changing the way ports play. many levers to reach 50% winrate, but civ should be designed around early interactions. buff/nerf crates and starting vills once playstyle is fun and engaging.
port age up 20-60 seconds slower in exchange for free tc. exiled prince replaced with sergeant (pikes).
logistician changed. standard age 2 military shipments are infinite and ship 1 additional halb, pike and xbow. halbs, pike and xbow +1 range.
gain 5 halberdier, 3 hussar, 8 pikemen shipments in age 2. lose colonial militia, 700 food and 700 gold.
700 wood replaced with card that ships 3 military wagons and increases pop space in tcs by 15. arrives fast.
1k gold/food replaced with 5 hussar and shotel ally shipment. schooners replaced with peacetime fishing.
team improved walls moved to age 4. gunpowder attack/hitpoints replaced with age 4 infantry combat.
order of tower and shield changed to shipping a consulate lancer for every x units lost, up to x. available age 2.
port could already play aggressive, they just nerfed the 10/10 build
If these changes were made to Portugal I’d stop playing Portugal.
Before suggesting ways to make Portugal play like a generic aggressive civ like most civs already are, consider why you would want to do that?
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sad 
obviously nobody told him that Supremacy 1versus1 is nowadays transformed in No Rush 10 !
most civs age before 7-9 minutes? very few civs play age 2 out, hardly generic.
you can’t stop ports from going to age 3 currently, that’s why.
Some of the most random changes I’ve seen
replacing resource crates and turtle cards for military shipments in age 2 seems pretty targeted for encouraging age 2 play. slowing age up likewise. there’s not a lot of ambiguity in the goals for these changes.
the question is why would we want to give a civ that can place a tc on the shoreline in age 2 schooners? why would want to give a civ that can get multiple tcs in age 2 colonial militia and 700g? how is it good design to have a civ that safely negates age 2 and rapidly moves to age 3 without a way for you to punish it?
they currently force you to go to age 3 with them. you cannot push into 2 town centers before they hit age 3. you cannot stop them or meaningfully slow from going to age 3. and most civs cannot fight their age 3 in age 2. they force you to play along with their game plan and ignore age 2 as well. it’s just bad design. just like age 2 haurica sniping all your buildings from the safety of the garrison.
their age 3 power spike isn’t the problem. it’s the speed and safety with how they reach it. slowing how fast they reach age 3 would make playing against ports, and the game in general better.
in the current meta you stay twice as long in age 1 than you do in age 2 with most civs. why would we want that?
Sounds like you’ve been smacked by some port players lol
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This is just kinda… nonsense.
When Portugal ages up to Age 2, the cost to keep economic production up, doubles. They have to find 200 food where another civ has to find 100. In early Age 2, Portugal either has idle time on one or both TC’s, or cannot produce military like a generic civ can, economic factors considered equal.
It takes a little while for the extra food invested into villagers to start paying off and turn into a clear resource lead. In this space of time, Portugal is BEHIND militarily, but after this space of time, Portugal is ahead economically.
While a civ like the US can call in 3 gatling guns at 6:36 mins every game without even consuming a treasure or idling the TC (tiny bit quicker with food treasures), in this space of time Portugal has to choose between either not using its economy bonus (idling its extra TC) or going up later. Likely quite a bit later.
While a civ like the Ottomans can count on their economy to build itself while they go 100% into military in either Age 2 or Age 3, Portugal has the yoke around their neck of having to find all that food from somewhere to utilise their bonus.
But an unstoppable FF on Portugal? Nah. On any land map, get up in their grill early, prioritise pressuring their hunts, you’ll either win for free because they don’t make military or they’ll idle a TC through necessity losing their advantage.
(On water it’s a different matter, Portugal is king. 2 or 3 docks and two TC’s makes an Age 2 which can topple many civs Age 3 just by raw economic weight.)
