This is probably the very first mention that i saw of a organ gun in the ports arsenal. gonna have a look at that book. Cheers.
Berco was very popular and super common really.
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Just to add on the Portuguese cavalry:
The Portuguese Army
Forces were standard for the time with a mix of Infantry (Musketeers & Pikes ) and used the Iberian term 'ter çoâ (otherwise known as a âregimentâ), Cavalry (Arquebusiers & Cuirassiers [note: some foreign units were Dragoons ]) Companies (occasionally formed into âBattle Groupsâ (or âtroçosâ) & Artillery.
Infantry
Initially the Portuguese Forces were depleted militia and a new military organisation had to be built from scratch.
Ten new 1st Line Infantry Regiments were formed (further increased by another 10) which were supplemented by the same number of:
2nd Line Auxilary (Reserve ) Regiments and backed up by the:
3rd Line Militia units (made up of the rebuilt Ordenanças ), initially grouped into regional Companies of 250 men they were later formerly banded into 25 regional Regiments.
Nominal strengths of 1st & 2nd Line Regiments was 2,000 men split into 10 equal Companies. This is unlikely to be sustainable but the Regiments could be expected to attain a 60 - 70% of those figures, prior to battle casualties and perhaps lower during periods of active campaigning.
The split between muskets & pike is likely to be 2:1 with the Ordenanças being between 2:3 and 1:1 except the Lisbon Terços who probably had access to the better equipment and were organised differently to the other Ordenanças.
Cavalry
Up to 60 Companies of Cavalry (probably nominally broken down as follows):
25 - 33% Cuirassiers (âarmouredâ cavalry wearing a range of armour from full plate to very little - true Curiassiers being a rarity by 1641)
67 - 75% Arqubusiers (mounted âMusketeersâ using the shorter carbine - again to some extent a rarity in Central Europe by 1641)
It is quite possible that these two terms were both archaic & generic with a mix of armour & weaponry subject to the regulations laid down by Company Commanders, personal wealth & military booty.
Artillery
Artillery seems to be ad hoc formations but present in all battles. It also seems to have been well-led, trained and formidable (this could be partially due to the Iberian terrain where properly sited guns can be devastating - conversely poorly-sited guns can be virtually useless except at close range).
Foreign Troops
Foreign mercenaries were employed from the beginning of the War due to immediate shortages of available trained men.
8 x French Cavalry regiments
- 5 x unarmoured Cavalry
- 1 x Arquebusiers
- 1 x Mounted Dragoons (whilst they had mounts)
2 x Dutch cavalry regiments
1 x Irish infantry regiment
1 x Scottish infantry regiment
1 x Italian infantry regiment
Restoration War mid 17th century.
As noted Dragoons were mostly foreign units and Portugal used Curassiers and Mounted musketeers.
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Most of the Portuguese cavalry forces were Ranged Cavalry⊠I wouldnât mind renaming the Royal Guard tech for them again. I wouldnât even mind changing the name of the unit after a renamed âDragoon Combatâ comes in.
Then why bother making the civs different at all?
Lets all roll with winged hussars then. Its a horse and a dude at the end of the day.
Why not read the context?
The original post wanted a new heavy cavalry to replace the Hussar and use a noble title, Fidalgo, to name the unit. However he had no good references to explain why this noble title is suitable for heavy cavalry.
I said, if there is no good reason or reference to use this noble title for heavy cavalry, then we doesnât have to replace the Hussar with it. His only reason for the change is that Portugal never had regiments officially named hussars, but I think that cannot make it reasonable to the noble title becoming heavy cavalry.
And historically, Portugal still seemed to have cavalry regiments equivalent to hussars. Therefore, when those cavalry regiments are introduced in the English Wiki, the author directly uses the term hussar to refer to them.
My position is that if you want a new cavalry, please use some better names, such as the official Portuguese name for those cavalry regiments who are called hussars in English. If not, there is no need to make a change with another inaccurate term, since the change wonât bring the thing better. After all, it is not that this game cannot tolerate less rigorous naming. Since it is fine if it has not changed, it is not unfeasible to maintain the status quo.
On the other hand, the noble title is known to be suitable for the noble hero unit for Kongolese, as well as a kind of armored heavy infantry for Portuguese. They all have historical references for justification, so the title is more appropriate for them than for heavy cavalry.
With reference to other peopleâs suggestions, I now think:
- Heavy Cavalry: Acobertados, or Armoured Cavalry. High HP in age II, but maybe get only 10%/20%/30% HP improvements from the Veteran/Guard/Imperial upgrades.
- Heavy Infantry: Aventureiros
- Kongolese hero unit: Fidalgo
Long story short nobility formed the heavy cavalry, till much later on than in other places in europe up to 17th century.
Fidalgo just means Noble really, hence the proposition i presume. And this is high nobility.
Aventureiros were lower middle nobility usually second sons. Thats why so many overseas for money and making a name.
Not a specialist on restoration war and foward but couraceiro would be the name not hussar.
Its in portuguese but just translate the page.
