I like the idea of wooden outposts, but not for Portuguese. They are the only civ with infinite stone, so saving 5 on each outpost wouldn’t be noticeable.
Trees containing 100% more wood then as a civ bonus?
Don’t forget Carrack with +1/+1 armor for ships (strange that the high HP ships and the high armor ships are both from the same civ). They also have the Caravel as a UU, which is situational, but still a navy bonus. One could also argue that their tech research speed and arquebus (more accurate cannon galleons, not that they’re typically used against units) also affect their navy.
By my count that is 7 bonuses to the Portuguese navy, 3 which have no effect on land maps.
- 10% HP
- Carrack armor
- Gold discount
- Feitoria (infinite wood and gold on islands)
- Caravel (scorpion of the sea)
- Arquebus
- Faster research
I’d happily take a slight water nerf for a land buff. IMO they don’t need both ship armor and ship HP. That would be like Franks getting Hauberk for their high HP Paladins, better to spread these bonuses to other civs.
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Looks not problematic at all for islands 
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Exactly what Byz do (more damage and more range on the same ship)
I adressed that too.
So does the Viking eco bonus, the Italian cheaper age-up, the Korean wood bonus, ect
You said it yourself it’s irrelevant so why bother?
Also it’s all cool and dandy to list the civ’s advantages, but what about the downsides?
- no shipwright (it’s a huge deal)
- no fast fires
- no early game bonuses
That would be like if Celts had stronger siege weapons that are built faster and have more HP, or if Turks got free stuff for their gunpwoder and more HP and faster build time, etc…
5 stone on each outpost can be quite impactful in earlt to mid game and may delay TC and castle. This is basically an early bonus
Replace all of Feitoria’s resource into wood too.
- I’m running out of wood. I need to finish this game quickly.
Portuguese : I don’t get it.
No that is not the same thing, those all have different effects. Name a case where one civ has both armor and HP bonuses to the same unit. Both affect survivability, and AFAIK they are split in every other instance (Spanish vills possible exception). They’re too similar, and you may as well just increase the magnitude of one if you’re going to have both bonuses.
I mentioned Franks and Sicilians with Knights. There are also Eagles with Inca armor or Mayan HP, Elephants with Burmese armor or Vietnamese HP, Siege with Teuton armor or Celt HP, Cav Archers with Tatar armor or Turk HP, the list goes on and on.
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Wait you were speaking about bonus stacking and now only bonus that do the same thing count? Anyway it’s fine as it allows the Portuguese to have some advantage in the early game because, you know, no eco bonus on water maps is really rough, and then having armour locked behind a unique tech let them have a good late game without making it too easy to reach. Also all the HP bonuses you mentioned are better than +10 HP, and only one of the armour bonuses is +1/+1.
10% ship HP is usually more significant than the 12 HP Franks get over generic Paladins with Bloodlines (6.7%).
I agree that the early ship bonus is more important than the Castle Age UT. No preference whether it’s HP or armor that is given for free since the start, but maybe the UT should be reworked to something else. Then a new civ, or an existing on the underperforms on water could have whichever bonus is unused.
Alternatively, if they receive an early eco bonus then they wouldn’t need a Feudal navy HP bonus because they wouldn’t be falling behind, and still benefit from 20% gold cost reduction before Shipwright is an issue. In that case the UT could be the only ship survivability bonus, whether it becomes something like +1/+2 armor or +15% HP. It should be weaker than the combination of the two current bonuses, but can be stronger than either one, assuming Portuguese get some type of early land or eco buff.
Idk, there are a lot of options that I could get onboard with. I just don’t like that they are being kept one of the weakest civs for open land maps just because they have a long list of mediocre water bonuses.
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Ma proposal was to change Feitoria into only providing food and gold for various reasons (also only 1 feito allowed so your “infinite” ressources are “limited” if this makes sense at all.)
Both Portuguese HP and Armor bonus apply to all of their battleships, the number of which is 5. Byzantines bonus and UT is for only one unit. Also Portuguese has the highest number of battleship in game as they are the only civ with a unique ship but no generic ship missing. Vikings and Koreans don’t have fire ship line and demo ship line respectively.
