I don’t understand why the Portuguese need a new type of cavalry unit to replace the Hussars. Fidalgo was just a nobleman, not necessarily a cavalry soldier, wasn’t it?
According to the description on Wikipedia, "The experience from the Roussillon campaign highlighted some gaps in the Portuguese Army, including the lack of light infantry troops. This led to the inclusion of a caçadores (light infantry) company in each of the infantry regimes and the raising of the elite Legion of Light Troops in 1796. This Legion was an experimental all-arms unit, that included an infantry battalion (occasionally referred as caçadores), three cavalry squadrons (occasionally referred as hussars) and a horse artill ery battery. "
If we need to make their melee cavalry a bit more decent in the late game, the easiest way to do that may be just a few new cards. For example, a card named “Anglo-Portuguese Army” or “Loyal Lusitanian Legion”, costs 2000 food, ships some cavalry (Hussars and/or Totenkopf Hussars), and some infantry (Musketeers, Cassadors, Rangers and/or Black Brunswickers), and also gives Hussars a bit improvement.
Ports are interesting imo a very fun civ to play. That being said my suggestions would be to change some of the naval cards for example carracks 1 of the most underwhelming age 3 cards in the entire game could give them 15% hp and something else like improved resistances or better fishing etc.
Naval infantry is also a useless card when you can just make a galleon for the same thing, make the card drastically speed up train time from boats and enable all artillery to be trained from boats or perhaps a mechanic to park a ship along the shore and units spawn slowly for free from the boat as long as you don’t move it.
I did notice they buffed grapeshot card in the patch notes so you don’t need to pack and unpack organ guns which is a great buff late game. The change to the church tech for blackriders is also good now you can mix in incredibly tanky blackriders in your goon mass.
I do think ports need a buff though, they remain the lowest win rate civ in the entire game and I think they should get their hunting bonus back in addition to the extra 50 starting food they received as it appears they don’t want to buff feitorias anymore.
This doesn’t answer my main question, which is why the Hussars need to be replaced with Fidalgo? They are neither more historically accurate than the Hussars, nor distinctly have more specific military background than Hussars.
As I quoted above from Wikipedia, “three cavalry squadrons (occasionally referred as hussars).”
Boyar is an existing unit that was not used to replace a better and existing option. Additionally, they also serve as homage to AoE2’s namesake unit to some extent. Somehow I wouldn’t consider these two things to be in comparable same situation.
By the way, Fidalgo is more suitable as the hero unit of the Kongolese civilization, because this term is exactly how the Portuguese called the Kongolese nobles who leaded the army.
Ok, what about literally all the other units? And let’s not forget that their Royal Guard is the Skirm which again is a unit that costs more Coin than Food.
And then you have the Nizam’s, that fulfill the role of a solid infantry unit in the late game.
You know what you’re partially right, I hadn’t fully done the math correctly and have already made some changes in the OP. Are they still too powerful now, or are they to your liking?
Also from the portuguese Wikipedia, in the page regarding “Hussars”: “The Portuguese Army NEVER had regiments OFFICIALLY named hussars.”
So who are we going to trust, a throwaway line from the English wiki or a line from the country’s language in Wikipedia which categorically says that Portugal, officially, never had a regiment of Hussars?
So let me get this straight: Fidalgo, a word in the Portuguese language, is not good enough to represent a unit in the Portuguese Army, but it’s good enough to represent a unit in the mostly Kimbundu speaking Kongolese army? Does this make sense?
I am not going to comment on the naval changes because my knowledge about the balance at sea is scarce…
Wow really interesting, Poseidon vibes from AoM, although it scares me quite a bit with Portugal…
This + so many minutemen would facilitate the defensive game too much
I like it, they would have an age II playable with a musk/cannoneers combo, even cannoneers + dragoons (age 1 card), with a good echo from 2 tc’s. It’s starting to scare me too
Not like this mechanics prevents enemy vills. Less with Portugal, can control map with free tc’s.
would this be viable?
Good, I like if add more historically asian/african native/mercs shipments.
Others ideas I post are:
New shipment 14 shotel warriors, cost 250f 250w 250c age II.
New shipment 8 naginatas vet or 7 yabusame cost 250f 250w age III. (Can get 2 times).
Some shipment of legion of “x” I like.
About Fidalgos replace Hussars, I need to think about it more… be a tanky cav (although it is high cost it can be a problem in treaty).
