Hello, since we were discussing if allied shared vision should become the standard in ranked games, which I atleast fully agree to (but its not the topic of this post), we would need to find a replacement for the Portuguese team onus, that is allied shared vision in dark age.
Lets just assume protigiese needed a new civ bonus, what should it be?
It would propose this:
Teambonus: gunpowder units get +3 anti ram bonus dmasge.
This will buff organ guns, hc, and bbt, technically also cannon galleons and bbc. These units will be slightly more effective against rams. About as good as arabalest, that have faster attack speed and accuracy which makes them slot better against rams than hc.
I think the current team bonus will not be changed in near future. How about let arquebus affect allies gunpowder unit. Plus replace 30% faster tech with stone-free outpost.
Imo the current TB of portuguese fits very well with the civ. On open land maps Portuguese would be one of the weakest flank civs tue to the lack of a good eco bonus or anything else special. The early vision gives a nice bonus to the whole team what compensates for that.
I also quite like the current Portuguese team bonus.
Team Arquebus sounds cool.
I think the Portuguese probably deserve a team UT more than Berbers do. I can’t be certain it wouldn’t be OP, but I’d love to see how it plays out. If it got implemented and then everyone played Portuguese in team games for a month and then it got reverted again, it’d still have been fun and good for the game IMO.
Trying to react to the actual OP:
“Teambonus: gunpowder units get +3 anti ram bonus damage” sounds ok.
It’s not OP, it fits the civ.
However, I think Portuguese deserve to have a good team bonus, since their core features aren’t very well suited to team games.
Free Carto in dark age is a good team bonus, and having a team UT could also be a good team bonus.
I’d love to see some kind of setting-specific bonus. Eg, the Porto team bonus is redundant if your settings allow you to see what your allies see anyway (with shared allied vision, no fog, or a feudal start with a market), so if you play with those settings then Portos get an “extra” team bonus.
For that kind of tweaking I think bonus damage isn’t suitable, and it’d be better for the extra bonus to be something like “all Portos allies start with +20 gold”. (But only if you’re not getting the free Carto advantage.)
I agree, I don’t expect any changes besides minor big fixes and optimizations for newer devices. This games development support life seems to habe ended together with the never delivered Roadmap.
The last months of no relevant updates speak loidee than empty promises.
My came to realise, my proposal is just helping it imperial age where gunpowder units are around and the rare janissaey, conq or organ in Castle age.
Maybe a early game bonus could help too, but then ports don’t have amazing late game power houses units anyway lacking all the good stuff for teangames.
Fascinating question! I think it’s particularly tricky because, outside of the teambonus itself, there is a general feeling that the Portuguese are both underpowered and lacking in an interesting hook/gimmick/strategic novelty. I’d love to see some work done on them, but I don’t know if the teambonus is the way to do it. So I am going to assume that the Ports are balanced and exciting already, and I won’t propose anything too radical with the TB.
Blockquote Gunpowder units get +3 anti ram bonus damage
I love the idea of this, but I do wonder how it would affect the meta. I know that rams are often used as an anti-archer unit. Are rams often used to shut down hand cannoneers? Even more importantly, are rams often used as a way to shut down an Organ Gun mass? (Off topic question: how do you guys deal with mass Organ Guns? They’re so annoying.) I tentatively like it.
Blockquote Outposts cost no stone
I really like this one, because as @TheConqueror753 says, it fits the exploration theme (and is therefore thematically similar to their old bonus). It also encourages the use of a perhaps underused and underappreciated building, which is great. Even more, if the Portuguese did go through a larger rework, maybe there could be some synergy built in with outposts and this TB? I do like this a lot.
My own off the cuff ideas…
A. Your first ship of every type is constructed twice as fast as normal.
B. University and dock techs are 50% cheaper and researched 100% faster if the tech has already been researched by an allied civ.
C. Villagers, fishing ships can garrison into docks (a naval version of the Khmer house bonus).
D. Your first trade cog costs no resources (early scouting, and an early eco boost in team games.).
I don’t think we can hope for any reworks of the underwhelming Portuguese civs anymore.
Considering your proposal.
Ports are already really god on water, and even shifting the team bonus in that direction is in my opinion not the right thing to do
That’s a fair point. The one type of map Portuguese are already strong on are island type maps, so they perhaps don’t need a new bonus in that direction. I still think the C bonus is pretty cool and would not provide them a significant advantage, but maybe another civ could take advantage of such a bonus.
What do you think about this bonus: your herdables are able to claim neutral herdables? IDK if it would fit Portuguese, but I think that could be a really fun bonus for open maps like Arabia. My only concern is if that would be OP on nomad maps?
Yes, last year I had been pushing these for portuguese together faster eco tech upgrades! I got my faster eco (and militar) tech resesrch speed, now it is the oupost turn!
As a teambonus, this would combo with the ethiopian one, but I dont have any problem with that (it is not an OP bonus)
Mmmm, how about outposts providing either population space or allow units to garrison into them?
If it were pop space, it’d have to be less than a house (e.g., 1 pop space per outpost). Otherwise, you’d just build outposts! Garrisoning is a cool idea, though I’m worried that it might turn the outpost into a defensive building inside your base that makes turtling very easy and raiding nearly impossible against Ports. Seeing as we’re talking about a rework for the Ports instead of a TB, we could think of something a little zanier… maybe a radius bonus like the Folwark could be interesting. E.g., units within the radius of an outpost regenerate health, or gain movement speed, or generate gold when they attack. Something cool.
Arquebus for allies…? Could you imagine what would happen if you gave Turks or Bohemians arquebus? This would be completely broken and removed in next patch.
First of all, I don’t think shared vision of team should become standard. It start from “dark age” and we need to explore the map and build market to share vision. Explore map by our own is one of core game design and I think removing cartography was also not necessary (Maybe it is better to exist cartography with minimal cost or even no cost. Sometimes “instant research” cartography by building market confuse new players.).
Also I don’t think ranged unit bonus vs Ram should be that prevalent among all gunpowder unit by certain civ. Civ don’t access to BBC or great monk (such as Chinese, Vikings) already struggle hard vs Portuguese or other gunpowder civ in Arena. Even Ram countered by gunpowder make that situation worse.
I see Conquistador/Elite Conquistador already got significant Anti-Ram damage (4/6) (I am not sure, but in AOE2wiki). Organ gun getting anti-ram damage same as Conquistador would be great for UU. But not for all Portuguese gunpowder unit.
Outposts HP dont increase at aging up as much as houses… Houses are safer for walling
However, outposts are faster to build, so I agree, population space fron outposts are a bad idea.
Regarding the garrisoning outposts, khmer already have garrisoning houses and it is not a broken bonus. Limiting the garrisoning only for villagers or military units could be enough
I wonder why most people think Arquebus is a strong tech.
It’s almost useless instead.
Aside from Cannon galleon we’re talking about 5-6% faster projectiles for gunpowder units and tower, nothing to write home about, and surely not OP as somebody claims.
The accuracy boost is negligible as well.
Honestly, I think Arquebus should be one of the civ bonuses, maybe even the team bonus.