As the title suggests, this thread is about Portugal. Though, different than most, I won't necessarily be about pointing balancing flaws or trying to prove to you that Portugal is UP. Everyone but Stophon knows Portugal is UP (). What I’m going to point are obvious design flaws that have been with us since the launching of this game – and some that arrived or have just got worse with TWC. But what I meant is that
I’m going to point the VERY obvious ones. Those things that even Mist can’t argue about! Unfortunally, due to the insane number of stupid things that have been given to Portugal, this thread will be very long.

Portugal was the latest civilization to be finished by ES, so that probably justifies some of the current issues (although some of them have no justification). While, by one side, they have been constantly directly boosted (+1 Settler, cheaper cassadores) they have also been constantly undirectly nerfed (FF nerf, TC nerf, Natives, Dragoon nerf, Heavy Cannon nerf, Engineery School nerf...). This is the real proof that undirect nerfs can be worth more than direct boosts, because even after so much work, they seem to be at a very similar situation now in relation to their starting one.

Though, a lot of issues have been missed. And the sad thing is, those are the most obvious one. Ok, now lets get rid of this crap talk, and I will point to you which are those issues:

Portugal deck has never been something to be proud of. Ok, it has always sucked ass. This time I’m going to do a more insightfull analysis than my “Portuguese Top 10”, but be warned: it isn’t going to be prettier.

TEAM IMPROVED WALLS:

Effect: TEAM – all walls get +50% HP
Age: II
Noob opinion: Ugh... I don’t think there’s much need to talk about it, since this card just sucks. Lets face it: walls don’t play a huge part in AoE3. Their use is to keep raiders out of your base and give a bit of advantage when you get culverins behind. Anyway, they don’t have such an huge HP, so late game they will fall really, really fast.

Bastion upgrade inceases wall HP by 150%, but this cards adds only 50%. +1500 HP won’t hold a more than a few extra seconds against oprichiniks, mortars or any kind of artillery. Even in colonial, when this would have the highest effect, it won’t do much better. Send Improved Buildings and you got +40% HP to walls and ALL buildings, including TCs. Not that Portugal has a great Age 2 eco to be slowing his opponent down with massed walls... Ok, its team, but and what? Even if it wasn’t, you could theorically build walls for your whole team and get the same effect.

Suggestion: It doesn’t have much chances of ever become a good card. It could be boosted up to +2000% and generate a very boring strategy, or let as it is and never be used. Maybe something like +150%, even though would be ignored late in the game, could be a possibility against Age 2 rushes. The best in my opinion would be to make it affect other buildings, probably other fortifications, such as Forts. Either way, even a small add of +50 or +100% would help.

TEAM EARLY DRAGOONS:

Effect: TEAM – dragoons, ruyters, cavalry archers, musket riders and rifle riders are allowed in colonial.
Age: I
Noob opinion: This is an interesting situation. Theorically, it remains sucky with the Xpack. No one wants ranged cavalry in Age 2, basically because there is very few cavalry and no artillery at all. Heavy infantry is a much better choice... Even the not-so-used-but-still-much-better TEAM Early Skirmishers gives an aditional bonus, making a few other units train faster... But now TEAM Early Dragoons offer rifle riders in Age 2! Since they do very well against infantry, might be usefull...

Suggestion: Either way, I still think it should give a small extra bonus, such as making X units be faster or stronger. Something like “ranged calvary trains 25% faster” or “ranged cavalry has +10% damage” wouldn’t be bad after all.

WHITE FLEET

Effect: Each Dock spawns 4 fishing boats.
Age: IV
Noob opinion: It doesn’t fit Portugal's gameplay in any aspect. To start with, just to save the 1600 resources that a 4th age card is worth, you’d need 4 docks – lets be realistic, no one has 4 docks. The fact of building more just to get more fishing ships sounds counter-constructive... Then, there are a lot of points to add upon that.

- There won’t be much fishing left at the 4th age.
- Its way better to fish boom with Schooners since the first age. Schooner boom is arguably the best (and in my oppinion, the only truely competitive one) Portuguese strategy.
- Schooners itself screw everything this card can offer. Making every fishing ship cost just 40 wood means you’d need 10 docks to pay the card’s cost in resources.
- The ships don’t come out instantly. You need to wait just to get them.
- The only use fishing ships have is... fishing. Once all food is gone and there is only a few whales left, they’re just occupying pop. They’re not like Russian lame strelets, which can at least try to kill a Settler or two...

