have been made to the mod since the Guelphs and Ghibellines update. Here is a quick snapshot of what is happening.

Province Disasters

One of the big updates is the new Province Disasters events. These are a list of real world natural disasters that took place around the world. They each have their own events and will occur roughly the same time they did in real life. The impact of these events are devastating in most cases, and some are so impactful that other countries will hear about them. One of the first ones that will occur is the Flood of Grenoble, and the event itself gives you a sense of what it does. Each one is different though, and some, like the Flooding to the Yellow River, will happen more than once and can have calamitous results to your empire.

I’ve only added the events for the the 13th, 14th, and 15th century. The reason behind this is because beyond that point, we are within the base game’s time period and there is already so much content added, these disasters become a distraction. However, if there is enough interest, I can add these events for the following centuries. I built these to be templated so as many or as few as needed can be added/removed from the game.

Prisoners of War

POW’s are one of the recent additions to the VU mod and is very much a work in progress. That said, it’s a fantastic addition which changes how you approach engagements with the enemy. However, there is some balance issues with the implementation, which prompted me to take a look at how to improve the overall functionality and make it a must-have feature for players to enable.

The two focal points of this release are in Ransoming Nobles and Allowing Surrender. The bonuses alone, forgetting for a minute the descriptions of these are not historically accurate, suggest that players should focus on allowing surrender because its benefits greatly outweigh the benefits of other options.

Now, this is not the case. Two events have re-balanced this slightly. If you decide to ransom nobles, you have the potential of receiving a valuable noble which can significantly change your war strategy. In some cases, you can capture your opponent’s king, think Battle of Poitiers, or in other cases force a premature peace, think Battle of Yorktown. Better yet, the AI understands how to use this and will pick the event that best suits their current circumstances. You may not think much of it until an AI decides to use it against you.

Moreover, there is a change in the works to add an event for Allow Surrender but the VU team is working on an update that involves this. I’m choosing to hold off on adding this to the game until after I have a chance to tweak the output to match what the VU team creates.

Vassal State Emergencies

New this release is a group of events called the “Vassal State Emergencies.” These are most prevalent if you play England as they will start firing almost immediately due to John and the Baron’s War / Magna Carta happening right away. These events severely penalize bad rulers who oversee large numbers of fiefs. The first time you encounter them, it will absolutely frustrate you, but as time goes on you become better at managing them.

However, they are much harsher than poor rulers. To put it in game terms, bad rulers must spend a lot of time and energy managing your mana points. It will also prompt you to spend significant effort to create better heirs and figuring you ways to get your ruler out of the throne room as soon as possible.

The most famous event for the 1215 start is the Baron’s War, which was a direct result of the Magna Carta, the namesake of this starting point. In this scenario, playing as John, you will quickly find your kingdom splitting into two factions, those opposed to you and those supporting you. At some point, a coalition of outside countries, usually including France, will begin to side with one of the factions which is the spark that will ultimately light the fuse of war.

How well you manage your relationships within your domain, and how much you focus on our own country instead of our subjects, will determine how this goes for you. It’s entirely possible that you can avoid and Baron’s War altogether, but in doing so you are likely to emerge with a country that has been stagnant for the duration of John’s reign while the rest of the world advances past you.

Sungbo Eredo

Several enhancements were made the countries around the Gulf of Guinea to match what we know of this part of the world in the 13^th century. Among the most notable is the addition of Sungbo Eredo, a wall structure which was started just prior to the 1215 starts. It is a defensive structure similar to the Walls of Benin, a monument already added to the game.

The reason behind coding this was a unique interest in this area once I realized how well done it was before I started playing countries here. For example, Ife was traditionally known for its trade in glass beads and built a trade empire here as a result. I was surprised to find that Glass was correctly set that the province’s trade good. Likewise, the recognition of Allada as a major trade hub to compete against Ife, and the migration events that ultimately see this city become one of the most prominent native cities in the area.

There are some small tweaks that still require moderator intervention, such as Allada growing too fast, the development of Ife being too low, and the placement of some provinces in the wrong area (likely due to colonial distance being impacted if moved) but it’s an area which will see some improvement in updates to come.

Enhancements to Previous Updates

The peace treaty terms have been updated to allow the player to select terms similar to the Treaty of Lambeth when doing a peace for a Baron’s War. This wasn’t just a change to this one treaty however, it was done in a way that will allow this to be applied to all treaties.
Added an event that will help spart the Naples takeover of Sicilian territory when the time is appropriate. This usually happens when either a revolt related to the Guelphs and Ghibellines event or through the historical Angevin Takeover.
The Hundred Years War sometimes causes peace events that will stop France and England from wanting to continue fighting. Added an admin decision to reboot this when needed.
There are cases where Aragon can implode. Made some moderator tweaks to help keep them in the game.
Updated the flags for the Sansha and Dulce event to help keep it from firing more than once.

