The Portuguese

if you start without other alphabet civs, you can fairly readily go writing/philosophy up to and including Sid.

You can't reliably get the full republic slingshot above, say, demigod.

My early expansion and MM aren't good enough yet to hit Philo first on Deity. At DG I settle for Philo to CoL instead of the full Republic slingshot. But CoL can be a powerful bargaining chip, so I can keep myself at tech parity via trades, and by the end of AA I'm tech leader and ready to chew up some neighbors.

And it seems that every time I start with an Alphabet civ with random opponents, I always find myself surrounded by seafarers.

SimpleMonkey said:

One aspect that gets overlooked in discussing the Portuguese is the synergy of their starting techs -- Alphabet and Pottery. In my opinion, this is hands down the most useful combination from Emperor on up.

Alphabet allows the fast research path to Writing and then on to Philo or Lit. (FYI, I can still manage to get to Philo first on Demigod. Deity, not likely. And I don't ever use Lit for the GLib unless I pop a scientific leader -- I just really favor an early push for libraries.)

And, more importantly, Pottery allows the immediate construction of a settler factory, one of the most -- if not the most -- important factors in a successful game. These two traits, plus the ability to combine curraughs and scouts for rapid trade contacts and territory knowlege, can make for an excellent expansion phase.

The Dutch can still be uber-powerful with the addition of accelerated growth from Agriculture and an outstanding UU, but the Portuguese can be wielded to great effect as well.

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Problem is England has these techs as well, a better UU, better traits, and better trait synergy. Portugal has the worst UU in the game and 2 traits that actually contradict each other.

Zardnaar said:

Problem is England has these techs as well, a better UU, better traits, and better trait synergy. Portugal has the worst UU in the game and 2 traits that actually contradict each other.

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Oh come on. While it's a poor UU, it's far from the worst. On certain maps, I'd take it to England's for the ability to cross oceans at Astronomy. You get a (slightly) better timing GA too. And you can't possibly argue that it's worse than the useless F15 or the ones that are actually inferior to the unit they replace - like the Chasqui Scout.

This being said, Portugal does indeed suck as a civ.

I like the F-15 better. Chasqui scout does suck though.

Abegweit said:

And you can't possibly argue that it's worse than the useless F15 or the ones that are actually inferior to the unit they replace - like the Chasqui Scout.

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The Chasqui Scout doesn't *always* suck, though. On a hilly map the "1 MP on mountains/hills" can -- just barely -- pay for itself. Would be better if you were still allowed to build ordinary scouts and/or they had 1 MP in jungle, though.

I don't have any experience with the Portuguese UU, but I suspect that it, too, has cases where it's vaguely useful.

Lo5

I thought the fast production of settlers and workers would be a dynamite combo for the early game, but I've never been able to get it to work. I'm always broke for one thing, and knowing that I can get a fast settler tempts me to go for an extra wonder. (I always seem to get the Stonehenge/Oracle combo, and ususally use the prophets for the religious building or production, but with Portuguese, I end up using them for tech advances I'm too poor to pursue.)
I'd like to hear more about exactly how the settler/worker bonus competes with themselves.

On the other hand, I defend the Kerric (spelling?). I LOVE being the first to colonize foreign shores. The problem with Beyond is city maintenance is so high that it's not worth it.

I've done three games as Portu and all end badly in poverty and medieval wars. Any ideas folks?

You might get a better response in the CIV 4 forums, as most of these civ 3 playing guys only have a vague idea what stonehenge is!

Stonehenge? That´s a brand for an instantaneous soap...

The way to win with the Portuguese is by taking the most of its traits:
- expansionist - build 2/3 scouts on start of game and pop every hut, denial strategic resources from AI - horses/iron;
- seafaring - after the first scout build a curragh, it will move 3 turns in the water, making it easy to find everyone on the map before all others;
- in sum, Portugal can map the world like no other civilization in the game and get all the contacts you need, try to read some articles on what techs the AI usually research and you just have to what others dont, allowing you options of trade, after getting all diplomatic contacts, concentrate on diplomatic rounds every turn in order to get the maximum out of every one;
- With the scouts + fast curraghs you´ll get a big advance on techs, play with sci great leader on, and you´ll rush the pyramids;

- Use the terrain to your advantage, since Portugal has no industrial, agricultural or commercial traits, you need to build your cities on rivers/lakes always (aqueducts are expensive), on a CxxC display, and most important with at least two or more forest tiles in it, the chops for a rushing grany/barracks are essential.

- Always build The Colossus, this one is very important, try to beat the AI in building this one, since this is probably your best chance in getting a golden age, if not you still have The Lighthousse;

- Don´t forget as seafaring your cities have a bonus commerce in water and harbors are cheaper;

- Military: Try to resist the urge to connect your strategic resources, or if you cant, pillage them before you decide to build up troops, a legion of veteran warriors/chariots is much easier to build and faster then a swordsman/horsemen giving you more turns to concentrate on the needed infrastructure - granies, barracks, temples, libraries, harbors, marketplaces and so on. Also, read up on a poor man´s army, it´s important when playing Portugal.

- In the hands of a skilled player and with the knowledge of how to exploit the AI, Portugal can be a very dangerous civ.

- Finally, The Carrack, a 2/2/3(+1 movement with lesser chance of sinking provided by seafaring and +1 also if lighthousse) unit that can carry 3 units and trigers your golden age, well if your playing a massive continents map either single player or multiplayer, this baby can make everyone´s head spinn, if you made things right you´ll have astro before all others and a lot of currags/galleys and harbors just waiting to upgrade, make it so! go forth and settle, conquer everything.

Just to have an idea: Carrack is as good as Frigate but costs 20 shields less and carries 3 troops, making it much easier to build and comes earlier on the tech tree.