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you don’t have to make 2 vills at a time before you age up. you just continue making villagers while aging up with 2nd tc. this has always been true. you only make early 2/3 vills when you can afford it. trickle/tc xp help.
they are not behind at all. with treasures I’m aging up between 5:50-6:20. not physically possible to stop it.
you cannot stop ports from aging up this patch. you cannot slow them down. you cannot fight them in age 2. if you do some desperate haud/russian all in ship colonial militia. no rush can burn 2 tc while losing 1/2 units every 3 seconds this early.
there is no counterplay aside from going ff alongside them. currently true for some other civs as well. average player is much better than before at aging up early, lots of sub 6:00 age ups recently. age 2 doesn’t meaningfully exist at this point for a lot of civs.
you’re not defenseless either, in certain matchups you make hussars/muskets while aging.
if you don’t have a strong ff civ like Germany you can just resign on game start against good players. the worst type of meta when civ picks determine winner before game begins. this sadly has always been true to some extent, but it’s very noticeable now.
haud all in when enabled by treasure/map is toxic as well. gatekeeps certain civs and is one of those bs strats that stopped people from taking legacy seriously. just terrible rts balance.
aoe4 has more impactful and longer age 2 play. reaching age 3 feels more earned. much better game pacing.
I dont fully buy that this is the result of the trickle.
Its not a good going first card and if you want to go for a quick FF its also not going to be your going second card either since you need to get 700 coin as soon as possible in order to get the resources to get to age 3 as soon as possible.
ie going FF was always the play with port, your goal isnt to stop it, it never is. Your goal is to deal damage and intercept them as they age up.
The problem with them before was that they dont get much of anything by going to age 3 besides unlocking their units since their vil spam cost goes up linearly. Feitorias help with giving them a benefit for their age up but it isnt the thing that is allowing their age up to happen.
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Yes this. Port hasn’t suddenly got an unpunishable FF because of Feitorias. Port was always very difficult to prevent reaching fortress because if the 2 towns are close together you’ve got to deal with double town centre fire and they’ll send town militia as well. What civ can afford to stand and siege 2 town centres in age 2 while taking all that damage?
The best you can hope for is to idle them and slow them down and maybe kill a few villagers, that way even if they reach fortress you control hunts and they can’t easily produce villagers from their 3 towns.
tbh thats not the best you can do, the best you can do is w8 for the moment they get to age 3 and march in and take out the age 3 tc foundation
A note on the timing, that is actually the standard FF timing for most civ, since most FF you want to reach age 3 by about 7-8 mins. By this metric most FF are unstoppable
I don’t blame the trickle. colonial militia, schooners and 700g should never have been added to ports, and they need a slower age up malus. trickle just made it more obvious, though it would have been better as a tc eco aura so resources deplete faster and they are forced onto the map earlier.
it wasn’t a problem in legacy as ports were too weak. bad age 1 options, smaller herds, weaker eco, and far less xp. you can siege tp easily and it forced ports into the map earlier, now with tc trickle and big herds ports can hide in base so much longer and with better eco. bad design around card options is really starting to show.
this civ shouldn’t have access to ff or schooners because the free tc design prevents sufficient counterplay. they dictate the match every time and you have to play along. that is never good in a strategy game.
ff is indeed too strong currently, it feels like aging up in de is faster than legacy. window to punish is smaller.
Lol if you want to remove all that from ports then better off just deleting the civ.
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But half the things you noted are about the map rather then the civs. Those can change regardless of the civ design.
Its like saying otto are strong on TP maps, yeah they are but without it they are much weaker.
Port are good on water maps and maps with hunts, that has always been true, they were still even tourney viable for a period in DE because of that. That hasnt change.
We can always make lower hunt maps and that would make them weaker.
There are 2 counterplays, one is timing attack with little investment to prevent them from scaling, the second is to scale harder then they can.
I think Mitoe has demonstrated both of these counterplays against port, the timing one with china and the scaling one as japan.
Granted these are pro players but these are strats that people can do. Just because you cant force them to be in age 2 doesnt mean you cant win against them
edit: like this argument is like saying you cant stop russia from going to age 2 with a forward blockhouse so therefore they shouldnt be able to do that.
edit edit: and removing the shipments like 700g will also lead to other problems, say if you ever play vs china as port, without it china will just FF faster into 7 hand mortars and shred the base before port is able to get units out
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