[Just for fun] Ideas about the Portuguese and Spanish

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

Hello.

This is a hypothetical imagination for fun, so don’t need to take it too seriously.
Just present this thread as a joke if don’t like it.

Portuguese:

  1. The UU changed to Navigator (or named to Explorer) to replace the long criticized Organ Gun.
    With a skin based on the AoE3 Explorer or mercenary Cannoneer, the Navigator is also a powerful gunpowder unit to maintain the identity as the gunpowder civ and the popular FC UU strategy.
    It also reflects the activities of the Portuguese in Africa and Asia, just like the Spanish Conquistador.
    To reduce changes, most of the Navigator’s stats could be similar to the Organ Gun’s, such as wide LoS, high attack, and slow speed. The Navigator’s projectiles could have a blast radius to mimic the effect of Organ Gun’s multiple projectiles.
    Due to the change from a siege weapon to a Hand-Cannoneer-like unit, it might have lower HP and higher armor than the Organ Gun, in order to maintain the weakness against the Mangonel as much as possible and maintain the quality against other units.

  2. Castle UT get renamed to “Navigation School” and also provides armor or anything else to the Navigators.
    I think UTs that only serve water tend not to be good UTs. Either it becomes a civ bonus or a team bonus, or it benefits land as well.

  3. Missionary can be trained.
    The Missionary would no longer be an UU, but a kind of regional unit for Spanish and Portuguese.
    Of course, the Missionary itself can get some improvements, such as able to collect Relics (the speed when carrying is the same as Monks) and so on.

  4. Caravel fires cannonballs.
    This is according to my another thread.
    What if Caravel fires cannonballs?

Spanish:

  1. Lose Heavy CA and introduce Jinete/Genitour as the new second UU in the Castle Age.
    Jinete is a kind of stronger mounted skirmisher unit that cost gold and have no minimum range. May have elite upgrades in the Imperial Age.
    Its button could be located where the original Heavy CA upgrade is, and its elite upgrade button is located where the Parthian Tactics is.
    The current Berber Genitour could be renamed to the more accurate and decent “Zenata Rider”.

  2. Gain Crossbowman.
    This doesn’t make their Archer line competitive, but makes their early game strategy more flexible.

  3. Bonus of the faster cannonballs of Cannon Galleon changed to free Elite Cannon Galleon upgrade.
    This is totally my personal choice. I can’t always get used to the cannonballs of Spanish Cannon Galleon that are much faster than others, and I also think the free upgrade will be more practical.

1 Like
2

This is the name of the regular knight in spanish. 11 There would be some confusion there

3
  1. Is this a reskin that make OGs feel more like Janissarys? From the way you described it it sounds like it would reduce diversity.
    I feel that if the Portuguese UU is overhauled they should get an expensive UU (Siege Onager /BBC or Elephant cost level) to synergise with their Feitorias.
  2. I agree the Portuguese water UT should change (either that or they should lose their ship hp bonus), but UTs that only help the UU feel a bit bland.
  3. & 4. are fine. I don’t see the point, but they’re fine.

Spanish:

  1. Why not just give them actual Genitours?
1 Like
4

I think that a “Navigator/Explorer” UU sounds a tad weird. I’d choose to name that UU something like Aventureiro, Knight of Christ or Fidalgo instead: they’d be a sword weilding infantry unit that could fire a Berço cannon at range as long as it can “unpack” like a Trebuchet. There are other possible choices for UU for Portuguese: Conto Crossbowmen, Acobertado, Espingardeiro, Acontiado, Quadrilheiro, all better than the OG imo. I feel that something like Navigator sounds way too generic for a civ.

1 Like
5

I think making Genitour their regional unit is a better idea.

1 Like
6

Oops. Let this UU be named Genitour then.

The Navigator can be expensive as long as it have pretty good stats. As I stated, I want it to remain similar to Organ Gun in some parts. the Navigator can be pretty expensive, high attack, high armor but slow, having a blast radius and not easily easily converted (to mimic that converting a siege weapon requires more preparation), which should make it different from the Janissary.

I stated “also provides”, meaning it is not only provide armor to ships like how it works now but also something good to the Navigator.

For the 3., I think that these two civs have one identity in common that no other civ has in common, that is, exploration and colonization activities. Having the Missionary as the regional unit and the Navigator and Conquistadors as UU is a way to very much reflect this. Also, maybe give the Missionary more chances to be used, maybe.

For the 4., I think it was explained in that thread.

This seems like a fairly complex mechanic and gimmick, which seems hard to create, hard to balance and is not what I am aiming for here.

Put aside that there are other quite generic names in the game too, such as War Elephant, War Wagon, Camel Archer, Plumed Archer, Axe Thrower, Rattan Archer, Ballista Elephant, etc. I admit that I don’t necessarily have a satisfactory understanding to the Portuguese, so any better name is welcome. However, I think Navigator (or Explorer) is a good name indeed.