True. Their late game navy mostly carried on by Feitoria. I think even this building is removed, they would still remain top 5 water, maybe not top 3.
Most important part. 11
A thing that always bothered me is that aggressive early/mid game civs sometimes have even defensive bonuses that would be more suited for those civs that excel only in the lategame.
Take Mayans for example with -50% wall cost, do you really want to wall up and turtle yourself with them? If the game goes to late imperial I don’t think it would be a smart choice.
Then you have Lithuanians, which is probably the BEST drush civ, which is a very good way to be in castle before your opponent, what’s the point of faster spears and skirms?
After that Franks come with 25% cheaper castles. I mean, they already have good economy, very good castle age, do they really need castle discount as well? It’s not even historically accurate as France was not the country with more castles (which was Germany), nor the most densely “castled” one (which was Wales), nor the first country to build castles (which was England).
On the other side we have civs like Spanish, Portuguese which would desperately need an early bonus to get to that Castle/imperial age, not necessarily an economic one. For instance, the cheaper walls would surely suit a slower civ compared to the Mayans.
I know some bonuses are to reflect history, but history is VAST, devs can think something else more balanced, imho.
What if Portuguese palisade costed 1W and stone walls 2S? And if Spanish could build just walls 100% faster? Overpowered? Useless?
I’d like to see defensive bonuses for slower civs.
Devs really nailed it with Byzantines counter units discount.
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I suggested before to give access of fortified palisade wall in feudal age to mediterranean civs, Portuguese, Italians and Spanish. Not sure if it is suitable for byzantines and sicilians. Byz automatically has higher HP wall while sicilians is hard to counter in late game. (unless bonus dmg resistance reduced) its fine for some civs to be more viable in walling.
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Sicilians and Byzantines imho don’t need defensive buffs, the first because with 100 extra stone in theory it could even stone wall without much issue in feudal age, the second civ already has discount on counter units, so imho only Italians, Portuguese and Spanish would need that.
That’s a very good bonus which is even a Team Bonus for a very very strong civ for no reason at all. I think this one can be given to a different a civ and potentially break the bonus into two - Palisade wall vs Stone wall.
This is to help them in the mid game. They may reach Castle faster than a lot of civ but after that they won’t have much except the relics. Faster trash helps them to get those relics. They are completely useless without relics and without this bonus I think they will have less number of relics on average.
It was fine back in AoK (maybe still questionable as no Halb) and AoC. Now they are the #1 civ for over like 3+ years now and needs a nerf. Removing this bonus is one of the suggestion.
I think overpowered. % values are too high.
And more HP for buildings.
I think they are alright. Not the greatest civ on land maps but better than Portuguese in both Arabia and Arena (unless 5 Feitoria goes …) imo.
I think another problem with Portuguese is that their boni are too generic. What do I mean by this? Count how many of their boni has “all” written on them: all ships +10% Hp, all units -20% gold cost, all techs researched 30% faster. With them being so generic, the civ ends up feeling like it lacks an identity: it’s a gunpowder civ whose gunpowder pales in comparison to other gunpowder civs (Spanish, Bohemians and Turks). That was one of the reasons I got frustrated when Ports received fast research, because it did nothing to give the civ an identity, it just continued to be bland.
5 Likes
I like that there are civs that have many different options.
The same I like that there are civs with very limited options.
Thats what makes it interesting. To have so much so different types of civs.
But even “generic” civs like Malay, Byzantines and Chinese (hell even Persians to an extent, though I do believe they also need something else to make them less bland and UP) get boni and UT that only affect specific units, techs and buildings: Malay get cheap Battle Elephants, trash Militia line and cheap, long lasting fish traps; Byzantines get Fire Ships that have extra range and faster attack, cheap Camels, Skirms and Spearmen line and a unique tech specifically for their unique unit; Chinese get extra Hp on their Demo ships, extra pop and line of sight on their TCs, a tech that exclusively buffs their UU and Scorpions and a tech that only buffs walls and towers. Portuguese only has 1 UT in the Imperial Age that gives them gunpowder that is more accurate, that’s it.
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Cheaper units on the gold front, ships get more hp, and faster tech research