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The main point I was making in quoting you was that the same defense seemed to apply to Dragoons.
As was pointed out 67-75% of the Portuguese cavalry were âmounted Musketeersâ sounds a lot like something that would get called Dragoons for the same reason that Portugalâs non-Hussar-heavy-cavalry would be called Hussars.
The naming conventions (especially of the original game) arenât that specific and the original devs probably wanted things to be simpler than having a bunch of units with similar stats and different names.
You have both the title Ngola and Manikongo, who are far better as names for a Kongo hero. You do NOT need to use a Portuguese word to describe a leader of the Kongolese.
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In the Brazilian translation, the TP is already called feitoria 
Could be renamed to âposto de trocaâ, which is the literal translation.
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Hussars were light cavalry mounted on fast horses.
Courassiers were the heavy cavalry were trained to smash enemy units on the battlefield. They rode big heavy horses, were armed with large swords, and wore a back and breastplate known as a cuirass.
I get it, you dont want ports to change. But the purpose of the thread is to propose changes.
It has some silly units and mechanics that could be changed for something that fits similar roles and its more flavourful.
Free TC? Make a Feitoria. An aggra fort like structure that attacks nearby enemies but trains villagers instead of troops. With the feitoria card it produces resources, making it valuable to defend.
Hussar replaced for courassier.
Aventureiros, and make the explorer an Aventureiro aswell. The guy in charge would be a noble and they would not be carrying a musket or arquebus.
Nau: The guys that developed Caravels and Carracks dont have a unique ship?
Berço cannon: same role as organ gun, because it was the same role. Anti infantry but more flavour.
Ordenaças: Upgrades Halberdiers.
Ill leave a link to one of my posts with bibliographic resources that i personally have. It covers mostly 15th and 16th century. I grow tired of having the same discussion over and over. This isnât a great representation of Portugal. It can be better, even without affecting the goon/cass combo.
Bonus pic:
Aventureiros were a thing!
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I remember itâs the title of the king, but Fidalgo are the nobles leading the army.
I think Fidalgo is still better to the name of hero, but I use Manikongo to name the card improving the heroes.
Then just call them Manis (read the second to last paragraph) then, since it also means anyone holding authority, which includes provincial and sub-provincial officials. Again, thereâs absolutely zero reason to use a Portuguese word when describing Kongolese leaders when:
a) it wasnât the language that the majority of the populace spoke;
b) it needlessly takes away from a civ that could use that word to describe a unit/hero itself.
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I wasnât talking about it regarding Hussars. @UpmostRook9474 made a good point regarding the naming conventions used in the game. You said the Portuguese didnât make significant use of Dragoons and then said 67-75% of the Portuguese cavalry were mounted Musketeers armed with Carbines (sounds close enough to Dragoons when a game uses a loose naming system).
You are right, I donât want Portugal to become unrecognizable. At least before you seemed to be advocating a âfull reworkâ that would turn them into another Musk/falc civ.
Iâd be fine with some changes and have pointed some out in this thread, but I guess if I donât want my favorite civ fundamentally changed into something totally different than I donât want anything changed.
A new ship sounds cool. And I donât see it as a massive balance upsetter so it really has no downside. (and yes, considering the side effects of suggested changes is a good thing).
Iâd like to see some kind of explorer buff. French got +1 ranged attack and faster building TPs. Spainâs dogs are already super strong so one would think some kind of small buff would be possible. Iâd be curious what rough stats youâd suggest as it could be interesting. Sounded like heâd be a melee explorer which could be interesting, and Iâm not sure if Iâd be for or opposed.
I liked some of the card ideas from up towards the top of this thread, though I was cautious on some of it because making a lot of large changes all at once is asking for something to be OP and everyone to start complaining and nerfing things. I wasnât a fan of some of the original unique unit suggestions, mainly over balance concerns, though, I like my organ guns because theyâre fun units and the addition of another cannon seems like something the anti-organ gun lobby would use to try to remove the organ gun (later in this thread replacing the organ gun would come up so I donât think the concern was unfounded).
If youâd make the Berço cannon behave similarly to the Organ Gun (rapid fire, similar stats to the Organ Gun) then I wouldnât mind. I like the way the unit behaves, Iâm not really attached to things as surface level as the name and look of the unit. Just make sure it looks cool of course, though the devs seem very good at that so probably a nonissue.
I wouldnât mind swapping the Royal Guard Upgrade from the Musketeer to the Halberdier (as I mentioned earlier). It might even be a slight buff since Halbs make a better front line. And I donât really see a small buff to the Portuguese halbs being game breaking.
I also wouldnât mind charging the name of the Dragoonâs RG upgrade or even giving it a unique name after one of the upgrade cards comes in (though charging the RG name would probably be best to reduce complexity for newer players).
Iâd be careful charging the melee cav significantly as I think it represents a significant balance concern, though itâs possible it could be balanced. As of right now I feel that given the good artillery, great Dragoons, good-great Skirms, and decent heavy infantry that giving them strong heavy cavalry would cause issues imo.
