Hey i think its sad that 2 sivs (italians and portugese) do exist wich are only interesting to play and strong on water maps especially since they have very unique architecture and some cool units. I think all sivs should be properly designed for land maps.
Maybe a monk Bonus vor Italians since the Vatican is in Rome? Or a small early farm bonus since italy had a descent farming eco in the early middleages. i could see somerhing like horsecollar available in the dark age (maybe heavy plow in feudal) and a free monk tech (fervor or sanctity) in castle age.
For Portugese i would suggest giveing them an extra unique unit just like the indian camels, a scaled down version of the hand canonier in castle age and maybe a slightly better one in imp and takeing away the arbalest (ofc. they would need to be able to research chemistry in castle aswell to unlock the hand canon).
Totally true, Italians should have something going for them in this aspect.
Besides that, Italians do actually quite ok-ish, they just suck against archers, which is a little problem, because usually even cav civs will open with archers. Which is a bit odd, because there were actually quite good archers themselves in history, which is reflected in the Genoese xB and when Rome was capured it was usually because of good cavalry, not archers.
Maybe a small bonus to their skirms, the roman traditional javelin, so they can initally hold against archers?
Portuguese ideed need something going for them. They need an early bonus so their gold discount can come into play. Also their UU sucks. Idon’t understand why only one shot does full damage, i’d expect a salve of very (.3) inacurrate shots. Because “missing” shots do already half damage, there’s no need to reduce extra shot’s damage further. Also the ROF could be even slower like 4.5, but more dmg. I also don’t understand why they’re so tanky, they don’t have any shown armor and you want them used as a ranged support. There’s no need to make them tanky at all. I think it should be the highest dps/value range support unit in the game, but hard to protect because it moves so slow and is quite easy to kill, at least with other siege. Because this is actually the only “special” thing portuguese have on land, they should be an important part of their composition, to give portuguese some “flavor”.
Portuguese are a bit decent after the recent buff. They have a very open tech tree, ans some cool things like no gold drush. A bonus would not hurt, but also a buff to the imp UT would fix them easily.
Italians are currently ome of the worst arabia civ in the game. Basically their are a top pick on water but they brutally suck everywhere else. A very bad design imo. Here there are several approaches to fix the civs. In addition they need a large reduction on the TT of their GC…
some proposals are around just a military bonus, to leave the water play untouched. As examples one of the following:
archers and skyrms get +1PA
archery range units can be trained also in barracks and stables
An eco bonus may affect the water play, so it is more difficult. A farm bonus can definitely work (since in pure water maps you fish). Otherwise, with a different eco bonus, you should nerf the dock tech discount to balance them on pure water maps…
portus arent decent at all.
They arent pick ever in any 1v1 tournament ever (some meager 5% doesnt change that, when arbs cost 1g less suddenly, etc.)
Their winrate ist catstrphic on any elo range in both teamgames and 1v1 on any maps even water maps not that outstanding. italians are atealst top tier water.
In teamrates ports are only picked for some extreme dark age rush tactics for their teambonus. they rly didnt work well in teamgame torunaments either.
Until the devs wont consider a proper rework of gunpoweder units or the portugese civ bonues, like a complete new bonus like turning tuetons into a cavalry civ.
Ports are only good for cheese feitroia wins in FFA or DIplo games and on extremely high pop modes. Most uncompetitive civ ever since its introuction (well shortly after actually with the aquebus nerf to the ground)
Even aquebus is bugged and devs didnt bother.
I will keep ranting about it…
They should get free bombard tower tech in imp after chemistry researched. Gunpowder units need generally bullet speed of 7 (fixing aquebus, same as arrows) and Jans and Conq could do with a slight buff here too.
THeir new early game bonus could be, every 5 minutes can train 1 free millitia in the barracks (4min in feudal,3 in caste, 2 in imp), similiar to cuman mercs. Accumulates up to 10 stored. This is so represent the “free” crusader support portugal got.
Actually Italians have the Castle unique tech wich gives thei’r archers Unique unit and skirms +1/+1 Armor. I think you’r right about the portugese unique unit but i don’t think its a good idea to have a siv over relaying on the unique unit.
Portuguese are currently by far the worst 1v1 land civ imo. Gunpowder is a joke, their UT is even bugged, zero teambonus, their UU is bad, and what stays is literally a mediocre economy bonus, which can’t do sht alone
Edit: didnt even mention the feitoria 11 (though can be potentially good in arena, but still a worse than avarage arena civ)
Tbh what they need
-2 completely new strong and early military or economy bonus
-their UU buffed
-arquebus fixed
Yes, they have this tech, but it comes usually too little, too late. Except of course your opponent is britons and goes for this silly here-come-my-t-w-o-h-u-n-d-r-e-d-longbowman-meme thing.
