I've actually been trying to develop something very similar to this. The trouble I always run into in my attempts is that the huntables that can be realistically herded towards my TCs, run out fairly soon in colonial, and I have to switch to mills (2-3). This forces me to use the Advanced Mill card instead of Advanced Trade post one (otherwise it takes too long to gather 1200 wood for 3 mills). It also forces me to use a mill improvement gathering card.

Next I find myself running out of gold, and having to switch to plantations. Thus the need to use the advanced plantation card and the 20% gather rate improvement cards (2) (because the actual upgrades are ridiculously expensive, the first one is only 10%, and the others aren't available till later ages).

I find it nearly impossible to get enough shipments without using Mercantilism . Especially if I wish to ship Cassadors, Dragoons and Organ Guns.

I've run into the same problem you have, but the 3rd TC (the one that is not in the first picture) I usually send off to another herd. In this way, I have the complete tower that is nearly unraidable and another TC to hunt at. I'm going to take a look at sending advanced mill instead of advanced trading post, that's an interesting idea in the case of a hard rush. As long as you can make it to age III you should be fine.

In most cases I have enough herd animals (or berries, those are great) to get to age III, in which I'm pretty much in control of the game and can move my 3rd TC wherever I desire.

Edit: And in regards to not having enough shipments in age III, I haven't run into this problem. My age III military with bump and run cassadores and dragoons trained from the fort has never had military issues. It comes down to a lot of military micro in the early phases of age III, but portugal's age III dragoons and cassadores will tear apart any colonial army with bump and run spare skirmishers and perhaps jans, which organ guns do a number on.

[This message has been edited by Echoic (edited 01-01-2006 @ 09:21 PM).]

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Then your opponent must not be building falconets at all, because falconets usually mean game over for any port player unless you are in industrial.

Its been ages since I've tried my portugeuse colonial boom to fast industrial, I can't even remember if it was effective or not... I'm sure it was.

Rushing with portugal isn't a bad idea though. Portugal don't get villager cards so your best bet is to use your military cards to rush in and negate the enemies villager cards (by killing them).

Ports can't compete with French and Ottomans. French age 2 skirms is too over powering, and ottomans are too fast for ports. A well played spanish is also too much for ports to handle.

I suspect you will find though that you can't out boom ottomans, germans and spanish as easily as you think. Possible the players you played against risked everything on the rush and forgot about their eco but...

Villager cards > 2 Tc's

How would an enemy get to age III that fast if they were rushing and you were booming?

And culverins are a great counter to falconets. I usually run age III armies with two culverins to one shot any falconets. Of course you won't have them the second you age up, but if you don't get to age III substantially quicker than your opponents, you executed the strategy wrong. How can you say there's no counter until age IV when the best artillery counter unit is in age III? You even said in your portugese guide (or somewhere else, sorry if I misplaced it) that culverins were great counters and using them was like an art or something to that effect.

And this strategy allows for nonstop villager production, and in the last 10 or so games I've ran this strategy I didn't need to stop producing villagers for a second. There's no possible way a german, otto, or spanish player could out boom me if they were rushing. You're not going to find an otto player sending villager cards instead of jans.

[This message has been edited by Echoic (edited 01-02-2006 @ 06:45 PM).]

First of all, great original post Echoic.

I have played many 1v1 games with Portugal so I may have some input here as I have done pretty much a turtle/boom mix same as yours.

As Ender_Ward pointed out, you need 1-2 mills fairly early as you canīt go far from your TCs -this all if you donīt plan on fast fortressing. The most efficient way of doing this that I have found is to send the 700 wood card fairly soon and getting 2 mills up by like 10th-12th minute (I wouldnīt send advanced mill card, but 700 wood instead). Then I would send advanced church card and the the "+20% gather rate for mills but -5% for other res" tech, as well as up the gathering rate at the mill.

This worked well for me because with Portugal you donīt need that much food for the army later on, so I just had those 2 mills for the whole game!

I agree with you that culverins are effective in fortress age vs cannons -not sure why they arenīt for Ceres-, but most times youīll need the "faster aging" politician.

I also agree with you on the fact that a good French dominates Portugal lol

Thanks for the info

After trying the strategy out more, for the occassion that animals aren't readily herdable back to the TC I send advanced mill as a first card instead of ATP, but as you stated it might be better to save it, build a mill and gain the XP from building it as well.

I'll test that out today.

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Hey I find them very effective, I'm soon gonna write a special section in my ports guide about culverin and wall usage. I just find being force to build both culverins and organ guns a massive drain on the economy.

