I would put Portugal in front of Ethiopia, korea, japan,Norse, byzantines ( on steep decline despite a brief second wind), absolutely in front of Spain. Your argument does not make sense when you say Spain is important, when they started even later than Portugal on empire building. Spain finished Reconquista in 1492. Portugal has reached the Indian Ocean by then.
Absolutely in front of the native American civs, Berbers, Poland, Hungary and Lithuania.
And ahead of a few east Asian ones aswell.
I’ll keep repeating myself. The first GLOBAL empire, built within the game timeline should be essential. It literally opened the way for globalization and further european dominance in the following centuries.
Amd considering the game timeline, Porrugal should be a late game civ with focus on Navy and Fortresses with a couple of elite infantry units.
You know who built Empires on AoE3 timeline?
English and the French. Portugal was already well established by then, by a century.