- In sum, a couple forest chops, fresh water, The Colussos/The Lighthousse and a lot of exploration and diplomacy are essential for Portugal to win, establish embasssies, spy one or 2 cities, trade luxuries trough harbors and turn fations against each other.

- Starting with Alphabet, you can slingshot to Phil also. Try to change government, republic/monarchy.

- Try not to lose your scouts, when you get astronomy you can upgrade them to explorers and these are the ultimate spies.

- Try to avoid researching Magnetism, you dont really need it (except to jump to industrial agem but your glory days are on stil on the middle ages so why not polongue it) will make your Lighthouse obsolute, plus Navigation will give you trade over the ocean tiles and Magellan´s Voyage for +1 movement in sea totalizing to a 6 movement carrack and a golden age trigger if you not had it in the past.

I didn't realize that the Carrack had 2 attack - that does make it considerably better than I had thought.

A 40 shield upgradable from earlier curraghs with 2/2/4 carrying 3 units that triggers golden age is just too damm good to pass, i´d take it to frigates, galleons and man-o-war´s anyday. The only ones as good is Dromon.

Get Navigation after and it can now cross oceans.

The Carrack can cross ocean tiles anyway - that's one of it's advantages. I'm not sure if it allows ocean trade, as well - I don't think so.

No ocean trade with the Carrack... Also the Carrack doesn't have bombard, like the Frigate, Man O' War or Dromon.
I had only one go at Portugal, and I didn't find the Carrack very useful. It's basically a passenger ship that can can safely traverse the ocean, but all land across the ocean will already be settled by the time the Carrack comes around. And for contacts you will probably have sent a galley across earlier on, even if it took several tries.
The Carrack's attack of two still doesn't make it a warship. You will probably attack with it if you haven't had your golden age yet, and then no more, because you lose them too easily.
It's historically correct to have given Portugal a unit like this, but in real history the Portuguese did a lot better in that time frame than in a game of civ is possible with the Carrack.

The big problem I have with an ocean going caravel as a UU is... why bother?
Just research navigation (the NEXT TECH!!!) and all your caravel's are ocean going!!

Hum. still i get it, its much cheaper to build a carrack that as the same attack and defense as a frigate and can transport 3 units, allowing you to avoid wasting shields/money on galleons/frigates that are more expensive.

A good review of a unit i didn´t played much with, and Navigation doenst take it any value, on the contrary it gives the Carrack Ocean traveling, thus, being able to stand until Ironclads/Cruises come along.

If you want to bombard with a Carrack, get 3 catapult son it, and you have a 3 bombard unit.

I think we've all basically missed something about Portugal. Upper level 20k games tend to get played on archipelago maps... well maybe lower level maps also. Now, let's say we have barbarians off, an archipelago map, and Lisbon has access to fresh water. We don't know how many shields it can produce at size twelve, but we know it can get to size twelve without needing irrigation. Which tribe would you pick if you wanted to feel most assured of a win for a 20k game? Since The Colossus gives Portugal and The English instant golden ages, I'll pick one of them. Even if I have bunch of plains and regular grassland, that gives me a fast build on The Pyramids or The Oracle... which soon enough make 8 culture per turn. I'll choose Portugal over The English, because before this I'll probably want a curragh. I can disband the scout in my capital to hurry up building that curragh. On top of this, the granary gives me a 60 shield pre-build on The Colossus and other early wonders. Though in this respect Carthage on The Colossus and the Byzantines don't need one. But, if the cities have low shield output they might miss both The Oracle and The Pyramids. As far as I can see, Portugal makes for about as safe a bet for a 20k game as you can have if we don't know if we have good terrain.

To add to what I wrote before, take a look here http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3/strategy/goodyhuts.php So, the probability of popping a settler or a city for an expansionist tribe comes out higher on demi-god and deity games than any other one. Play as Portugal on an archipelago map, pop a settler or city, train workers out of there to develop and then grow Lisbon, and you'll have something which fits just right with Keirador said "A small but influential nation."

One problem that Portugal with expansionist/seafaring is that if you build The Colossus or the Great Lighthouse, you get the golden age way before you can make a golden age useful (I wouldn't count about 5 3-4 shield cities under despotism getting a golden age comparable to a golden age with about 15-20 10 shield cities under communism, monarchy or democracy)

sorry if I am beating a dead horse here but I feel the Portuguese are unfairly classified as a terrible civ. The UU isn't all that useful, but if you beeline to Astronomy and then neglect navigation, it isn't bad. Portugal is strong on pangae maps because of expansionist. Has anyone every actually played against them on pangae? They were the leading power in my game before everyone decided to fight against them in the mid industrial era. They also got rich off maps using the carrack.

aukrest said:

sorry if I am beating a dead horse here but I feel the Portuguese are unfairly classified as a terrible civ. The UU isn't all that useful, but if you beeline to Astronomy and then neglect navigation, it isn't bad. Portugal is strong on pangae maps because of expansionist. Has anyone every actually played against them on pangae? They were the leading power in my game before everyone decided to fight against them in the mid industrial era. They also got rich off maps using the carrack.

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Welcome to the forums!

I always neglect navigation, so I like the UU on continents and, obviously, archipelago. Portugal usually doesn't become a leading power in my Panagea games because other traits do better on Panagea. A further problem is the AI doesn't handle seafaring well.

Your example is good, however. Because of expansionist, they will start out fast and do quite well in the early game. They do fall behind as time goes by unless they get themselves a large empire, which isn't that easy for them (Ind and Ag do better). I think most expansionist Civs would do better on Panagea, though.

One nice thing about expansionist is that you start out in front and stay there, hopefully. For Panagea expansionist, I'd try America or Inca. Ind is a good trait and Ag is usually the best.