Portuguese water bonus reshuffle and land buff

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

Currently I see a big problem with the Portuguese balance.

On the one hand they have finally become a top tier water civ seemingly competing with Italians and vikings,as they should.
On the other hand they are still the worst Arabia civ besides burgundian accros all elo proven by statistics.

Portuguese can’t be buffed further in ana way affecting water, since then they become oppressive and broken on water.We have seen this with Italians, whose water tech discount has had to be nerfed in order to buff them on land.

So here is my proposal A to go forward:
A1. Remove the 10% ship hp bonus
A2. Increase caravels hp by 10% to keep them unchanged
A3. Buff the caste age UT carrack to give additionaly to +1/+1 armor also +1 anti ship bonus damage armor.

With A1. We nerf them on feudal age, they Stil got cheaper Gold cost.
With A2. We keep the caravel same as it doesn’t need nerfs.
With A3. We partially give them back the hp, and also increase the value of the tech.

Alternative idea B:
B1. change the castle age UT (+1/+1) to my Carracks Black Sword proposition below (milltia line +1 damage +1 meele armor)
B2. And change the ship hp bonus to +5/+10/+15% in feudal/castle/imp

Maybe some further fine tuning, but the idea is to slightly nerf Portuguese so that there is room to buff them again.

Some buff ideas for land:

  1. Give squirres

  2. Can train 2 free militia in feudal age, 3 in castle and 5 in imp, Somiliar to how cuman merc work.
    The bonus is inspired by crusader who showed up in history and helped Portugal in the reconquista. (Don’t confuse this with sizilians first crusade UT, the mechanic is compeltely different and no uints instant spawn! Best compared to ethopians)

  3. Let organ guns extra bullets true damage of 2 be not halved, similar to what tge arambai got changed to, also remove the minimum range from elie organ guns.

  4. Turn aquebus into a civ bonus: ballistics affects gunpoweder units
    under the hood this just makes it so portuguese unlock aqeuebus automatically by researching balllistics (requirres chemistry, to not unbalance castle aghe organs) Add a new imperial age UT that helps portugal only on land.

Example UT idea: Carracks black sword, grant millitia line +1 meele armor and +1 damage.

The buff ideas 1-4 are meant to be read not as a group but each by itself. i dont no ask for overbuffing portugese and adding all of these.

Maybe relevant, the HC discussion but even buffing HC wont sunddely make portuguese anygood.

Those people saying, ports are fine, I would kindly ask to look at the 52% winrate again, only burgundians are slightly worse.

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Also Winrates:

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Wrong website futherlime The dude that assesed winrates updated the charts

You knew that aoestats is outdated and that we were just taking about the recent statistics on the other post.

Why try to derail on purpose?

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The current winrate (since LotW release) of Portuguese on Arabia is 42% (1200-2600ELO range).

That is to low.
I don’t really understand why though. Cheaper archers in the feudal age or cheaper knights in the castle age should be very useful…

Perhaps buff this:
Loom cost reduced to 40gold

This would let them build 3 Militia without taking any gold.

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5

Good idea, that should not affect water balance, too!

A bit similar to the goth bonus thought. Isn’t this a weaker copy? Or was it aztec? Can’t remember.

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Goth = Loom researches instantly
Aztec = start with 150gold

Yes this would be like a weaker version of the Aztec bonus.
However, Aztecs are still one of the very best Civs on Arabia so I think it’s a good direction to do something similar to buff Portuguese on this map…

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I would give them just this, the other nerfs and buffs aren’t necessary.

The other small change would be to buff the faster researching tech from 30% to 33%.

It may seem nothing, but it allows to save 25 seconds from wheelbarrow (instead of 22), which is exactly the time of training a vill.

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8

I think this is way to minor to really change anything.

I mean how big of an winrate change can we expect from this.

The tech bonus effect didn’t really have a large impact, it is almost not notizable in the winrate statistics. Buffing that from 30 to 33% is very minimal. Maybe a 0.5% winrate increase at best.

Actually not sure how big of a deal squrres could make, would really improve Portugiese Infatry come imperial age and they woild be FU, let’s say 1% winrate effect.

42%+1%+0.5% isn’t quite the minimum healthy winrate 47%, I would want to achieve eventually.

I like the suggestions, just disagree on that alone would fix anything.

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9

I just realized my suggestion is useless as Portuguese can already train 3 Militia because they only cost 16gold :sweat_smile:.

I think “Loom 50gold cost replaced with 50wood” could make sense. It gives them a lot of flexibility on Arabia but does not help them on water maps.

“Start with 250stone” could also be an interesting bonus. You could defend from an tower Rush with 2 counter towers and shut it down right away. Or build 1 counter tower and still be able to afford an extra TC once you hit castle.

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10

50 Wood instead of 50 gold is a nerf in many Situation.

You need that wood for farms.

was thinking about a stone bonus as well. Had in mind something like receive 75 stone on each age up.

Some dude in the other thread pointed out that the stone bonus seems random and has weak historical backing, thought.

It would not be broken on land, as incas and Frank’s (and Maja for walling) have way better stone bonuses.

