Is Portugese now to OP? I have seen a lot of crazy 17 pop scout builds done with them. I also made a double stable 20 pop pre lumber camp rush with them (no Loom): New PP Rush: Portuguese 20 Pop Double Stable Pre Lumber Camp Pony Rush! - YouTube
and a double baracks 20 pop pre lumber camp rush with loom:
My question is does the wood from berries provide to big of a bonus now?
it’s not incredibly OP but Portuguese became the new Mongols/Dravidians/Lithuanians in the sense that they have an extremely aggressive early game that almost always forces you to be the defender.
Most of those civs become somewhat lackluster in Castle age (for example Lithuanians don’t really have a bonus here), but Portuguese only get better with their 2x Gold comp and stellar Imperial Age.
Portuguese buff was not needed and nobody asked for it.
Portuguese is a civ that remained wayy to weak on open maps for years, now that they are strong now need a nerf because they are effective here?
If the berry bonus is nerfed to be useless then I ask to nerf Mongol Hunting bonus to 33% faster working hunters.
Tbh Mpngols do have a much weaker castle age
I disagree with any form of “positive discrimination”, i.e. buffing civs to A tier because “they have been C tier for very long”. With the gold discount and the fast upgrades, they were strong already on all map types, except open maps 1v1 where they were below average, but still fine.
If the devs want to pump them up in the tier lists, I don’t like it but can live with it.
I wouldnt mind a nerf of mongols, and of any civ with more than 4% play rate in either RM-1v1 or RM-TG, independently of their win rate.
Then i ask for the portoguese to be nerfed into oblivion into every other map and settings.
Not every civ needs to be strong ## #### on open maps
Just want to share the stats for Portuguese on Arena 1v1:
If you go to like 1200 + elo they are in the ballpark of the other top arena civs. Wouldn’t go over about 1400 elo + as then the numbers are becoming too low to have a good accuracy.
If they don’t climb higher I think they are fine from a balance perspective.
I would have given them a different bonus (I would liked to see them having the ability to make one single Feitoria in Castle Age). But I don’t think stats show them to be totally overpowered on the ladder at least.
On Atabia Portuguese seem to perform average so far. Maybe Pros can already squeeze out a bit more of them, but it’s by no means close of being a dominative civ there. Statistics just don’t show this so far.
Quite a lot of people asked for it actually. Just wanted to mention that. I’m too busy with the R@W mod to care about whether or not it was strictly necessary, I just wanted to point out the fact that actually a number of people did want a buff for them.
People wanted them stronger on open and weaker on water/closed
I am not sure who those “quite a lot” are, I mean I don’t have strong feelings but Portuguese already DO have a combat bonus (cheaper units on Gold), and have one of the best tech trees in the game AND have a very good late game. Such a civ shouldn’t have a good early game also, else why bother with these civs with good early game and lackluster late game such as Malians, Ethiopians, Dravidians etc.
Portuguese better suffer in early game on Arabia because if they survive the early game it’s on the opponent to survive.
I’m sure there are people who want buffs to a civ like Poles also but we should perhaps analyze the subset of “reasonable people”.
If I remember right there is this weird Civ “Lithuanians” which fits this description already…
Also Gurjaras and Bulgarians are’t too far from that either.
But I agree that Portuguese feel a bit overloaded with bonusses now, esecially as we have so many civs now. They fall in the same Ballpark as Franks with a good eco and strong military options
I personally would prefer if civs had fewer bonusses with a better identity
Please before making this implicit claims, look up in the statistics if they are actually true.
I see currently no evidence for Portuguese vastley overperforming on Arabia. At least not in the Elos where we have sufficient numbers.
Lithuanians is pretty mediocre across the board after the Dark Age bonus which 80% of the time is used for a Scout rush which is very easy to quick wall out. Their late Feudal is very average with only faster moving spear/skirms, their Castle age is very vanilla with only faster moving spear/skirms and Relic bonus IF you pick up the Relics (which will always be contested vs Lithuanians and is also very predictable because it means you open something like 1 TC Monastery single Stable single Archery Range.
Sure their late game is good (by no means best, here too civs like Poles/Turks outshine them and probably even Berbers/Mongols so I reckon they are top 10-15 here?), but you need to get there.
I just don’t think a “Gunpowder civ”, which happens also to be an excellent water civ, should also be a good Arabia civ, because then we are just creating a Poles 2.0 (civ that is universally good basically everywhere).
Portuguese are a late-game civ, or a closed map civ. It seems that AoE2 is balanced around different civs being good on different maps. Specifically, water civs like Vikings or Dravidians are average at best on Arabia. Closed map civs such as Turks or Bohemians are also average or below on Arabia. I am not sure why Portuguese should be good on Arabia, they are an Arena/water civ, Arabia is a map designed primarily for civs like Berbers/Mongols/Khmer/Mayans/Ethiopians anyway.
sometimes statistics are useful, and sometimes it’s people who just need to “get gud”. Statistics don’t tell the whole story because there are all sorts of statistical biases, and also sometimes the learning associated with a meta shift is also unaccounted for. Further, different civs have different skill floor/ceilings (example here Mayans who after Archer nerf have 50% winrate on Arabia, yet are systematically picked as top 4-5 Arabia civ in tournaments). I think statistics can be a good starting point but should not be the only parameter in judging.