In that case it should be renamed to Archeiros (even if thatâs confusing lol). Iâm not a Portuguese history specialist but I canât imagine where Ensemble got âordenançasâ from.
Edit: I found out: Ordenanças - Wikipedia (no mention to crossbows tho)
But I did find a group called âbesteiros do contoâ. I think thatâd be a better name for RG Xbows.
Edit 2: apparently theyâre a middle ages thing instead: https://ler.letras.up.pt/uploads/ficheiros/14103.pdf
Honestly, I think the Portuguese should just get a tech or card that replaces xbows with a firearm unit, like how Brits get Rangers.
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They grabbed ordenaças directly from Wars of Liberty, lol, where we made them really, extremely trashy pike units.
I still donât get the logic behind not having them as a separate unit, like sure it was just a designation for Militias, but I consider militia to be a perfectly valid unit name to begin with. ÂŻ_(ă)_/ÂŻ
I think SirBarnzy1 is onto something here, I thought it was common knowledge that most of the oddball artillery inventions Portugal used were mostly as power multipliers in their international adventures going around Africa and the Indian Ocean, but from what everybodyâs writing here it seems people are just bending over themselves trying to make the civ be exclusively themed after their European wars which⊠were few and far in between, so no wonder yâall are struggling so much finding unique unit names, lol.
Campino is a serviceable name for a hand cavalry unit if needed (although seriously, why not just keep the Hussar?)
As per infantry, well, depending on how edgy you wanna get you can go all the way from Ultramarinos (which would be, just colonial marines, nothing particularly controversial given the setting), to Praças (name is more associated with Brazil but they come from Portuguese Africa conceptually) to Chikundas (Iâll let you google up those ones).
I know Portuguese mercenaries come up a lot when reading about period military history of the Indian Ocean, so Iâd look more over there. This and this articles may be good starting points.
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The Ordenancas that we are refering is not the Militia type of the restoration war, but the âOrdenanca a Suicaâ from the 16th century, professional halberdier soldiers trained by veterans of the Italian Wars, that were used heavily in the asian front, not european.
On the colonies Cavalry was only used for comand and messenger service, it was non existante, hence you need to look to what was used in europe and north africa for names.
Aventureiros again were a fundamental part of the Armadas to the east.
If anything Portugal in the game is depicted heavily european on its composition.
You even have a cool equipment description on the second page.
Again about Ports Cav in the european front context as they werent used in the colonies.
And yet it was not a significant part of how warfare was conducted by the Portuguese, not the the extent its in the game where its basically their modus operandi, where cav regiments were not even used overseas.
But Portugal is the OG Musk Falc Civ!
Thats how they build the Empire! Thats their whole thing during early modern age! Cannons Muskets Forts and Navy.
I understad that something for the sake of balance cant be radically change, but adding other options to the existing ones should not receive this heavy resistance when Ports are a one trick pony with an average winning rate.
I dont sugest stats, because i look at it from an historical perspective not gameplay.
Hence why i keep saying, Portugal as it is, is a half made up civ.
Dragoons are essentialy different from mounted Arquebusiers in role and equipment.
In my opinion Ports are depicted heavily anglicanized. Caçadores and Dragoons. Thats Napoleonic war stuff, it focus very little on Commerce and Fortress age Ports, where they shined.
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See? This is exactly what I meant. Not only the Portuguese did utilize Dragoons, but they used them most in⊠Angola
and to a lesser degree Mozambique. I guess weâre not counting Brazil since weâre pretending itâs gonna be its own civ.
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EstarĂa bueno que hagan algo para que los combates navales tengan mĂĄs contenido. Que agregan mĂĄs cosas a los barcos, estarĂa bueno que todas las civilizaciones puedan tener brulotes, y que los barcos quĂ© lleven cañones aumenten su ataque como cuando el centro urbano tiene aldeanos. Otra idea loca es que en algunos mapas en lugar de empezar con un centro urbano empieces con un barco quĂ© sea un centro urbano flotante. TambiĂ©n quĂ© haya piraterĂa, podrĂa ser como en el aoe2 quĂ© las carretas podĂan robar recursos del centro urbano, pero en vez de carretas quĂ© los barcos corsarios puedan robar recursos de los puertos. Y despuĂ©s que agreguen mĂĄs tipos de fortalezas, fortalezas quĂ© sean mĂĄs poderosas y que tengan aspecto del siglo 18, no como las actuales quĂ© parecen castillos medievales.
El juego es un poco raro en cuanto al avance tecnologico de las unidades. Por ejemplo, en segunda edad se puede crear mosqueteros del siglo 18 pero no se puede crear cañones, ni lanceros del siglo 16. En el siglo 16 y 17 todos los ejercitos europeos llevaban piqueros, arcabuceros, arcabuceros a caballo y artillerĂa. ReciĂ©n a finales del siglo 17 los mosquetes ya habĂan mejorado tanto su precisiĂłn y cadencia de disparo, por eso se dejaron de usar los piqueros, porque los mosqueteros ya podĂan frenar a la caballerĂa a puro disparo y bayoneta.
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