So hey how should I pay my $30 to you? Oh wait, its a free guide..

Thanks for the awesome Portugal guide, cheers mate

Btw, do you play your online games at that FOV?

edit: Ok well I finished the guide, and let me comment on a few things:

1) Your grammar and spelling is excellent. Its probably just me, but I like to read something that I can actually understand with ease.
2) Love how you mention that every game has a different scenario.
3) Use of highlighting important words, another plus.

I give this guide a 10/10

[This message has been edited by Flotiball (edited 11-23-2005 @ 04:24 PM).]

Thanks man, I need a guide for the ports.

Wow
you sure took your time with that
I especially enjoyed the replays and even though i don't play the portuguese, i enjoyed reading this

Nice guide with some very usefull stuff

One small point though - on your TC placement picture, you say to garrison "at least" 10 settlers.

I just found out today (was wondering about this) that your TC attack is only increased up to max 10 settlers. So really no need to garrison more than 10 for maximum fire power (unless of course it is to protect them from being killed ).

I'm glad you all like the guide! I hope it makes Ports more popular and more people willing to give them a try. It is very rewarding to crush and Ottoman rush as portugal since most ottos expect it to be a walkover.

Oh and thanks for spotting that mistake Tordenskiold, I meant to write at most 10 villagers. I'll fix it now.

Quote:

No I don't, those screenshots were just done in the editor, they are not actual games.

[This message has been edited by Ceres629 (edited 11-23-2005 @ 04:58 PM).]

Nice Guide. I am a Portugese player myself and i always considered them a contender and agree with most most of ur points but i disagree with some as well.

Its true that they r not newbie freindly and one mistake can cost the game.

Cassodors and Organ Guns do have a weak defense but they r not useless, with proper micro they can out match many other units. Massing Cassadors is like massing Longbowmen from Aok:TC IMO since if u keep redirecting fire on one unit at a time (micro) and not let them get close. I cant say much good about Organ Guns, except that they r pretty good even if they die againt a falconet, they own infantry better than falconets (imagine jannies get pwned).

I also disagree with ur Portugese Decks should be resource based, although i no that they shouldn't be military based. Resource based decks are good, especially for the strats u gave but i rather keep a resource and building upgrade deck, i seem to find them effective since u with resource rate upgrade cards defesive booming works extremely well. But thats just my opinion.

U might disagree with my points but thats ur opinion, i cant force u o change ur mind can i?

P.S. I hope to c more guides, maybe i should write one but then again i am not that good of a player even with a extremely stradegic mind.

[This message has been edited by ShadowZX (edited 11-23-2005 @ 04:57 PM).]

good, but you make the colonial boom sound almost OP lol. I dont see the dragoon rush working, at 90 food and 90 gold and two population slots I don't think you can have enough resoruces to keep them coming, maybe with the resource cards but you still have to deal with that absolutely evil 0.5x(or is it 0.3?) bonus against settlers... gl developing it.

[This message has been edited by Doggiedoodle (edited 11-23-2005 @ 05:09 PM).]

Yeah it is difficult to fund dragoons due to their steep cost, but resource cards are the key to maintaining it. I'm still developing it offline however. I just got the early dragoon card recently so I haven't had a chance to try it online just yet, and every game i play online is against an Ottoman so I can't do it.

But I think it will work well against Germans whos Ulhans will be completely nullified by your dragoons. Almost NOBODY expects age 2 dragoons and they are not bad, as long as you micro well. Dragoons have a 0.5 reduction against villagers. You need 7 dragoons to kill a villager in two rounds of fire so you need at least 7 dragoons to start decent raids with, or harass the enemy forces.

Since my strategy involves waiting until age2 to send cards, I have the luxury of not choosing my deck until the 4:30 mark. If I see the enemy build a stable or try a LAME Lakota native rush, I can just play the dragoon card and destroy his cav.

I am a huge fan of civs that are flexible, thats why I could never use Ottoman, too boring.