Where does mercantilism come in? It is not always easy to grab the EXP needed to ship that 1000g crate in age 3 using alot of resource shipments in age 2. I would like to see how you choose your shipments into age 3, because it looks like your first age3 shipment would be the fort.

I like to see that people are still fighting for the ports, I hope ES does not change them around at all, they are difficult and definitely over matched compared to some civs, but hey, someone has to be the underdog.

lol ceres nice sig, reminds me of the time i was in a 2v2 and there was a clan that teamed up at the last second, then did a sling AND a native rush. So i started making dopplesoldners and they yelled at me that dopples are OP.

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They are too much an underdog. I completely outboomed a portugal boomer with british yesterday on texas. It wasn't even close.

I find Port superior to Russia somehow. Itīs not that Port is any good, but Russia just sucks all around, from minute 1 to the end of the game.

Ceres thats nice and all...I would rather struggle with the ports and win maybe 1 out of every 5 games but having to combat new strategies and testing new strategies is alot more challenging than out booming players or rolling over players because your civ is stronger. Winning the game does not always define a players skill in my opinion, winning the game is just one of the rewards. A reward for a port player would be effectively competing with a player of your skill with a stronger civ, and being able to adjust and adopt new strategies. If you don't like the ports or they are just too weak for ya, simply click your spanish, french or german homecity instead of saying the ports should be fixed.

isnt this strategy somewhat similar to ceres69?

Kudos on the build order and all the explanation though ceres69 doesnt have that I will add your info to ceres69 CBFI and see hwo it works.

It's a nice strategy and all, but isn't Ceres' Mercantilism Boom more effective for ports?

it all depends on whether you like to be on offense or defense. I think this is a really defensive strat, why do you stay in colonial?

A smart rusher will just keep trying to force you into your tc in which case they will just out eco you.

I didnt see anytihng about raiding which is a big problem.

if you are going to stay in colonial for a long time then you should either have the 2 military cards in colonial or build a stable and get 3 hussars.

Also you say your strat doesnt work agains half of the civs in the game, you should put somehting in their that makes it work against them.

I dont think this strat will work against ottomans or germans because if either of them see you doing this they will out boom you instead of rush.

WHat are your age times? if your fortress is anything from 15 - 20 then you have lost. I have seen this german merc strat where they have a whole merc army in 15 minutes and imp in 20 minutes.

The mercantilism boom (which I do use, by the way) is more effective in certain scenarios as is this in certain scenarios, like every other strategy in the history of RTS. This strategy is designed to stop hard rushes, which the mercantilism boom isn't really capable of doing because your TC will get dropped while aging up. And I don't really see any similarity to Ceres' strats here, could you clarify?

This is an anti rush strategy, not a FF.

And about staying in colonial: you want to spend as little time in colonial as possible, through the use of resource cards you should be able to age up quicker than any rushing opponent and with a stronger economy.

After more thought, I have made some revisions and will edit them in today along with possibly a replay if I can get any of my games recorded

It's working really well with a level 36 port HC quicksearching.

Flyboyzzz:
And about this not working against half the civs: you are incorrect about the CIVS but correct that it does only work on rushers. This is a situational strategy used to stop rushes.

If the ottoman/german pulls out of his rush, which will already put him at a disadvantage, he will not be able to outboom you. How would one autospawning otto TC or one german TC outboom two port TCs that sent resources instead of military/rush cards? This strategy does require a decent amount of economy management ability.

There is no raiding until age III. There isn't in the mercantilism boom either, but it's still a very viable strat.

I also think you might have missed the point of the strategy. If your opponent is going to FF, like you said the germans would do, you don't use this strategy. This strategy is for countering rushes.

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The proof is in the pudding though, this isn't just a theory, I've been using this on quicksearch against rushers for weeks and it's been doing wonders. I have not fallen to a rush yet, however I have made stupid mistakes in lategame that costed me a win

Try it out. If it doesn't work, tell me why. The only games I've lost with it so far were lost becuase I was outboomed - only a France player who I mispredicted and another port player I tried it on have done that.

Don't use it against a boom or a FF and complain to me that it doesn't work though

[This message has been edited by Echoic (edited 01-05-2006 @ 06:31 PM).]

With a little bit of deck peeking after the first shipment you can really determine if the ottos/germans are booming, then you can wait til colonial and pick a different deck. I have 6 decks for my port hc and all fit different scenarios. I still think you may manage to pull of a mercantilism from the 1000 gold crate moving into industrial if you make it that far. This strategy will help most port players since most ottos and germans will rush or give it away in their deck alot easier and most players struggle against the rush.

