put up your fort und and have a litte amry, and no port can bring you done before age 4 (where he gets mortars and heavy cannons).
organ guns suck against buildings, the only port merc that could bring down a fort are ronin, but you get only 5 which can easily can be focused by skirmishern or cannons.

port can boom much better than dutch, so be careful. if you give port room to boom and to reach age 4, you are dead!
do not try a turtle against port, try to get mapcontrol (not easy because of the towncenters) and make pressure in age 3 with cannons (but be careful with culverins).
you could also make a fast industrial, do not wait to long to reach fortress, put up your fort, go to age 4 and use your great shipments there.

[This message has been edited by Seelensturm (edited 02-09-2006 @ 01:49 PM).]

Or just send villy cards outboom them yourself and laugh. Specially as French.

What is the true weakness of Ports??

They have no strenght...

Most of port players will fall to a good rush... a good way to kill them is to lock them in their bases, get the map control, built + 2 TCs and outboom!!!

But a good port player knows how to boom even locked in his base... so the best way is to attack them in early Fortress with Falconets and Mercs

EDIT: By the game stats... he is not even a mediocre port player... he aged up by 5 min mark, by that time even a nerfed otto rush would have easily take down his 2nd TC...

[This message has been edited by Just a player (edited 02-09-2006 @ 02:05 PM).]

true weakness? you mean some of them arent real?

lets see the list...

slowest eco for first 7 minutes or so
worst age3 units line up
worst age2 units shipment
worst tech card selection
no siege in age3
useless UUs
lowest vil count by 7 minutes.

http://agecommunity.com/stats/GameStats.aspx?loc=en-US&GameID=163cb149-5c82-e543-a158-1ecdce3acae5&m d=ZS_Supremacy (copy and paste)

the problem with ports is that they are a broken civ. to boom from 2 tc's(and thus utilize portugals one and only advantage) you need 14+ vils hunting. this means you will hit pop cap pretty fast, so you will need alot on wood aswell. combine this with the need to make military to defend your booming, and you have a near impossible task. ports simply do not have this many settlers early on. if they FF, the effect is even worse, they need around 22 villigars hunting to produce constantly from 3 tc's. my conclusion is that portugals advantage is very VERY difficult to use effectivley without lacking alot in other areas (e.g. military) this is why ports are so suseptable to a rush, killing 2 or 3 vils in colonial allmost puts them out of the game!

dutch outboom ports with ease.

[This message has been edited by BloTo (edited 02-09-2006 @ 02:35 PM).]

Quote:

Listen to his guy, he know what he is talking about

Thanks for the info guys. To clarify I wasnt asking how to beat ports, I was asking why they sucked so much and why ES is thinking of only giving them a single settler as a way to balance them.

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His win percentage is just under 75%, with a 100% when using ports, so I doubt he is a mediocre player, probably above avg. You cannot base much on time alone, look at my age time 6:30+... you really think I would have waited that long before aging against a civ that i feared a rush from?

not getting Falc really hurts them....And if i remeber correctly there is a port bug that shows everyones win % with them as 100%....If its not all its some....I know Ive lost while playing port but I think it shows me as 100% also....

Quote:

1. ESO has a bug that always shows 100% win with Ports
2. The Guy don't know how to play with Ports and he's general win rate was boosted by the ES bug
3. Fear a rush from a port is pointless... so it is obvious you haven't feared a rush

[This message has been edited by Just a player (edited 02-09-2006 @ 05:13 PM).]

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actually the only thing port doesnt suck compeletely is outboom slow civs like dutch.

dutch has fatser eco earlier for it gets vil shipments, but as soon as port gets into age3, dutch will have a hard time catching up, besteiros + culvrin behind the wall turtle, pumping out 3 vils per 25 seconds, reach industrial in 14 minutes, when dutch is still having a hard time deciding whether to ship the 6th bank.

that guy aged to age2 with 19 vils!!?

[This message has been edited by ultimitsu (edited 02-09-2006 @ 05:19 PM).]

Actually Dutch have a max pop for settlers of 50 which can be reached far faster then other civs. The money they spend on banks is far less then money spent on 3-4 plantations + upgrades + 40 settlers, not to mention they are unraidable.

The reason I play dutch is because their economy is very strong + get 2 factories. I have a level 57 French and 50 Spain HC, and I find my level 27 Dutch HC's economy is very comparable, not to mention it peeks much earlier then other civs. I often find myself with a huge surplus of gold early on then I can mass falcons (7-10) easily.

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actually, i find the 8 350f 350w banks to be roughly the same cost as 3 plantations w/ maxed settlers.

but on topic, russia also has a crappy eco at the start, in the middle, and esp in late game as well. at least port has a chance to catch up. and dont forget that while port is doing their ff, they're still pumping out settlers from their second tp. while i agree they're still a little slow to start, they certainly aren't the worst much past getting to age2. keep in mind otto is going to have about 10 settlers at this point if they dont ship settlers. their eco blows even more goats than port AND russia.