Hey, I've been playing Portugal and have been doing very well with them 1v1 so I think I have some experience here (my stats are here: http://agecommunity.com/stats/EntityStats.aspx?loc=en-US&EntityName=Echoic&md=ZS_Supremacy

I agree with a lot of what you said, but I won't go over that because you already said it

I do disagree about organ guns; if you can get a quick age III and send the organ guns you're basically completely fortified against any infantry attacks unless you make a mistake. The organ guns will absolutely demolish any unit not riding a horse, and the impact is even greater if you get to age III before they do. The splash damage from 3 organ guns will mow down lines of infantry in just a couple volleys.

I also disagree about the resource shipment cards: I prefer military cards for these reasons:

1) Resources are not pulled from your boom, neither are villager seconds building a barracks and/or stable until you need them.

2) I find that as soon as I hit age II I need my musketeers or xbows as fast as possible and I just can't wait for the gathering and construction. Rushes have been hitting me nearly immediately after aging up around 4:30-5:00.

3) I can pull a population trick after hitting age II that allows me to hold off a little longer on 100w to make a house by queing villagers THEN shipping military to go over pop cap. This allows more gold/food to be gathered in this time.

Good guide though, just a few differences I see.

Great guide!

You never mentioned the special xbow tech/merc at the church you get from the card. You don't just get the 20 units for your 2k wood, you get a nice upgrade to a unit thats really easy to spam and imho is a better choice than cassadors.

Quote:

You're right, they are an important unit for ports, I will add them in later.

You've gotten me to lean a bit more towards portugal..

I love you.

Wow, I glanced at it, looks good, I'll need to read it later. I tried playing Ports, but couldn't really get them off the ground. even though I tried to convince my self other wise

But it look like you gave it a lot of thought.

TY for this...I hated the port because thier military was so poor i though, but i was using cassadors and organ guns

Now I'll have to try this out.

[This message has been edited by XxEmperorxX (edited 11-23-2005 @ 09:57 PM).]

I'm getting kind of bored with the russians in supremacy, so I might just give the portugese another chance. Awesome guide

I think someone is going to change to portuguesse again.

After giving it a more careful read here a few things I might add. Consider going with a market in discovery + 300 food shipement. I've posted on this some I find it to be a reasonable strat most of the time. Muskets are the prefered way to counter early cav. They're just an all around decent unit and I like to have the option of the 6 musket shipment upon reaching colonial. Really useful to get a few more units out faster against an aggressive rush.

I've also been playing around with a stable first strat and going with the 500 wood colonial port gets at lvl 40 to throw up a rax in reasonable time. Lots of fun when your oppoenent is expecting a boom. Also seems to be one of the only viable defenses against an artilery based rush.

Really good adivce about placing the 2nd tc. Probably the easiest way to shoot yourself in the foot is bad tc placement. Like 10 ft from you first one lol.

k, watched your recs. Was disapointed in the quality of your opponents.

I went back to watch a game I'd played as port against a good, aggressive ottoman. He colonialed just after 4 min, had 3 hussars in my base at 5:20 and 5 gren at 5:45 My tc was destroyed at 6 min without ever having finished building. In the ff game the otto leaves you alone untill 14 min In the 2nd you don't get a military building untill after your shipement of muskets show up. How do you handle faster rushes?

[This message has been edited by Flammifer (edited 11-23-2005 @ 11:10 PM).]

Btw, I noticed that you didn't include mercs in your deck. Without heavily relying on organs guns and cassadors, what unit should be used as the base soldier in the port armies?

Probably Gurrero Musketeers and Jinete Dragoons is what Ceres would say or maybe xbows.

I think cassadores have a faster rate of fire than normal skirmishers.

I have to give credit where credit is due here Ceres. I have started using portugal and think I have found a civ I am happy with. I still cant quite understand how ES thought the British would be the strongest eco civ, Portugal has them beat hands down. Excellent guide illustrating the true power of Portugal!!

This has a lot in common with my defensive booming article (such as faster mills keeping buildings in your TC fire range both of which were scoffed at ), looks a lot like how I play too except I don't use resource cards (of course as port you probably need them more than you would as germany or dutch whcih are my 2 favs right now)

Very nice work.

TGE