Good job, but probably the most problem of balance if is Portugal had a tanky heavy cav (most tank than hussar) trainable. Maybe I would balance it another way.
your 2 ideas for age 1 cards have a very good synergy with Portugal, I don’t know to what extent they would be viable, but in some situations defending yourself from an early aggression I see them as quite useful, perhaps too much.
In maps with few hunts you can get control of the map with a tc, and with the stone you could deny another hunt close to the enemy, and the game can be complicated too easily for the adversary.
Most units in the game do not have official historical regiment names. The naming method to units in the game is not rigorous.
Also, “never had regiments officially named hussars.” does not mean “no hussars or regiments with the same role”.
I reasonably reasoned that those cavalry regiments must have been close to hussars, so they occasionally can be directly referred to as hussars in English. Maybe they’re essentially hussars at all, just under other names.
If your new unit uses the exact official Portuguese term for those regiments or the English equivalent, and the term is recognizable, not something simple like “cavalry”, then I agree it is probably better than Hussars. However, if you choose Fidalgo, which has nothing to do with those regiments, or even has nothing to do with the military, then Hussars is much more accurate in comparison.
Yes it does, to some extent in my opinion.
In Portugal, the term Fidalgo is just a traditional title of Portuguese nobility, regardless of whether they have a military background or not. Maybe most of them never went to fight on the battle ground.
In Kongo, the term Fidalgo referred to the noble leaders of the armies.
You could argue that there might be a better native Kongolese term for those leaders, but Fidalgo is still a valid term as their name for being the hero unit in the game.
My suggestion/take on giving Ports something a little more unique:
Fidalgo
Hand Shock Infantry with x2.5 vs Infantry. AoE of 1.5. Effecively an ‘on foot’ version of a lancer.
Armed with the mighty Montante two-handed sword, the Fidalgos were gentlemen who led the charge against local forces during the age of exploration in both the Americas and Asia. In-game this would be a unique type of unit, by way of being the Shock Infantry version of a Lancer-type cavalry, with their role of rushing in and getting stuck in the melee. Appearance-wise they appear as fully armour-clad Men-at-Arms in Age II, gradually losing the suit for half-amour until the last upgrade which gives them just a cuirass as their only protection (aesthetic). If its felt too close to a Dopplesoldier (and it shouldn’t aside from a big sword!), just give him a ‘Carracks Black Sword’ (also called a Crab sword) and dagger
Mercenary version:
Aventureiros
The Aventureiro represents the often mercenary, Man-at-Arms-style soldiers (many of whom were Fidalgos) that arrived in exotic locales via Caravels and Nau, fought the resistance and sought plunder. Armed with the Montante, their role is to charge into the midst of melee as a shock trooper and disrupt infantry. As the Mercenary way, these units are tougher than their ‘standard’ counterparts and gain Coin (plunder) upon attacking buildings/ships (if close enough).
This avoids messing with the Hussars and it adds not just a Shock Infantry unit to a Euro civ, but one that is a (lesser) lancer-type.
if you cant actually train a unit it doesnt make sense saying its a lategame unit. at best you can send 9 nizams infitinite times, but that competes with infinite bombards and spahi which id argue are better.
its better that it requires a card, and the hp is more in line with that id expect, though id argue its probably too expensive now, id reduce it to say 130 food 75 coin, just slightly more expensive than hussars.
Fidalgos with Montante, Heavy Infantry shock unit.
“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.”
While shock infantry are going to be hard to distinguish at the best of times this would make it considerably worse. All the existing shock infantry units carry a light one handed weapon. Giving them weapons like spears or two handed swords breaks that form and would make them impossible to distinguish from units that are their exact opposite.
Not bad.
If with such kind of background Fidalgos can be a new infantry unit that does not replace existing units, then it would make pretty more sense than having them a cavalry unit to simply replace the hussar-like cavalry squadrons just because they were not named Hussars.
If we want things to be more accurate, units with one-handed swords, like Rodeleros and every hand shock infantry, probably have to be Hand Skirmisher, like Urumi, countering heavy and light infantry, but is countered by cavalry. That is how they really worked.
If they become shock infantry, it means that they as swordsmen will be countered by heavy infantry such as Pikemen.
I really wish we had unique caravels, ports are still one of the few water civs left and a small buff (like 5% hp in age 3) or make carracks card worthwhile plus unique visuals would really help them be more on water than “painfully vanilla but hey town center on shore!” Nothing crazy just a tiny bit to make vels less bad in age3 or 4 fights or vs chincha rafts
