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Vampire Coast Expansion: Pirate Life

tldr: an overhaul and an expansion for the Vampire Coast, 2 years of work (mostly adding stuff and removing it because i change my mind a lot), description is new, playable status: luthor>aranessa>noctilus (dont play cylostra for now), more stuff will be added over time, you can consider that wip
changes and additions are wide and deep, vary from each projectile visuals to completely replacing all buildings and adding new mechanics
dont ask me a question that is answered in the text below and in the links
SUBMODS:
less fancy vfxes



the large portions of text were written by grok, thanks elon musk, very cool!

Introduction - Vampire Coast: Pirates Without a Port

Undead pirates are simple: plunder, gunpowder, and the open sea. No land grabs, no factories, no gods and no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ archers—just raw, chaotic piracy. That’s their charm. But translating that into Total War? That’s where the trouble starts.

The Problem

Vanilla Total War doesn’t get it. Other factions conquer regions, scale up, and chase victory. The Coast? They’re stuck. No growth mechanic keeps pace with map-painting empires. More regions don’t make their units stronger—by turn 250, you’re no better off than at turn 50. There’s no endgame either; just endless raiding without a finish line. And enemies? They respawn like weeds while your rivals snowball into juggernauts. Good luck facing a faction that owns the world when you’re still afloat on the same leaky ship.

Vanilla Status

Creative Assembly dodged this mess by making the Coast a generic land-hoarding faction—pirates in name only. Thematic? Hardly. But I get it: a true pirate campaign is a design nightmare.
The irony is that the scaling problem mentioned above applies to vanilla.. land buildings give absolutely nothing!

My Take

I wrestled with this for two years, trying to crack it. Spoiler: no magic fix emerged. But I didn’t walk away empty-handed. I set one rule: features stay or get added—vanilla or custom—only if they vibe with the faction leader, faction, or race. If it’s not pirate to the core, it’s cut. Bloat’s welcome; irrelevance isn’t.

That said, I tackled the mess above—especially the regionless scaling—with some tricks of my own. They’re not perfect, but they keep the Coast afloat. So, the Vampire Coast sails on, gloriously aimless: plundering, killing, surviving. No grand answers—just the sea and a bit of grit.

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Realistic Ship Units

This mod adds ships using vanilla models and custom animations converted from campaign skeletons. They’re lore-friendly, not tweaked for looks. Ships rely on autonomous riders—separate from the main unit—each with unique range, projectile, animation, model, and firing arc. Firing arcs are narrow and realistic: vanilla Cannonade at ~60°, ship cannons at ~30°. Most ships carry multiple riders with varied projectiles and damage, though only cannon stats show (game limitation). These tight arcs demand direct enemy facing, unlike forgiving vanilla units—a perfect showcase for rider mechanics.

Rider Behavior

Riders aren’t just on ships—they’re across all custom mount and engine units. Each rider operates independently with its own stats, mirroring main units where possible (e.g., zombie handcannon or carronade riders keep somewhat consistent stats). With "Fire at Will," they target enemies freely; with a manual order, they focus the chosen target or shift if blocked. Unlike main units (manual targeting only), riders on units without a firing mechanic shoot without repositioning. Their narrow arcs—like the ship cannons’ ~30°—enforce realistic combat, requiring precise positioning over vanilla’s leniency.
I mention the angle part again since its hard to get used to and requires practicing, but once you get it under control, you have 14 cannons firing at the same time

Heavy Scripting

At the start of the mod, I focused on using the database, avoiding scripts, but constant game updates to the database caused issues. Now anything that could have been done with scripts, even complex ones, was replaced with scripts.
A key example isthe "Tell the Tale" effect. Previously, every immortal lord's defeat trait was intercepted and replaced with custom traits, leading to an overwhelming amount of entries and text. It also required intercepting vanilla trait scripts, which often broke with each patch.
Now, for that example, everything is handled by a script, using a self-constructing saved value. This approach pools resources for lords based on events, remembering them manually. It's easier to maintain, won't break with every patch, and won't slow down the game.

The downside is that scripts can break, especially when a whack job like me created them. I’ve tested where I can, but feedback is still needed. If one script breaks, all scripts break. Even CA’s own scripts break more often than you know, though you might not notice.
To check if a script is broken, enable the context viewer under Menu > Options > Modding. If there’s a red cross next to the campaign, a script has failed. This can happen with vanilla as well. Run the "Script Debug Activator" (available HERE), it wont slow your game, all it does is prints the log of the scripts. If you see the red cross, it means a script broke and you can give me the log so i can find out what function broke and how can i fix it.