Suggestion: Moving through ages is not a good idea. First, this was done with 8 Spies because it was a bug, not necessarily a balance problem. Second, there would be too much balance issues to look at... What I mean is there is no real balanced way to make it a balanced card, at least in the way it is now. Better just make like Strelet Horde: offer a boost to the unit. Giving fishing ships more gather rate would be the best way – so you might not make such a good use of so many fishing ships, but its at least giving them a 15-20% gather boost.

DONATARIOS:

Effect: Increases TC build limit by 2.
Age: IV
Noob opinion: Basically, you don’t want more TCs. Portugal gets a lot of TCs already. I mean, in Age 4 you’re shitting TCs everywhere in the map. In Age 4, you *almost* have full Settler pop – and if you don’t, you will have it before you can send a card and spend 1200 wood in two new TCs. And even if you still don’t, you have to remember this card would never be sent before 2 Factories (or maybe a military shipment or two). And even if you still haven’t reached 99 settlers, I doubt you will have enough food production to actually support 6 TCs.

They’re only usefull as defensive structures. Although they’re good ones, you’re in late Industrial, both players should have factories (if he doesn't, kill him instead of building TCs) and your enemy is probably going to arrive with a ton of Mortars. They’re not even worth the free Minutemen, since you can rebuild any of your 4 TCs anytime for that matter – not that Minutemen is that good against Guard units. It has the same problem of the White Fleet – it’s there when you don’t need it.

Suggestion: There’s not much to do here. Its not a bug, neither we want months of balancing tests, so I doubt its going to be moved through ages. Don’t know, maybe na extra boost for TCs would do it. I’m open to better suggestions.

HOUSE OF BRAGANÇA

Effect: Trade route upgrades are free.
Age: III
Noob opinion: In my opinion, this is the biggest deck “obviously stupid” flaw ever. It doesn’t have to do with being good on only some situations (like 2 TCs wagons), saving less than a basic resource shipment (Adv. Mill) or just not applying to the civilization actual way of playing (such as White Fleet or Donatarios). It is just ALL of them. It is fricking pointless... its like a 10 Musketeer shipment which leads to a 5 Musketeer one.

The effect? It saves 1100 resources. Ok, doesn’t seem that bad... pretty much like an “Adv” card would do. WRONG! The factors say it all!

- You need to wait untill the trade route upgrades are researched, since it just sets them to free. That means 2 minutes + 40 seconds of the card just to get its full effect...
– ...which is no more than 1000 worth of resource crates.
- Not all maps have trade routes. That doesn’t make Schooners useless – that’s true. But the problem is that there will be a very, very few maps where you will actually be able to get more than half of the Trade Routes (I’m using “more than half” assuming you wouldn’t want to upgrade it if your opponent owned most of it).
- Portugal sucks at getting TPs. Why? Bad colonial game, all resources go into settlers, you have to stay in defensive against all civs (supposing they go on offensive – maybe besides Germany...). Basically, if any civ in the game (but Germany) wants to take TPs, they will do better than Portugal. Although Portugal might make a decent use of Native TPs (as Stophon has taught me).
- You can lose TPs any time. Even if you don’t, the upgrades have a high potential of working as a double edged sword.
- It takes an Age 3 slot. That is more than enough to kick any non resource/military shipment from Portugal’s deck, unless its really worth it.
- The first Trade Route Upgrade is available in Age 2, the second in Age 4. I’d prefer to express it this way though: Unless you’re playing the best of all hypothesis, you’d either not get to effect the first upgrade or lose the game before you can use the second.
- And guess what? Its a fricking lvl 40 card!! You’d expect to such card to at least save more VS than a 1000 wood shipment – but it doesn’t.

