Portugal - Nau spam strategy (immortal)

chazzycat

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I just finished a game with Portugal and wanted to share. On most of the Portugal threads I've read around here, they aren't really focused on the Nau. I think it really has the power to win games for you single-handedly, if you adapt your strategy.

So in this game, I ended up with only 2 cities, not even great cities. Neither of them had a lot of food...my capital was only size 24 at end game, not good at all by my standards. After the initial settling phase, I was pretty sure I was going to lose. Two mediocre cities is just not usually enough to win.

Diplomacy definitely seemed like the most likely victory option, with my advantages in gold production. So I decided to double down on Naus and see if I could ride that gold train to victory. I started planning ahead in advance, focusing on building up production capacity in my 1 coastal city as much as possible. By the time I hit astronomy, I was able to get them out in 2-3 turns each.

Now that's not even ideal...with a better city it may be possible to get them out in 1-2 turns each. But if you consider that each Nau generates about 330 gold, even if it takes 3 turns, that's over 100 gold per turn. If producing "wealth" generated 110 GPT in one city, you would build that all the time, right??

So basically I beelined astronomy and just started cranking Naus. I tried my best to avoid building other stuff in my coastal city and focus just on Naus. I explored with the first couple until I found the highest return on the map (331 gold for me on that map) and then I just started sending them all straight there.

The biggest thing to consider is that Naus go obsolete at Steam Power. The normal tech path, beelining to plastics, will result in researching steam power pretty quickly. However...in a diplomacy game, it really is NOT that critical to beeline labs ASAP. So what I did was get to public schools pretty quickly, but then detour from plastics, delaying it for quite a while. I researched all the way to radio, refrigeration, and dynamite before I got steam power.

Normally you don't want to delay labs, because the turn you finish labs determines the turn you finish the game. BUT, because of the extra 100-150 GPT (depending on whether the Naus were taking 2 or 3 turns) I was able to ally all of the city states, during that delay. I would rather win on the 1st vote with all CS already allied, rather than trying to be adding allies at the last minute leading up to the vote.

Now of course if you were able to ally all of the CS earlier in the game, it wouldn't be smart to delay labs like this. But in my case with only 2 not-great cities, my income was low and so I really needed those extra turns of Nau gold in order to out-compete the AI for CS influence. It was completely successful - right around the time I got to steam power, I had allied all but 1 or 2 CS.

One thing to watch out for is the supply limit. In my case with 2 low-pop cities, I hit the supply cap several times because of the Naus combined with having a lot of militaristic CS allies. It wasn't a big deal but something to watch out for. You don't want to hit your cities with that production penalty.

The other thing Portugal has going for it is the Feitoria. With my 2 cities and tradition, happiness wasn't a concern at all. But I did get those built ASAP and it really helped get faster golden ages. My happiness was around 60-80 for most of the 2nd half of the game, and with CI and the Freedom Tenet, I was in golden age for much of the game. That extra gold and culture is hugely beneficial.

Towards the end of the game I also switched my trade routes to city states and got the tier 3 freedom tenet for +4 influence per turn. But I could have won without that quite easily. It was really the power of the Nau that won the game.

Naus are fairly useless units after you sell the exotic goods IMO. They cost too much for maintenance and upgrading, so I have started just giving them away to city states for 5 influence right after I sell the goods. If you take my tech path, you will have submarines already, so there's not much reason at all to keep them around.
 
yeah, that thread was definitely a source of inspiration for this post. It's a good guide but I didn't think it really stressed how powerful Naus can be quite enough. I totally agree with your comment, though I didn't think to use Oxford, and GL wasn't an option on immortal. I just teched astronomy the old fashioned way and it was still quite effective.

One thing I noticed in that thread was that someone claimed the gold was capped under 300. That is definitely not true, since I was getting 331 in my last game (standard size).

But really delaying steam power is the critical part of the strategy IMO.
 
Take the freedom tenet to give influence boost when you gift your nau to CS.
 
You do get influence from gifting units even without Freedom. Freedom just gets you more influence from the gifts. So after selling its cargo, just pick a CS and gift it from the CS's window. Just pick a different CS every time. With a 2-3 turn build time if you've found all the CS's and cycled the gifting through all of them before gifting one a second time the wait time for gaining influence via unit gifts should expire. IIRC, when the CS is at war and requesting units, there's no delay before you can gain influence from gifting units.