The Portuguese are of indelible importance in the history of navigation. The progress, contributions and achievements they had made in this field are unmatched by other civs. In the 15th century, the Portuguese established the first navigation school, leading the world from the Late Middle Ages into the Age of Exploration. In Civ6, the Navigation School became unique to the Portuguese. In AoE3, the Portuguese Explorer improvement card is just named to “Navigator”, and only the Portuguese have the “Navigation School” card to strengthen the navy. In my opinion, the Navigator (or Explorer), being the name of a Portuguese unit, has a good historical flavor and is easy to be familiar with at the same time.

As a kind of mercenary, Zenata Rider fits as a team bonus well, like the Italians, so let’s just keep it and give the Spanish a new one, which may like the UU they had been assumed to have in AoC.

Unlike the Spanish, the Portuguese did not seem to have such a military tradition.

For reference, there used to be a card for AoE3 Portuguese just named “Genitours”, which seemed to have been criticized for being Spanish rather than Portuguese, and was renamed in a later update.

7

I don’t know about that last part, but is it really that hard to make? We already have both the Ratha and Trebuchets, so the coding would be similar. I also don’t see how hard would it be to balance: have it be weak against siege and mass archers (especially cav archers) in “Melee” mode and weak against cavalry in “siege” mode but have boni against infantry and buildings and I think it would be decent. You could then make the Organ Gun a shared Regional Unit with the Italians and Burgundians, I don’t think it would be that broken.

I’d also would be up to renaming a lot of the other generic names: War Elephant into Sassanid Elephant, Camel Archer into Tuareg Raider, Plumed Archer into Holcan Archer, Axe Thrower into Francisca Axeman, etc.

First off, the first sentence is wrong: Portugual had an extensive military tradition as most other European nations at the time.
Secondly, Genitours were just as Spanish (Jinetes) as they were Portuguese (Ginetes). Hell, King John II of Aviz’s Royal Guard was known as the “Guard of Ginetes”. The reason why that AoE3 card was changed was because it was A) a pretty generic name and B) it was used to describe a more medieval unit rather than a Late Modern Age cavalry unit.

8

Why? What possible benefit is there to changing these recognisable and self-explanatory names to things that obscure and overly specific or inaccurate?

(By the way, the Franks’ unique unit is called Throwing Axeman, not Axe Thrower.)

9

Hi, I am back to this thread.
After months, I have a few new thoughts.

I still want a foot gunpowder unit and make it symbolize the overseas exploration and colonization of the Iberian kingdoms like the Conquistador. Considering @YolkyPage166’s idea above, I have a new idea for the new UU.

I name it “Navigator” or “Aventureiro”. It would look like the AoE3 mercenary Cannoneer, using a firearm mounted on a tripod, but here firearm on the tripod is a small cannon like culverin or swivel gun (berço). Trainable at the Castles and Feitorias.

It is a kind of Siege + Hand Cannoneer unit with a range of 7 and an attack bonus against buildings and ships, and its characteristic could be one of the follows:

  • The bullets can cause have a decent blast radius to hurt dense enemies, like the statement in the original post.
  • The bullets can cause damage to multiple enemies in a straight line, somehow like a gunpowder Chakram.

Different from the statement in the original post, it does not need to pursue the effect close to Organ Gun in terms of stats to increase the flexibility of design and to distinguish them better. In particular, the Organ Gun is suitable as the new UU for the Britons if there is an opportunity for the Britons to replace the Crossbowman and Arbalester with the Longbowman and Elite Longbowman as unique upgrades, since the British used this weapon for the first time in the Hundred Years’ War.

No Change.

For now I will name it “Spice Trade”.
Ship and Navigator/Aventureiro armor +1/+1, and allow the Feitoria (and Caravel if it become an Imperial Age unit since it could fire cannonballs) to be available in the Castle Age.

The Portuguese don’t have to be able to train this new Genitour. Firstly this is to make up for the Spanish losing the second UU, secondly it could avoid the two civ from being too similar, and thirdly the Portuguese already have a good Archery Range with the gold discounts.

I currently don’t think this unit can have 0 minimum range or have the elite upgrade, as long as it has decent stats.

Arguably the most desired items.
The introduction of Crossbowmen paired with Fletching line’s free gold should help them quite a bit in the early game transition, especially when they’re hard to get a Castle.

1 Like
10

Caravels are junk. Give them gunpowder attack similar to Hussite Wagons. Also cheaper, faster, and weaker (sorta like a gunpowder Longboat). This, I think, would be more historically accurate.

11

Best idea for Portuguese is make the Caravelle an armed trade ship like it can trade with other players docks but also be used to shoot other ships when attacked. Maybe even give a toggle button like the Ratha so it can switch between being a trade ship and a warship.

1 Like