Portugal Rework: Suggestions

[VicKestrel]

For a while now several suggestions for reworking Portugal were made, due to its somewhat historical innacuracy and bland design.
Since several Civs have now been touched upon, I will take this oportunity to bring up several suggestions already made, so that it might inspire the devs to make Portugal more flavourful.

[Suggestion] Portuguese Explorer

It is my intention with this suggestion to make some gameplay changes to the Portuguese Explorer, to make playing as Portugal a bit more unique, while maintaining an historical aspect that the Portuguese civ lacks on AoE 3 DE. But who were the Portuguese Explorers? First and foremost they were men of war. Looking at the most famous names, like Vasco da Gama Duarte Pacheco Pereira Antonio Abreu Lourenco de Almeida Rafael Perestrello Afonso de Albuquerque Francisco de Almeida They were …

A more accurate and balanced Portuguese civ suggestion

-Remove RG Dragoon , Pikeman, and all Cavalry cards (except Riding School) and replace for RG Halberdier (Aventureiros) + Age 2 and 3 Crossbow + Halberdier cards. Portugal never really used a lot of Cavalry, or had well renown Cavalry regiments, as the geography did not allow it. Dragoon cards also make much more sense for the British, which had their Mounted Grenadiers. Though Pikemen were used, it was mostly for continental warfare, while Halberdiers were much more used in the Colonies, sinc…

Portugal: Historical Referencing

With the historical referencing done on the native civs, it would be a good chance to revise some of the European ones, in this instance Portugal. Without further ado I shall start with the Explorer. The Portuguese Explorer should not use a ranged weapon, in fact most Portuguese Explorers and Navigators were members of the Order of Christ and Santiago (Portuguese Branch), which was under royal power, like Vasco da Gama, Afonso Albuquerque, Francisco de Almeida, just to mention a few famous one…

[MagnoGardino]

É meu amigo talvez se Portugal fosse um país anglo-saxão, ele receberia atenção e correção necessárias.

[VicKestrel]

Não tenho duvidas nenhumas…

[TiptopBoot76715]

Agree like the turkish, the spanish it needs to change.

[FiveWind6951746]

We’re getting tweaks via a few new cards, not full-on reworks.

[VicKestrel]

For example i consider turning longbows into rangers via card more than a tweak. Same as the battleship.
Its pretty big additions instead of this card send you an extra cow.
Anyway the links provided inclued a lot of different suggestions, from tweaks, to light reworks.

[FiveWind6951746]

Aw. I had more drastic changes in mind like changing the royal guard unit to the halberdier instead of the dragoon, getting rid of the organ gun, etc. Stuff like that I can’t see happening as it would disrupt the meta too much. I’ve read those threads and there are some great ideas.

But who knows, the beauty of cards is they can be really creative and they’re all optional. I’m just glad Euro civs are getting updated. It’s gonna take quite a while since it’s only one civ per month so patience is required. We’re still early in the process.

[VicKestrel]

Please do share! Im always interested in new ideas.
Edit: Jonoli had a few good changes:

@JonOli12

-Remove RG Dragoon , Pikeman, and all Cavalry cards (except Riding School) and replace for RG Halberdier (Aventureiros) + Age 2 and 3 Crossbow + Halberdier cards.

Portugal never really used a lot of Cavalry, or had well renown Cavalry regiments, as the geography did not allow it. Dragoon cards also make much more sense for the British, which had their Mounted Grenadiers.
Though Pikemen were used, it was mostly for continental warfare, while Halberdiers were much more used in the Colonies, since the weapons are much easier to tranport on ships, than the very long Pikes.
It would also be interesting to have another Euro civ, besides Ottos and Russians, that does not have Pikeman.
Having a core of Age 2 and 3 upgradeable units + the Falconet, would also encourage Ports to play the earlier Ages.

-Remove Organ Gun, replace it with Falconet, give OG to the Brits, as they lack Skirmishers and it is their weapon in the first place.

Really makes no sense why Ports have an English weapon from the 100 Years War, but since Brits already have Longbows, it would fit them a lot more.

-Remove Colonial Militia, replace with a new “Old Arsenal” card, that allows TCs to train Crossbowmen (requires Age 2) and perhaps ships an Arsenal Wagon.