Add in the right side of Commerce to make that money go further on the building purchases.
 
Resurrecting thread, because I'm thinking of doing a Nau spam game next.

Here's what I'm thinking (but looking for feedback): Archipelago, Immortal (the first time, at least). Huge, 2:1 city-states.

I'm thinking of doing Autocracy, as in beeline Industrialization instead of Astronomy. Get the 33% unit purchase discount (mobilization). Since it's a sea map anyway, stick a few SP points in Commerce and Exploration and pick up Mercantilism. Probably spy steal Astronomy and Steam Power (using Autocracy Industrial Espionage). With a 57% discount off of 600 gold (=258), Naus are now cheaper to rush buy than what you make back with Export Goods (~280).

Build barracks, armory, military academy. Autocracy's Militarism gives me happiness for it. Brandenburg Gate+Autocracy Total War gives 75xp right out of the starting gate. 25xp from Export goods mission gives Naus 100xp, giving them logistics even before they fight a single fight. You now have a water map spammed with 20+ free, Logistics Naus.

Gunboat Diplomacy. Fast-moving Naus can go around demanding tribute (with GunboatD it takes a whopping 3 turns to make the -15 influence back) and make CS allies. Swarms of hit-and-run coastal raider III with logistics. Gold is plentiful, rush buying stuff is cheap. Game over.



My chief concern is the demand for Social Policies. I want them all. Looks like there's no time for Rationalism (but somehow I beeline Industrialization), and even Honor looks important, because of Professional Army.
 
I finished this game. I think Portugal has the fun factor all right, but her uniques are overblown. The gold from Naus basically is enough to cover their upgrade to ironclads. Feitorias require you to scatter your workers to the four winds, and not that many of them do you even benefit from. The trade income from UA is not that much. But all the uniques add to something, though; and they make you go out and explore.

Autocracy was absolutely the best ideology for nau spam, but not for the reasons I had expected: I didn't have the gold on hand to buy Naus, discount or no discount. The 33% maintenance discount was the winner (I was shelling out 500gpt in unit maintenance). The big navy did prove to be the game winner. By the end I was pounding everybody with 6 ranged, logistics battleships, escorted by ex-nau destroyers protecting them from subs. Exploration was a killer, when combined with all those ships.
 
there are better ways of using gold than upgrading to ironclads IMO. like buying all the city states. i just gift my naus to CS for a little more influence.
 
But they're getting xp for Export goods. Those can be Coastal raider 3, Logistics Naus you're gifting. They can hit-and-run cities and make 40 gold per hit.
 
ya i suppose you could go that route if you want, but they are not strong units in general. I generally prefer a peaceful style when possible, it just seems easier to win that way in BNW. specially with an economic oriented civ like Portugal.

if you look at nau production as basically setting that city to produce "wealth" but at a rate of over 300 gold per turn, then its easy to see that the naus themselves matter very little once they have delivered the goods.
 
If you're freedom and you don't want to tie up your military city with building Naus, you could just build 0xp Naus and gift them for 15 influence, I will give that. It generally takes a 250 gold gift to buy that same CS influence. 120 hammers for 300 gold and 15 influence--that's all right. Seaport improves that to 105 hammers. Those nau gifts might also go to strategic CS's whom are at war with someone else.

It's possible you might just not get the ideology you want. So if you have to be freedom, do the freedom strategy. If you have to be Autocracy, do the autocracy strategy. I found on Autocracy you can improve the hammer cost further to 80 hammers, which is darn good--except you only get the 5 influence, and you're getting another 15xp only to gift it away.
 
You should considering generating or buying a couple of engineers for manufactories. With freedom's new deal, that should lower your Nau to 1 per turn.
 
well, you can't delay steam power forever. i think by the time you get to new deal you should be close enough that the window is pretty small, so that's not gonna be super effective. You do want to fit this into a general sensible strategy, don't get TOO carried away focusing on nau gold to your overall detriment. There's probably some wonders that will be more useful.
 
Upgraded ironclads who still have an export goods on them are not bad.

I would assume the manufactories would be put up back in medieval; you're just not getting the new deal until industrial. I don't plant them much at all myself.
 
yeah that's true you would get manufacturies earlier. if building 1 of them puts you under the 1 nau per turn threshold, it might be worth it. But in general I almost never build manufactories, there's too many good wonders.
 
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