Administrative/Moderator Changes

Reduced the Moderator Modifier amounts. As the mod becomes more stable, there is less need to directly interfere with other countries. Mainly Trade Route Manipulation and Country Modifications do not require as many concurrent modifications by a moderator.
Glass prices were updated to match their true value during the high middle ages. The default VU prices represent the 15^th century start value.
Added South Caucasia Region to the discovery event that runs at the start of the game.
Modified the VU AI helper modifier to remove the overpowered supply modifier and land attrition benefits. The issue with this is it allows unrealistic attrition bonuses and strange outcomes in BC Server.
Changed the Feudalism tech penalty from 2.5 to 5. This is now too much but still better than countries moving up the tech tree too quickly.
Added some missing cores for Algarve and Portugal.
Reverted the change that added Burgundy into he game at the 1215 start. The VU team has successfully added both of these, and it’s no longer needed.
Changed the starting claims for England in France to cores. This is to reflect the time period where John still considered this part of his Angevin Kingdom.
Fixed an issue where the Mongolian Empire will move their capital away from Kharakorum to a less profitable province.
Republic War Helper admin event will now add transports as well as galleys so armies will move around the map correctly, instead of just accepting defeat in “foreign wars” such as Cyprus and Latin Empire.
Fixed some issues with the Decline of Vijayanagar event series. These were memory leaks and showing game performance.
Changed the GFX models for Brittania minor countries to use models more appropriate for the time period.
Added 16 new art graphics to support additional items added to the game.
Made ship models larger so its easier to see what’s going on, and to appreciate the modeling done for them.

Age Changes

Simplified the code for detecting if there is a colony in the Americas. This is because VU team has simplified the method of determine how early in the game a colony should be colonized, so no need to separate by districts anymore.
Added the Caribbean Trade Node to the Age of Discovery. This allows for a more accurate Triangle Trade Route upon European discovery.
Fixed a bug with the Late Middle Ages Era and the High Middle Ages Era overlapping each other.
Added Force Limit Modifiers to both early ages in an attempt to lessen the size of a single lord’s military in the early game.

War Changes

Modified the Crusades CB to function more like crusades in the 13^th and 14^th century. This will allow any country to enter the crusade without distance restrictions.
Increased the cost to remove cores and claims in a peace agreement. The removal of claims should now be the peace agreement.
Fixed the Castilian Civil War and Infantes of Aragon to start in the correct timeframe.
Added back the Medieval Vassal opinion modifiers. This is to support the changes to the “Swear Fealty” (Previously “Bend the Knee”) diplomatic option.
Upgraded the likelihood of an AI player vassalizing a war enemy instead of taking their provinces and becoming a coalition target.
Removed References to Medieval Vassals from multiple treaty types, to shift the focus towards country-specific vassals instead.
Modified the timing and penalty of the War Claims events to better reflect how they are being used by players.
Added the war type “Rebellion” to all subjects who wish to separate from their overlors.

Country Changes

Removed Maritime Ideas from the AI’s order of selection.
Updated all countries to remove corrupted ruler names. I may not have got them all, but should be a significant improvement over what was there.
Increased the cost of Generals to encourage use of king’s as leaders.
Updated the Vassal Max Government Size to 8. This is necessary for the country specific subjects system to work properly.
Made modifications to minimize the impact of Call to Banners bug that is occurring at present.
Added additional bonuses to Italian exploration states (e.g. Genoa and Venice) who were historically the maritime leaders and commanded strong galley fleets.
Added tribal government types to the subject options in the Russian and Eastern European regions. This is for hordes that are taken over by non-horde countries.
Added the newest list of subjects to the decisions to make subjects. See the VU changelog for more info on which ones were added.
Changed the Aragonese events to occur in their proper timeframe.
Added the Babenburg rulers for the 1215 start to prevent an issue where their historical dynasties don’t align correctly.
Added the correct country name for Knights Templar

Events and Decisions

Removed the reform desire penalty from the “Emperor Confoederatio Cum Principibus Ecclesiasticis” Imperial reform.
Changed the Venice war helper to only give provinces back to Venice if they are no longer at war (instead of impacting what’s happening during a war)
Added a way for Samogitia, Crusader States, and Ottomans to fix their religion if it doesn’t match their historical alignment.
Created a moderator work-around for cases where Sicily doesn’t use it’s subject type because it views them as less profitable than a regular vassal.
Made the Proto-Protestant event harder on England to make it more compelling and require planning to prevent Lollardy for winning out.
Added events and decision that will hasten the Kievan Rus decline once the right conditions are met.
For countries with access to the Call the Banners diplomatic event, there is now a decision you can use to call them all in at once, instead of one at a time.
Fixed an issue where the Joan of Arc event is firing before the in-game situation between England and France could have reasonably had her appear.