Ok, since portos seems to be a littel bit underpower because, yes their gold disc. helps a bit everywhere, but to they lack a real powerful all in strategy to be viable.
Now feritoria and organ guns are powerful, but come in late, so hera my two ideas:
1 - They get stone mining and shaft stone mining for free. There isn’t a lot to say here, this bonus would help them a little toward their feritoria/castle (and OG) rush. Since those 2 are upgrades that usually are delayed in favor of other more important ugrades, having them right after aging-up would not only save a bit of resources, but if you have some workers on stones would also improve their gathering rate immediatly, making them more efficient (but still behind koreans and incas).
2 - This one is a bit more tricky, and to be honest, I’m not completely convinced myself about it:
So the idea is to giving them free ballistics (not sure if after bulding a university or upon hitting castle age). That would save them 300w and 175g, and would help their archers (which they already cost less gold). Of course there would be some nerfs to balance that out.
Their UT arquebus (that needs ballistics) have their cost increased by the equivalent of what they save so 700f+300f (the wood becomes food) and 400g+175g (1000f 475g), that way their gunpowder units wouldn’t be buffed at all.
This is to give the portos a windows of time in castle age when they can have a power spike, both on land and water. It wouldn’t be too OP, since sonner or later your enemy would catch up and research ballistics too, but in that time they could deal some serius damage with xbows and galleys.
On paper it’s 60s of researcing it (120s with the university) plus more time to gather resources, in practice it would be even more, since we aren’t machines and it’s probable that everyone have some littles delays here and there, this bounus would also make sure that you don’t forget about it.
Of course the portos would need only one of these bonus, however not sure about which they should get. Also this could be balanced by some other minor changes on their tech tree.
I really like the stone upgrades one, we already have mill, TC, lumber and gold(kinda) upgrades free. Giving Ports the stone bonus would help them for getting up castles and feitorias up faster.
Another idea is adding gold shaft mining to their tech tree.
How about letting them research university technologies with half the cost?
Also I think they need a new team bonus, since there is already a shared exploration option, it becomes useless in a lot of cases. Maybe +2LOS for fishing ships? Helps dark age fish searching and exploration by a lot.
True but they have good HC and FU cavaliers that cost less gold.
Still, it would be more than an adjustment than a buff, considering that it would come in late, and by that time, probably, portos would have feritorias.
Another idea would be giving them both bonus but nerfing something else, like their stables (no bloodlines or the last armor) or their barracks (similar).
The strength of this bonus is more about the time saved than the resources, 150w and 87g alone isn’t that much in castle age (50% disc. was an idea for the italians, but they already saved resources on age ups), the real power comes from denying your enemy the micro sooner.
Old italians already had that bonus (and now that come to mind, I’d like that they would reitroduce it for them) but it was substitute with the disc. FS because it wasn’t that helpful alone, for the portos to have it wouldn’t make them on the level of japs, italians or malay, nor it would really help them enough.
EDIT:
I post that suggestion on the discussion for the italians.
With krepost and less stone-costing TC that would be insanely OP to me. Portos need it more for feritorias.
It could be balance with worse stables/barracks, or with no arbs (to forse a bit the transition to HC).
That’s tricky, free ballistics would help them of water too (and caravels too), but for the caravels I don’t see how improve them without making them OP.
Free ballistics without Arbalesters? That’s a nerf, man. And Bulgarians have nothing going for themselves, except their kreposts (and a good m@a rush).
Not necesarly, they would have a good power spike in castle, and then HC with ballistic in imp, but i get it. Then they could nerf their barracks or stables, taking away bloodlines for example.
Both strong, and they have 50s TC, with free stone upgrades they could just spam kreposts.
Oh yes sorry, my bad, I misread.
50% disc. on uni techs and free ballistics could be a bit too much (they get everything minus arrowslits).
While only 50% disc. uni techs wouldn’t help them a lot.
Like I already says, it’s the time save on an upgrade that significantly improve your archer, that really makes the difference (similar to tartars free TR), saving resources alway help, but then you need something strong where invest them (a bit like Italians on land, where they save a bit of resources saved, but lack that strong punch to really use them well).
OK then maybe remove bloodlines and/or the last cavalry armor upgrade, making their stables worse.
It’s a helpful bonus in team games, but it doesn’t have any effect in 1v1.
A lot of other team bonus helps even in 1v1, still it’s not a problem, the Spanish bonus too doesn’t help in 1v1.
Do not see why. Outside of Arena, no one even plays with Feitorias anyway, they are just not viable, and take too long to pay themselves off.
If anything, they could even buff the Feitoria afterwards, though I would be against it. Feitoria is an Islands (not much Wood) or Arena option, nothing else.
It wouldn’t help them, they won’t be able to make more units (they still have another resources not discounted) or more techs, and they still lack something that make those units more powerful.