But could make them even better on islands as you can sell that stone or boom easier, or tower on the shore line. This might tip the balance.

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11

Perfectly squeeze in a vill more isn’t a small nerf, and this 3% more affect all techs, which simply makes the bonus more solid overall.

Not much, portos are already not that bad in arabia, and they don’t need to be top tier.

This is definitely not how win rates should be read. Winrates give us a perception on how much a civ is effective in a certain map, but not all depends by the civ itself.

Portos are simply difficult to play on arabia.

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12

No, let Porrtuguese be a Water civ, it is natural taht it is so.
I do not want to play Ports on Arabia. Arabia is not the whole game.

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even if we didnt have the new stats from that random dude, porto has one of the lowest win rates, the patch wouldnt improve this because it didnt affect them, it only nerfed the stronger civs and helped others, but porto would still be just as bad against everything else or worse…

because its only gold… could be wrong here, but it doesnt help that much in feudal, unless you go archers, meaning you are forced to go archers, not skirms or scouts, if you dont you get almost zero civ bonus, and even then its less than what mayans are getting, your archers are weaker than ethiopian, you’re paying more food (the important one) than even korean(the armour tech), and they’re also discounted etc

and when castl age kicks in, food is still more valuable for the kts, so although its helping, its not helping as much as other civs bonuses

but dont get me wrong, im also surprised the win rate is that low im just trying to work out reasons why…

and finally… they lack hussar and their pikemen are slow. meanign their raiding is weaker, and their defensive halbs are much easier flanked. their trash in general has no eco support, unlike other civs with less than optimal trash

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Ports got zero bonuses in dark age,

extremely minor ones (on land) in feudal with small gold discount on archer and militia which is much worse than other civs.

In castle they got a OK unique unit and the gold discount is okaiysh but s worse than other civs (Maja, goth, Berber) , Jack of all trade helps not much.

In imp the got no siege ram, siege onager, heavy scorpion, hussar, paladin, heavy cav Archer, no filly upgraded champions or halbs. They do have fully upgraded no combat bonus arabelest with a discount. And a unique unit that is expensive and a cost efficiently disaster against imperial units like paladin, onager or hussar spamn.

Lastly the unique techs aren’t especially strong, and feitoria is more a meme unless islands.

So even in imperial age ports are far from being a powerhouse without a single power unit.

A civ without strengths. Why wouldn’t it be the absolute worse (on land) ?

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um, saving 20% gold on units means they can drush more effectively.

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16

I want to play Portuguese on Arabia, they can do anything, but there are better civs. I only hate Sicilians and Burgundians in gameplay perspective. Sicilians at least have good parts in their gameplay.
Portuguese are fine on Water.
Italians and Vikings out-eco Portuguese, so it’s logical to have them as a lategame civ. Caravels are great, but they are the best in Imperial Age, Vikings don’t lose instantly in Castle Age.

Actually Portuguese are boosted on closed maps:

  1. Orjan Guns barely can be countered - They easily kill Mangos (not in Imp), Monks can’t convert them by default. They have great armor vs Archers
  2. Monk+Siege push is very cheap
  3. Fast Imperial Monk+Trebuchet rush - I think Portuguese have the most insane Monks in the game, 20 gold/Monk is a lot. They have wide Monastery tech tree.
  4. I guess you could make Feitorias on Arena, not always, but they are definitely more viable on closed maps than on Arabia
  5. Their Bombard Cannons and Gunpowder are really strong against Infantry+Siege Onager civs

About TG-s:
Portuguese are a great Flank civ on open maps, until late Imperial Age. They miss power units, like Rattan Archers or Siege Onagers
On Closed maps as Flank they can do the same as in 1v1 Arena
They are above average as Pocket, but I wouldn’t pick them here.

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Yeah you are right, it’s something. Overlooked that since I never drush myself.

I really think this is were Portuguese should be buffed, like that cuman merc style free crusader help militia bonus.

a limited drush/m@a boost as a unique game plan.

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Portuguese is a Water civ, and that is where they belong.
They are also a decent Archer or Siege + Monk civ, which makes sense, because of the Gold discount, but I would not want to sacrifice any of their Water power, to become a better Land civ.

It was done with the Italians, and they still suck on Land, and now are weaker than Ports on Water.
Do not redesign Ports!

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I agree with you, Portuguese are fine atm. I’d only love a general HC buff, Elite Orjan Upgrade cost buff or something minor and Squires.
If I could pick a mid-tier civ to play 1v1s I’d probably pick Portuguese and Vietnamese.
The Drush bonus is great, but I prefer M@A, because I like to push 2-3 deer instead of Scouting early.

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20

I know you disagree on this, but I Do not think the huge water power gap between Portuguese and let’s say Bulgarians is healthy for the game.

Yes, water civs should be good on water and be picked here, but nerfing the current top water civs slightly to narrow the gaps without changing who is top might make more civs playable in more settings and reduce frustrating instant resign cases for players

randoming Bulgarians on ilands against Portuguese is as much of a problem to me as randoming Portuguese on Arabia against Frank’s.

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