Right now there is a nasty 20-pop MAA → Archers build going around that also has a fairly fast Blacksmith. You use Berry bonus, the cheaper on Gold bonus, and overall I am getting tired of these people who learn a BO and execute it in my elo (1600-1700) with so many civs that it gets tiring learning them all, most of the times if you repel their initial Feudal attack they are trash after, but those initial 3-4 min they just flood MAA and Archers your way). I don’t mind the game ending in Feudal, just it’s tiring when in my elo (and in other elos) it’s ONLY people playing Feudal civs. It’s always Mongols Mongols Franks Khmer Ethiopians Goths (lamer) Portuguese. I’d like to play a game in Castle age too (where incidentally I’m also stronger) but it seems these Feudal civs are also the most popular.
Scouts I can deal with those are pretty easy but we don’t need more “fast Archer” BOs those are obnoxious to play vs.
I can’t share this conclusion.
I don’t like your approach to assess certain sivs need to be bad on certain maps, just because of their “identity”.
And if you look a lot of civs already are strong on maps that don’t fit their role.
Spanish, Gurjaras, Poles good on arena. All cav Civs.
Maybe you should become better at the game your own before you make this kind of claims.
And even then, your arrogancy is just… not working in your favor here.
Most people in this forum aren’t 16+
if a civ is good on every map, there is no reason to have civs like Turks, or Bohemians, or Dravidians to begin with. You are being unreasonable.
so now sharing an opinion = arrogance? Ok. I think the game should be balanced around high level. You disagree and that’s fine. Historically, most games that balanced around casuals, died faster than games that balanced around top level. Regardless, statistics has its merits and its limits, it’s not true that “low winrate => needs a buff”. Sometimes people need to “git gud” and I don’t mean it in a toxic way, I was actually referring to 2500+ players when I wrote that. Just to give you an example, at first Poles were considered mid-tier. Even Hera and Viper put them mid-tier in their tier lists. Most people even thought their late game needed a buff “cuz they lack the last armor so they die to archer civs” (there was such a thread on THESE forums). Now it is unanimously agreed that Poles are broken because people learned to play them, hence their winrates rose also for example. tl;dr: winrates aren’t the sole piece of information one can have.l
Well if you want the game being Balanced only for High elo and Pro…
You should leave it to the guys who ARE actually at that elo range.
Maybe they Understand the things better, which make the game appealing for them?
Maybe they don’t even care about the civs Identity as long as they enjoy playing with it?
As far as I’m concerned, the guys who reach high elos in most cases aren’t idealists. They play the game as it plays out. That’s one of the reasons why they get to that elo.
sure I agree with this. Still, Portuguese didn’t need a buff on OPEN MAPS. Buff their late game if they aren’t good enough on Arena (or nerf Turks + Poles and you will start seeing Britons/Malay etc. again). Civ identity is relevant btw, sure it’s a loose notion but Portuguese most certainly weren’t intended for “Arabia”.
I think if I understand you right you actually don’t understand why portuguese got that buff.
As portuguese were good on certain maps already.
And I agree with that statement. I think other civs that underprerofrm on almost all maps should have gotten some kind of buff before portuguese. Like Slavs.
the winrates thing? The fact that even on Arena they are <50? Well easily explained, I reckon on Arena, people civ pick more, so if you roll Portuguese, some (say) 30% of your total games are vs Poles/Turks/Bohemians/Burgundians. So is it Portuguese too strong, or Poles too weak?
When you consider Portuguese you must compare them to a mid-tier Arena civ (let’s say Franks or Ethiopians), and here Portuguese are way better.
Or you just don’t like portuguese 11
You want them bad on Arabia and only “above mid tier” on Arena…
That’s silly… I think your argument is weirdly lopsided.
I think you should look at what civs are good/top tier on Arabia, half of those are way worse than Portuguese after Dark Age:
Mongols after the Hunt bonus are a fully generic civ with no eco or combat bonus (unless you tech into mass CA which is a weird choice or go Steppe Lancers which suck in Elite form). Sure their late Imp is great but literally everyone knows that Mangudai + SO/Mangudai + Hussar takes FOREVER to get going. So vs Mongols, until Imp you are safe pretty much if you survive the Scouts/Scouts into FC openings.
Mayans + Aztecs are considered top tier and Aztecs Imperial age sucks in general while Mayans is good only if you can get to 2x gold comp (same problem of Mongols of requiring multiple Castles and a bunch of techs)
Chinese are fairly bad in Imperial age and mostly win in Feudal/Castle age with their tech switches.
Franks are extremely gold-dependent, again, bad or average in Imperial age. Also in Imp their tech tree shows massive holes like lacking both Bracer and last Archer armor, or having worse than FU Light Cav, or lacking Siege Ram.
Khmer are very versatile and with a strong eco but also most of their units aren’t FU, unlike Portuguese who have FU Cavalier, FU Arbalest, etc.
Hindustanis + Gurjaras miss whole Knight-line.
I just don’t see why Portuguese should be strong in Dark/Feudal when already in Castle age they can play one of the strongest Knight + Crossbow + Mangonel + Monks in the game (due to gold discount), in Imp they just have more gold troops due to, again, cheaper units (it’s basically the Malians bonus here that makes their gold piles last longer), on top of Ballistics on Gunpowder, BBC with SE, FU Light Cav, Arbalest, Halb, and one of the best UUs in the game. Portuguese are already good enough, it’s not even Imp where they start shining, if you enter Castle age on even terms as Portuguese vs any mid-tier civ on Arabia you are favored.
The only 2 civs right now I can think of that are strong in EVERY age are Poles + Burgundians, and we don’t want more of those “good at every stage of the game” civs because they make power spikes a meaningless concept.