That's a good reminder, it's very important to check their deck to determine if they're going to rush, FF or boom. This strategy would definetly have troubles countering a full on boom or a FF, but if you can scout ahead and determine within good reason that it's a rush, it's a good idea.

For example, if you see no mercs/1-2 mercs in age III, only a couple age III cards, and native shipment, native tech and native warrior improvements in age II you can be reasonably sure. Variations as well, of course.

Edit: or always the classic giveaway, if you get a dummy who writes "native rush" or etc. in the deck name

[This message has been edited by Echoic (edited 01-05-2006 @ 06:51 PM).]

Well Ceres, I'm starting to get schooled using your mercantilism boom. I've got it down to almost exactly like your replay and get to fortress with mercantilism being researched in just over 7 minutes. Unfortunately, I've been finding more and more that a good rush just comes too quick and too strong for the mercantilism shipments to do much good.

I'll give this new strat a try I guess.

Epierce you should probably use this strat then would be better defensivly against the rush. OR what I tr xbows and save the shipment till age 2 and send the 2 military cards. Mercantilism boom is for FFs really especially agianst a spanish opponent.

Echoic When was the last time you saw someone put all their resources into destroying you in one hit? It never happens to me anymore to me. Usually they will just destroy what they can and force you into your town center. An ottoman rush will come at you when your 2nd tc is going up and if they see it it is gone. I only stated that it doesnt work against half of the civs because you did, you said its not optimal against dutch, russians,brits, and french. I want to know why it wont beat a french musket rush?

this strat wont work against raiders if there is no raiding until age 3. the optimal time to do a raid is age 2 which it will be done in by germans and ottomans. uhlans will definitly come in to destroy some villies and ottoman jannies/grenadiers will destroy what they see fit.

well if left alone ofcourse you wil outboom a german and ottoman, but if you get raided chances are most likely you wont. I am not just blowing all this out my a** lol, it might sound like i am being negative but I am not, just trying to tell it like it is.

I will only say that this will work on people who put all their resources into a rush, which real players dont do anymore. Only newbs do that and players who underestimate you which you will probably catch alot playing port.

I have tried it before, and no thanks i am tired of getting trounced with the ports, but how about I play my ottomans and we do a rec for your strat?

Epierce41 a mercantilism strategy is only used if you feel that the enemy won't attack early, basically using the mercantilism strategy you are risking the entire game that the opponent wont attack early so that you are able to minimize the most amount of resource spending on military by shipping in your units. If you feel that you are going to be attacked early or pressured alot early, choose a different deck with different cards to suit the strategy. I have decks for each strategy: a pure boom/mercantilism deck, turtle, counter-rush, etc, and I have even specialized the decks to more counter civilization units. An example would be throwing more counter infantry in for an ottoman, or more counter calvary for a german. I try to assemble the perfect strategy for my opponent before putting it into use. Try to make as many specific decks as possible, I don't think there is a limit on how many decks you can have saved.

"well if left alone ofcourse you wil outboom a german and ottoman, but if you get raided chances are most likely you wont. I am not just blowing all this out my a** lol, it might sound like i am being negative but I am not, just trying to tell it like it is."

The whole point of this strategy is to nullify the effect of the raid, so I don't see how them raiding would have them outboom you.

"I have tried it before, and no thanks i am tired of getting trounced with the ports, but how about I play my ottomans and we do a rec for your strat?"

Of course you'd roll over me if you know exactly what I'm going to do beforehand.

"this strat wont work against raiders if there is no raiding until age 3. the optimal time to do a raid is age 2 which it will be done in by germans and ottomans. uhlans will definitly come in to destroy some villies and ottoman jannies/grenadiers will destroy what they see fit."

Yes, it won't work for age III rushes, I stated that in my original post. And no, ulhans won't kill villagers because TCs one shot them. The whole entire point of the strategy is to nullify the raid and then use economic advantage.

"well if left alone ofcourse you wil outboom a german and ottoman, but if you get raided chances are most likely you wont. I am not just blowing all this out my a** lol, it might sound like i am being negative but I am not, just trying to tell it like it is."

Try it out, I can't really argue anymore. It works for me. Once again, if executed properly the rush shouldn't hurt you economically hardly at all.

Well, that's it. I'm done with ports. I try the mercantilism boom, I get killed before I can get 20 villagers out on food in fortress age (in just about 10 minutes), I try to defend the rush, I get destroyed. There's no way to win. I'm done with this civ until ES fixes them.

Ceres629,when will you be placing a replay on your portuguese guide for eah strategy?

lmao way to ressurect a dead thread....

did you look at the dates for those posts?

and sadly, ceres is gone, but he eventually did get his guide up.