This is a historical reference to the Siege of Oporto, when Napoleon’s legions surrounded the city, and gunpowder run out, the defenders opened the aging Medieval Arsenals and used Crossbows to great effect, fully managing to keep the French out, until the British disembarked the relief force.

-Replace several Mercenary shipment cxards with more appropiate African, Indian, Chinese and Japanse units, instead of the muslim units that Portugal did not actually employ. Remove Barbary Coast Revolution from Portugal, and give it to France, which at least controlled Algeria.

A lot of these are plain wrong. Portugal fought the Mamelukes and Barbary Corsairs, not ally them.
Instead, Portugal used numerous mercenary forces from elsewhere in Africa and Asia.
Replacing Mamelukes with Mahouts, and Barbary Corsairs with Ronin or Rattan Shields, would be much more accurate, and clash a lot less with what other Euro civs get.

-Change Logistician to Musketeer, Caravel and Culverin + 1 Range.

This would actually make Portuguese Logistician a choice for long term games, be historically referencing to a good degree (early adoption of Breech Loaders, alloyed ammunition for cannons, gunpowder overcharge for extra Range), and cover for Ports lack of Ship stat cards.

[SenorSmite]

I think getting rid of organ guns and RG dragoons is a good idea. It’s outrageously inaccurate so meta be damned.

[Opdepov]

Im all for giving the Portugese some love, but you’d do well to remain realistic. They might get a card to enable falconets but theyre not gonna outright remove them from the civ. Look at what the British got and move from there. A few new cards and some tweaks to old cards is what I’d expect from coming reworks.

[MagnoGardino]

Meu amigo, se me permite posso tirar uma dúvida: Ouvi dias atrás que as naus portuguesas estariam mais para galeões do que caravelas, isso é verdade? Se for ta aí mais uma idéia, um navio único português, afinal de contas no jogo a marinha portuguesa praticamente não tem nada de especial comparada à espanhola e claro à britanica.

[VicKestrel]

As Nau, e apenas um nome para navios de grande porte, nao um barco especifico.

Um navio diferente para Portugal seria uma Carrack em vez da Caravela, visto que a caravela nao e exclusivamente Portuguesa, mas no entanto os Ducth tem o Flyut.

[VicKestrel]

I agree. They are nonsense.

[VicKestrel]

I see where you are coming from but Portugal is in a dire need of change.

Imagine having the Japanese with a turtle ship instead of Samurai.

Or every faction has samurais, like almost everyone has caravels, which is THE portuguese unit.

Its fustrating to boot up the game and play with Mediterranean British.

[MechanicBark354]

Portugal needs cannoneers

[ArkadasLlisa]

What is the history of Aventureiros? Because I fear that they are brought here because total war medieval 2 had the “aventuros” (they had the name badly writting).

The aventureiros were mercenaries? Or they are just the portuguese “conquistadores”?

Changing the organ gun, the royal guards and so, although not very historical accurate would change too much their gameplay.

Mercenaries and revolution options could more easily be changed.

[YolkyPage166]

Aventureiros were an elite battalion within the Portuguese Terços.

[ArkadasLlisa]

I see, Aventureiros were a terço based on nobleman only. From AoE III, pikes and haldberdiers aren’t very used so I won’t ask for a excessive focus on them in behalf others portuguese features.

Ofc some kind of shipment with a mention to them would be cool, like the recent Reconquista card added to Spanish, but I won’t make them the core of the civ (also because it clash with Spanish and Sweden design)

[VicKestrel]

@ArkadasLlisa

What is the history of Aventureiros? Because I fear that they are brought here because total war medieval 2 had the “aventuros” (they had the name badly writting).

Besides the well know Terco of the Adventurers you also have, as i posted before:

@TalVheet

From the mid-15th century onwards, the lower and middle-ranking leadership of Portuguese expeditions and of the resulting overseas outposts were the fidalgos – gentlemen descended from the old knightly class.
Fidalgos, who were nobles, clad head to toe in an expensive full set of armour, always at the top commanding positions, and also formed the veritable “spearhead” of assaults. Most notably, they wielded some scary two-handed swords the Portuguese called montante.

They colloquially are conquistadors, but since its a conotation atributed to the Spanish, the community took to call them Adventurers, since they were joining the armadas for fame and gold, some even served as mercenaries across africa, and asia.

[Haveliko]

I don’t understand how Spain and Portugal don’t have access to this unit…