Theorycrafting the Feitoria

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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I recently look deeper into the Portuguese, try to understand what holds them back and how to balance them. As the Protuguese are a complex case, i will take me more time to get deeper into it.

Feitoria on the other hand is actually easier. As you can practically theorycraft it. You can compare it with other forms of ressources income at different stages of the game.

The first thing to look at its potential late-game winning scenario. When all ressources are taken off the map, the feitoria is winning. It’s just that easy. At least in it’s current state. But what, if we change this?
The Idea I propose, is that Portuguese can build a single Feitoria and it’s income doesn’t exceed the effective of Gold income of 5 relics, at no stage of the game. That would be the first change.

This change would also influence the late-game winning scenario of raiding. As Feitorias are basically raiding-immune, a single feitoria means that your main eco are still vills for most of the game. This allows raiding victories also against portuguese even in very late stages of the game.

Then, it’s a bad design that the feitpria produces the same ressources it needs to be build. This means, that it becomes almost impossible to play against that lategame winning scenario the more the game progresses as the portuguese player almost ever has the ressources to add a new feitoria if the opponent trebbed or rammed down one. That’s abnoxious. It should be a clear winning scenario for the opponent to try to “snipe” the feitoria, as it would become harder and harder for the portuguese player to replace it.

Looking at water maps, the second limiting factor to navy after the gold is wood. So, if the feitoria produces any wood, it gives the portuguese player an additional advantage, as he doesn’t has to buy as much in the very lategame. It would be a good idea to make the port share the same limits as regular civs in this regard, as they already have the gold advantage.

For Stone I would argue the same. It’s a main design, that stone is scarce. The Players have a limited amount of it and must somehow arrange to work with that limited amount. All except portuguese.
It is also toxic because good defences need stone and that’s one of the few scenarios leeding to an end of a trash war, as at some point one player just can’t replenish his defences. And Portuguese can just sit back behind their basically free walls and wait until the opponent is completely out of ressources.

So the only two types of ressources to get which can be balanced that way the feitoria works, are Gold and Food. Gold as it can also be optained by Relics and Food because of the high efficiency of Farms and Fish Traps.

Before I begin with the Theorycraft, I will finally propose the big change Idea, how I think the Feitoria can be implemented in a non-toxic way and allow Portuguese a unique playstile at the same time.
The Idea is, to make the one Feitoria of Portuguese available in Castle age. Pretty much as a replacement of adding two TCs as you normally would. With the exact same ressource Cost as 2 TCs would. Making it easy to play, not even having to change any buildorders or ressource distributions.
The Feitoria shall not replace adding 2 TCs, but giving a unique playstile. Whilst with adding 2 TCs you would try to set up for a lategame, the Feitoria Play would give you a Powerspike, but fall of later on. Pretty much as the FImp Feitoria does now, but one age earlier.
This would make it much easier to balance, as a lot of Players can play it and with less noise from all the uncertainties.

As i said the cost of the “new” Feitoria should be exactly the same as adding 2 TCs: 550 Wood, 200 Stone, 250 Sec building time. I also propose that the Feitoria gives 20 Pop space, too. So unexperienced players don’t get housed. It’s a minor change, but makes it just smoother.

Now we come to the ressource generation. As I said, the new Feitoria shall only produce Gold and Food. Nothing else. But how much?

A) Short-Term/Food
It would be a good solution, if this would be assessable. For both the Port player and the opponent. So it should be a number you have a feeling for. My Idea is, to produce food as fast, as it takes to keep a single TC producing vills. This would be exactly 2 Food / Sec. This is also basically equal to 5 lategame farmers or about 5.5 farmers with wheelbarrow. A value most players should be able to work with.

B) Long-Term/Gold
To make it easy to craft, understand and also assessable, I propose to take the only other infinite ressource mechanic into account, that is in the Game: Relics.

  1. 5 Relics shall win or be at least equal to a feitoria.
  2. Having 4:1 relics against ports also should be winning if their is still wood available.
  3. But having 3:2 relics against ports should lead to portuguese possibly having the edge.
    If we craft the Feitoria like this, everybody knows how this thing works and knows what his winning scenarios are. It’s easy to understand, even if you have no idea what the ressource income rates mean.
    So we can begin crafting:

When we look at 2) and 3), the middle line between it, if the Feitoria gives the Portuguese player basically 2 Relics “for free”. Meaning, it comes with no offset. This would be a generation of 1 Gold / Sec.
But as we all know, the feitoria takes away 20 pop from your pop cap and we only get a equivalent of 5 Farmers so far. So if we estimate the opponent has 15 more farmers working and sells all the food from them for Gold, he would have a somewhat “unbalanced” edge in gold in the long term. Funnily 15 Farmers working and selling Food for Gold is actually equivalent to another 1 Gold / Sec generation (also taking wood into account if it is still available).
So if we add these two together we get a Gold Generation of 2 / Sec for the single Feitoria. It only works if Portuguese can not build more than one. This Generation is also equivalent to 4 Relics, so the opponent having 5 relics has a basically even game, depending on the wood prices even if there are no ressources left on the map. The opponent still has a possible winning scenario against the feitoria, at all stages of the game. It’s hard to achieve, I admit, but it isn’t impossible.
2 Gold / Sec are also equal to 4.5-5 Gold miners, depending on upgrades. So it’s also easy to estimate.