Resuming: You just need to play in the following situations: In a map that has trade routes, get more than half of them, making sure you enemy isn’t going to take any from you, wait 180 seconds before getting its full effect and all of that to save less VS than a 1000 wood shipment (If you want, you can factorate the actual result by any TPs your enemy own, or for the resources you’ve actually spent on the TPs)

You think it sucks? Guess what: you haven’t seem anything yet. Check this native card called Agrarian Ways:

Effect: All Farm/Plantation upgrades for free.
Age: III
Comparison:

- It pays off istantly: as soon as the card is arrived, you get all upgrades
- You always have access to farms and plantations – all maps, all situations, no one can stop you from having them and the upgrades won’t benefit your enemy in any ways.
- You will not only always have access to them, but you will end up using them in most games past Fortress Age.
- Its a level 25 card
- It saves 2385 resources (2385 > 1100)
- You get upgrades as good as the ones Europeans can get only in Industrial.

Can you see the result?

Suggestion: Just to make this card good enough, so one can assume it came from an human brain (no offense), the effects should be instantly! No fricking free upgrades, but your Trade Routes just get upgraded to the latest level in the momment you send it. Still, wouldn’t be used as much as resource crates, neither be as good as a level 40 card should be, but this NEEDS to be one. Its not about making it a viable card in a strategy, or giving Portugal a boost: its about being worth a shipment. Apart from that, any other kind of small boost would be nice, such as making trade routes ship more resources/xp, boosting trading posts...

With this I finish the “Deck” section of my post. It is about boosting cards that just don’t pay themselves, and trying to fit them better in Potugal play style, not to get them to be super cards that everyone will have. Now, we got to the...

I know it requires a card... but it also deserves its own section. Portuguese church techs have never been anything great... Now I’m breaking them a bit, to show some points some may not have ... pointed.

ENCOMENDA MAIOR

Effect: All resources but fishing and farming gather 5% slower; settlers gather from mills 20% faster.
Cost: FREE
Age: II
Noob opinion: Although its not particularly good, I have nothing against it. It is usefull only in some situations, that’s true... but considerating that, as Portugal, most games will end in Industrial with mills, and you’re always fish booming when you get a chance, it fits the civ well. I don’t think anything should change here... It has no strategic depth, its just a late game boost, but its something.

BESTEIROS

Effect: Ships 22 crossbowmen, Crossbowman upgraded to Veteran and Guard.
Cost: 2400 wood
Age: III
Noob opinion: This thing is pretty much useless now.

Since cassadores had their cost reduced, I didn’t see a reason to use this tech. While 22 crossbowmen for 2000 wood saved some resources, you didn’t need them. 2000 wood costs more than aging to Industrial itself, and Guard cassadores are arguably better than Guard crossbowmen – at least the first can actually counter heavy infantry, whereas massed crossbowmen might lose to massed musketeers. In Fortress, you just can’t afford it to get a decent use... its not like you can get 2000 wood out of nowhere without really hurting yourself. Make veteran units instead with those resources...

But the real problem is this: It was NERFED! ES felt they had to nerf it in the Xpack... the reason? Besteiro rush was OP. LOL! Me and a ton of others have been playing with Portugal for a year, but never found out that OP strat... that joke seems worse than Dutch OP strat. At 2400 wood, you don’t even save a considerable ammount resources.

Suggestion: Put it back to the original price and then boost crossbowmen.

ORDER OF THE TOWER AND SWORD

Effect: Ships 11 Black Riders.
Cost: 2000 gold
Age: IV
Noob opinion: Sucky, in all senses.

First, lets get into resources saved by comparing it to other similar techs.

Tower and Sword: 2000 wood – Ships 2970 resources of Black Riders
Roger’s Rangers (Eng): 2000 gold - Ships 2990 resources of Skirmishers
Stadhouders (Dut): 2000 gold - Ships 3000 resources of Musketeers
Bashkir Ponies (Rus): 2000 gold - Ships 3400 resources of Hussars

Ok... But what do the other techs have that Order of Tower and Sword doesn’t? GUARD UPGRADE! Mercenaries are, theorically, on par with Veteran units. Its unfair that the others get a 30% HP/Dmg boost (for a lower price, btw) while Black Riders don’t!