But you’re right, i forgot about this tech. I still think, they’re weak against archers. But in general they seem to perform ok compared to portuguese.
They got FU skirms, and they are weak only versus more specialized archers civ, like viets.
Their real weakness is that they lack any significant bonus, on land maps, cheap age up is quite small, and cheap gunpowder comes in too late.
To compensate for that there were a lot of suggestions:
40% faster training foot archers
+1PA on xbows and skirms + less TT on GC
free archer armors + less TT on GC
Italians civ in the game are more inspired by reinnasance cities like Florence, Venice, Genoa, not much about Rome.
It wasn’t that big of a deal, the influence of the pope is always exaggerated, the 4 maritime republics were the real Italians powers in the middle ages.
Only archers and GC, not skirms.
Portos are actually in a decent spot now, but yes they could use something else too.
Like italians, they fell too generic, and that is never a good thing…
Maybe a bonus that make their techs research 50% faster, it would work well with the gold discount and their open tech tree.
I considered something different. SInce their gold discount is global, maybe it would be usefull for them to have also a global tech discount, maybe not the chinese way, but still. So they could use their open techtree to outplay their oponent.
Still their biggest weakness is the early game.
An old idea was to extend the 15% gold discount to techs too, but now with 20% it’s would be too much.
50 faster researching techs instead would improve their archer and knights (immagine bloodlines, cavaliers, arbs, ballistics… all researched in half the time), though, maybe they would become too strong in water maps.
So maybe just 50% faster tech in military buildings and eco buildings, no TC and no dock (since that is persians bonus).
i tried Italians lately and thought that they have strong options getting fully upgraded light cav and cavalier. And to me the genoese crossbow is a very potent Imp unit sice with the extra pirce armor they beat other archers and the extra hp and 2 melee armor make them potent vs sige and the extra damage dose well against cav. i think they are very strong in Imp and maybe late castle when they have castles up and strong crossbows. But they get recked in feudal and early castle so hard that you barely get to the point.
What about making it possible to build a single feitoria in feudal but with pe 2x costs and 3x building time? (if in castle 1.5 x cost and 2x building time)
This would make them pretty unique, giving them the option for a very strong delayed fc all-in strat.
Yes their initial eco bonus is quite week, that’s actually what determines most, if a civ is strong or weak.
Portuguese are much better now. At least much better than Italians (and Turks imo, but none shows love for them). No gold drush plush archers cheaper than Mayans is at least a decent feudal age. Much better than the negligible +75f of italians.
In castle, Portuguese were pretty solid also before. The discount is applied to both the meta units plus all siege and monks.
In imp they have BBCs cheaper than regular trebs in gold, cheaper trebs as well.
They are stronger than Italians vs cavalry, they have better knights but weaker light cav. Way better siege (they have SE) and comparable archers. Probably the fix of the imp UT will make their HCs the top 1.
They are also stronger vs cavalry in 1v1: Italians are particularly weak vs cavalry since GC has a huge TT. To have a lot of GCs you need 3+ castles, which is a terrible design for a counter unit.
Still an early game Portuguese bonus would be appreciated since I have just compared them to Italians (which are almost a no bonus civ until imp). If you compare Portuguese with, say, celts, clearly they may get some small help…
I think Feitoria in Feudal or Castle is a bad thing not because of balance but because of “realism”, they would unlock this thing before they get trebs??? that’s some messing with tech that i think would be too far off.
due to hera portugese are just like italians in bad. Turks have a niche wehre they thrive in fast castle jenissary or in arena but port and italians have to few going for them except on water.
But now Portuguese are stronger. Still I agree with hera that the 2 civs are too similar. I would make them much different but people would not approve…
I agree, they need some work for their early game. Still this idea about feitoria came to me yesterday, at least the concept:
Historically feitorias has been trading post established at the colonies for commercing with the metropolis.
Since Feitorias see little to no use except in low elo unranked lobbies, and given how difficult to balance they have been, what about reworking them into a kind of market where you can trade with yourself? (with lower profits)
You wouldn’t be able to build trade carts nor research market technologies there but only serve to trade with yourself with a performance of, for throwing some numbers, 10 carts=2 relics.
I know what they need is exactly the opposite than a late game buff, but I liked the concept and its uniqueness. It’s lees automated than current feitorias and would mean an advantage in trash wars where gold is scarce.