Guide to Portugal

By micky_tee, 1/16/09, TAD v1.01a, Author’s Rating: 2200+

Back

ESO name:
PR: 37
ELO: ~2200

Putting my stats there so hopefully you will actually read this for the reasons I am writing it. One thing, this Guide will sound condescending, maybe even arrogant, because I am assuming that I am better than you all and I am going to try and teach you how to play the most difficult civ in the game.

First of all, I am not going to write down BO after BO, because contrary to what you might believe, following BO’s down to a (micky) tee will not win you the game. If you can’t accept this fact, don’t bother reading on. .

My reasons for writing this are simple, I used to be like many of you, well, nooby, I admit it, however I’ve recently broken into the top 100 players in the world and would like to give something back to the community where I was a noob and learned from players better than me.

If you are still reading this, then I will write down a few things about Portugal, the idea is to turtle until you have the economy to outspam your opponent, or on land maps, until you reach the third age where you can make use of great dragoons and maximise the 3 TC benefit to the max.

I will be providing recorded games of me, as well as BO’s. There are only three BO’s that I use in the whole game, however each split off into freestyle at a certain point.

My first, and most common, is the 5 huss semi ff. The reason I do this is because if you FF and someone makes 5 huss and goes FF, they basically make a mess of your FF time. I do this most times verse Euro civs. The reason I don’t do musks is because once I age up I immediately have a stable to exploit goons, which we will cover later.

5 Huss Semi FF BO

1. 13/14 vill age up with 400 wood
2. 300w/ATP-300 wood if you started with 100 wood, ATP and chop 50 wood if aged with 200.
3. 5 on coin, remember, huss cost 80 coin and you need 5, so that is 400 coin + 300 to age with 700 coin shipment.
4. rest of villagers on food
5. 700 Food shipment
6. 700 Coin shipment

Variation – 10 huss semi
600 Food after the coin
go fast age to save 1:20

Remember most Euro civs will make huss, if you outmicro him and have more huss, you can harass more, plus fast age up if he makes more

If you don’t do 10 huss semi…

Age with 6 cass if you think you can, otherwise fast and get the TC up and start pumping goons.

Cards to send in age 3

1. 5/4 goons,
2. 8 cass,
3. 2 Organ Guns (once you have goons)
4. 1000 coin/5 mams,
5. goon combat,

in no particular order, always have these in your deck Raid with goons and keep 2 OG alive whilsty booming from 3 TC. If you aged with 6 cass ship 8 for 14 cass maybe.

From this point on it all depends on what you have to do, I can’t tell you what to do since every game you must make your own decisions. That’s why the civ is so fun/hard. Example in a Portuguese mirror.

15 Musk Semi FF

Recording Here

15 Musk variation, not going to cover that, because it was freestyle, but worked well verse Sioux. Got 4 vills from him whilst keeping my own for an economic advantage.

Pure FF

Recording Here

Here is a pure FF verse french double xbow. The only other strats I do are ones on water, where I hardly ever go FF. There is a game verse Damnit in which I do a schooner semi ff verse Spain. Here it is, I will explain the BO.

Schooner Semi FF & Pike semi FF verse Japan BOs

Recording Here

1. 13/14 age up, 400 wood age up
2. Schooners
3. Gather 300 coin, Rest on food
4. Gather 400 and make a dock,
5. 700 wood, second dock + more boats
6. 700 Coin
7. Decide on which age up benefits you most.

    

The same build order can be used verse Japan, changing schooner boats to pikes and using 300 wood/ATP as first card.

Go 700 wood if you think he won’t rush you and attack his shrines with pikes, if you think he will go 700 coin and age and make pike with xbow if needed, but better pikes and attack shrines. Use 6 age up cass, make cass, ship 10 pike + 8 cass and push into his base. Keep pikes alive for as long as possible then ship goons + make goons and use 1000 coin for Organs after 2 OG card.

The game is Here. Read the comments for what I did wrong.

The only other water strategy I do is the basic water boom:

Standard Water Boom BO

1. 13/14 age up, 400 wood
2. Schooners
3. Wood heavy on age up, if you think they are FF’ing go for schooners semi ff
4. Verse most rushes make one deck and one barracks and make 5 xbow a time with enough pike, and make 2 vills a time and constant boats.
5. 2 Caravels, 700 Wood, 8 xbow – one of these has to be your second card, if they age early and you make your TC by water they could use their 2 caravels card to kill it, so to defend it use caravels of your own. Plus on asian maps you can gather treasures! 700 Wood to help with your boom unless 8 xbow is urgent, if not then 8 xbow next card.
6. Age up when you can safely with 700 coin, make use of walls if not Outposts.
7. Go stable on age up and try to make Goons with arsenal upgrade and card. TC fire + MM should deal with inf, along with 2 Organ Guns, cassadores from age up + shipments. Goons are also great raiders.

Record Game

The link above is another Portugal Mirror if you are interested.

5/10 Huss Semi With Fast Mamelukes Verse Dutch

I did this verse Mayh3M and almost won, however being Christmas Day and a few drinks, I was not able to outmicro him enough and finish him off. I was in his base but couldn’t do enough damage to take it down. On the first fight he had skirms and ruyters, whereas I had mams + goons and won easily.

Basically, 5 huss semi and age with 6 cass. Keep cav alive as you want to stop him from raiding you, but don’t be afraid to raid if you can do some damage.

1. 6 cass age up; however, go coin heavy.
2. As soon as you age ship 1000 coin and make goons, but keep enough for Mamelukes as soon as you get another shipment.
3. He will go skirm/ruyter, focus goons on the ruyters then use Mamelukes on the skirms.
4. Keep making goons, mix in some huss if needed, all the while using 3 TC.
5. Ship 2 organ Guns and go offensive if you can – but really they are needed for the skirms that will appear. After that, make whatever is needed, remember 10 goons with the Dragoon Combat card will one shot kill a vill – exploit this!
6. When you can, get the arsenal upgrade too.

Dragoons

Dragoons are a sick unit, in early fortress they actually beat skirms, skirms do not counter goons as well as they should in this patch; however, this will be changed next patch as players like myself and a few other experts can win solely by making goons (Nadoz rec, first link). Goons in melee > skirms. They also do decent against muskets and can hit and run pikes, and rodeleros to an extent, provided there aren’t many of them.

With the upgrades they are also decent at killing artillery, they beat huss well and if you hold off your enemy with pure goons until you can get mamelukes out, you have a force to be reckoned with, add in 2 Organ Guns and you have an army that could end the game, definitely change it.

If you are interested in more recs search “micky_tee” in Player/Provider.

I think I have covered all of my strategies, feel free to ask questions/criticize me, and you can reach me on ESO (micky_tee)