That’s its bad side in numbers: While costing more than all others and shipping the least resources of units, they still come in an inferior level. Now, there’s the strategic value. Portugal doesn’t need Black Riders. They got Dragoons. They got RG Dragoons. They got RG Dragoons with a Combat Card and +6 range. They get better Black Riders for a lower price. Dutch doesn’t get Musketeers, that is why Stadhouders is great. Russia, on other side, doesn’t make such a good use of Guard hussars (at least that is what ultimitsu told me ), but they’re getting more. Now, Portugal gets the least, for more, without upgrade and its exactly the unit they need the least!

Suggestion: Just add a few more to compensate the lack of upgrade and the lack of need. I would say 13-14 BRs is fair enough.

This ends the Church Techs analysis. What I personally don’t like about it is that, like the German one, it doesn’t offer any strategic possibility. Its all about very late game boosts, or units that you can’t even think in affording to power a FF or rush strategy. You can’t make strategies based on those, but that’s fine, not everything can be “cool”. At least, I would expect to their effects be on par with other civs ones.

And this is the last section of my portuguese sucky things master post.

Crossbowmen is their problem. Organ guns are not a problem, now in TWC you can get Petards and trainable ronins for siege, just like you can make cassadores to kill infantry. Cassadores aren’t a problem either, they do what they should. Better than skirmishers at some situations, worse at others: I can live with that. Now, crossbowmen just suck. That’s their only “LI” in Age 2, and that is how they should counter infantry. Its sad how people choose musketeers over crossbowmen to counter rodeleros, pikes or even janissaries.

A boost on crossbowmen would only help. Here’s why:

- Would boost Portugal, Germany and, on a lower proportion, French early game. Spain would be boosted too, that’s true, although I don’t think its significative, since they don’t seem to need crossbowmen at all. Rodeleros, war dogs, both are great units... I think boosting crossbowmen would only really affect Spain vs Ottomans, which is not a big deal. Either way, they’re probably going to get nerfed...
- Would give a better counter against native infantry.
- Would boost Besteiros.
- Would make them get used over musketeers to counter heavy infantry, which should be the logic situation in my oppinion.
- Indirect nerf to rodeleros and war dogs.

Now, just a comparison on their stats vs REAL archers (all have 16 range):

VS cost: 127

HP: 100
Armor: 0.2 Ranged
Speed: 4.0

Melee Damage: 7
Ranged Damage: 18 (3.0 ROF, no multipliers)

Note: Sucky!

VS cost: 119

HP: 110
Armor: 0.3 Ranged
Speed: 5.0

Melee Damage: 8
Ranged Damage: 10 (1.5 ROF, 1.5x Heavy Infantry)

Note: Cheaper, faster, higher HP, higher armor, about the same damage, 1.5 vs Heavy Infantry.

VS cost: 147

HP: 100
Armor: 0.3 Ranged
Speed: 4.0

Melee Damage: 10
Ranged Damage: 15 (1.5 ROF, 2x Heavy Infantry)

Note: Little bit more expensive... Same HP. Higher armor, basically +50% ranged damage and with 2x Heavy Infantry, what results in 3 times the damage against Heavy Infantry.

Tasty...

My personal suggestion is to give crossbowmen +2 or +3 ranged damage. With 20 ranged damage, they can at least kill musketeers with 8 shots (instead of 9) and Janissaries with 12 (instead of 14). Maybe a bit more HP aswell, so they can hold against rodeleros, pikes or other fast infantry units better.

Well, here I finish my post. I hope all of you have enjoyed reading it as much as I had writing it... ok, in fact, it was pretty boring. But I hope I have transmited my message clearly: This is not necessarily about boosting Portugal, rather showing some sucky, obvious flaws that there are in their attributes, some which should have been fixed a long time ago.

But before posting, I would like to ask a favor. Could someone work in make a Mercenary vs Vet units (simlar ones, please) comparison? With that I mean using VS, like attack/VS and HP/VS for each unit. Just like Poita has done with Highlanders and Vet Musketeers . I've did some fast calculations, and noticed that while 2 Vet Musks are about 1 Highlander, 2 Rodeleros are WAY better than a Barbary Corsair. This site may help: Click!

Other interesting links:

AgeSanctuary Post - Link!

MNBob's TWC Unit Chart - Link!
MNBob's Civs Cards - Link!
Unique Church Techs - Link!
Gay Porn - Link!

Discuss

[This message has been edited by Just a player (edited 11-11-2006 @ 02:25 PM).]