In Total, the income of the Feitoria would be equivalent to about 10 Workers (5 Farmers / 5 Gold Miners), but taking away twice the amount of pop space, giving the portuguese about 10 pop less to work with than other civs in imp. It’s kinda easy assessment.

Conclusion:
Ports can build a single Feitoria from Castle age on.
Feitoria: 550 W / 200 S / 250s building time
Produces 2 F + 2 G /sec
Takes 20 pop space, but also provides 20 pop space.

Please be free to give me your feedback for this Idea.

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Feedback: Feitoria is fine as it is. It’s very rarely the reason anyone wins the very late game game, they’re also a massive investment, which gives a window of opportunity for the opponent to deal the killing blow. I would say that if you manage to win because of the Feitoria, in this very late game setting, then well deserved.

Moreover, in team games the very late game isn’t its only possible use, you can use it for fast imp strategies, where you might even be better off eventually deleting them and adding trade instead.

The Feitoria is a bit like Goths, that seems ridiculously strong on lower levels, but is actually really not.

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and extremely rarely used. which is why people want to change them - think about it - how often do you HONESTLY see Feitoria’s used? outside of Islands games - i can count on one hand the number of times i’ve seen them.

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That’s why I buffed the single Feitoria a bit to make them viable outside the very lategame. A bit more ressources (and important in mid game) and an age earlier.
The exchange is that it doesn’t guarantees lategame win anymore and you can only build one of them.

I’m also not convinced with that teamgame strat, it rarely pays off.

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Well on this accord, we could start removing a ton of units, or even civs. Quite arbitrary.

I think it’s not something you’d want to do every game, but there are occasions where quick access to some bombards and gunpowder in general can be the key.

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the point is the feitoria is almost completely useless - and seeing as the portuguese are supposed to be balanced around it, and they and feitoria lag behind on land maps.

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This statement doesn’t add anything to your previous point. Just restating the same thing. So I repeat, if we remove things that are situationally useful, then we can start doing some serious shredding on the game’s assets

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no one is saying to remove the feitoria though are they? were talking about making it at least an option to be used.

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It is an option already (in the right situations, which makes it just like other situationally useful game assets)

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in maybe 1% of games tops. for a civ bonus. even water civ bonuses are more useful then that.

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Yeah, well that’s exactly what I said above too. Quite arbitrary. On this accord we could literally remove entire civs (which is not something I’m necessarily against, rather have 10 useful ones than a mish-mash of 37 where most are pointless)

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okay fine - if that’s the way you think a bonus is fine as. then were going to remove the incas blacksmith bonus and give them something interesting and unique.

in 1 out of every 100 games they get picked in they automatically win the game at launch.
sound reasonable?

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This is a completely irrelevant argument for the sake of obtuseness, I’m done.

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no. it was pointing out the flaw in your argument. you are saying a bonus that sees less then 1% use is FINE.

by your logic we could design entire bonuses like that and you should be fine with them.

but here you clearly show your hand that you aren’t okay with it.

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?? I just don’t care about you ‘arguments’. It doesn’t prove anything, I’m just not wasting more time getting trolled.

N.B. I’m saying this because statements like

clearly have no game relevance, such bonus will never exist, not worth time to talk about such bonus, or any of the points related to it

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i’m not trolling - i’m pointing out how bad your argument is. if you seriously think its okay to balance a civ around a bonus that only is useful 1% of the time, or less, then you should have no problem with other bonuses. yeah. obviously the 1% of the time you auto win is a bit extreme but what about say “in 1 out of 100 games you start with an extra 50 wood”. would that be fair to you?

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This is still a pointless argument, and I still don’t see any substance in your statement other than trolling, so I will not engage in any further game discussion

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Sorry Reanu, but your argument is really week.
As we all know the current feitoria is completely broken on water maps.

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its funny you call this trolling but say that the current feitoria is fine because its useful in 1% of games.

who is the real troll here? the person who thinks its bad that something is only useful in 1% of situations or the person who says “this is okay in 1% of situations but other bonuses are just trolling”

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I personally, if I could redesign the Feitoria, would design it in the following way.

  1. You’re limited to exactly one single unconvertible Feitoria which doesn’t take pop space but generates all the ressources at the same rate it does now. This could easily be done in the same way like the Cuman Mercenaries work. It would cost a Hidden ressource which would get refunded when the building gets destroyed.

Reasoning:

  • Other Age of Empires title which have ressource generating buildings (Age of Mythology Manor and AOE3 Factories) are heavily limited. They’re a strong late game economic bonus. It’s way easier to balance one single building than potentially a huge amount of them.

  • This way, the Feitoria is a nice help to your economy, but can’t be abused on maps with scarce ressources functioning as villager replacement, but still be useful and almost a must for a Portuguese player to get, considering the Portuguese player with 120 villager+Feitoria could have potentially the strongest Late game economy at disposal while still having tons of pop space at disposal for Trade and Military units

  • The Feitoria would be both useful in Team Games and 1vs1 considering that the pop space it currently takes is way too valuable.

Counterarguments:

  • The one commonly seen Feitoria based strat, the Feitoria Fast Imp, would get completely killed off as viable strategy.

  • Having a building limit feels very un AOE2 like and should be avoided.

1 Like