New Portuguese UP?

As we recently discussed in one of the huge "main threads", it might be an idea to consider giving the Portuguese a new UP - their current one being a bit... bleh.

Ideas so far - that I remember - have been something related to slaves, e.g. 1 or 2 upon building a new world city, or some other bonus to slaves. In general I guess it ought to have something to do with colonization or trade - or exploration, if someone can come up with another idea that's more beneficial than the present UP. And the UB kinda covers the trade-aspect already, in some way at least. What could a good UP related to foreign trade be? Apart from just a flat bonus, which would just be a copy of the Carthagian UB?

I also had this crazy idea about The Power of Tordesillas: Can't be attacked by catholic civs if only possesing cities inside historical areas = core or contested. Referring to the Treaty of Tordesillas between Spain and Portugal, where they divided the known world (outside Europe) between them. This would protect them against Span, letting them focus only on colonizing, and the new world in general - up until the Wars of Religion and the Dutch, and also be quite a unique UP. I don't even know if something like this can be coded, but it could be fun, I think

Anyway... this is really mostly for throwing out ideas, no matter how crazy or stupid. I don't have any specific suggestion that I want to push, I just really think the current one is, well, boring and useless

Cosmos1985 said:

The Power of Tordesillas

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What if Europe is Orthodox (or Buddhist) instead of Catholic? What if the human player is Spain and wants to take over Portugal?

A better (and much simpler) solution would be giving Portugal free Barracks, Walls and Castle in its capital upon spawn similar to the buildings buff that the Byzantine and Dutch receive in their capitals.

The Power of Exploration
+2 Stability bonus for settling a city outside Europe (does not stack with Resettlement).
This is of course inspired by the Persian UP, which is of the same idea but about Occupation instead of Resettlement.


The Power of Os Lusíadas
No from Drafting Slaves. Slaves cost 50% less to buy.
This is similar to the Ottoman UP in SoI.

I'm for the extra stability.

Power of the Donatários

Once a city is settled outside Europe it gains a free improvement in some resource in the city radius.


It could be only for slave plantations

How about ... every (coastal?) city settled outside of Europe receives a free worker?

I like the free Resettlement idea but in the end I don't think Portugal really needs it.

Leoreth said:

How about ... every (coastal?) city settled outside of Europe receives a free worker?

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(1) This is entirely equivalent to a hidden discount in the cost of Settlers and/or Workers (which most European colonials already receive iirc).

(2) It would be hard to think of a good name for it.

Portugal may need that extra Stability cushion if Brazil's spawn is going to be unconditional (which I think it should).

Not really, it would also save on the time to ferry them over or produce them in place which is time consuming in new colonies.

How about halved the double product speed of Trading Comany and UB?

Would be a bit too limited in its utility, wouldn't it?

33% unit cost reduction on naval units, UB and Trading Company?

The Power of Rubber: +3 gold in Jungle Tiles?

This encourages them to settle Brazil and provides an actual bonus.

Actually, this would be better for Brazil.

Cheaper naval units would actually be quite nice.

I'm just worried that would make 'em too strong compared to the Dutch, which already by now can have troubles getting enough hammers for producing naval units, before dikes. We'd need to help them somehow then, the Dutch.

About the worker idea, it's really a general issue that AI can't figure out how to produce workers in - or transport them to - their colonies, especially islands. Too often they'll start producing a defensive unit, which'll take forever to get done. It would be awesome if the AI could be taught that area of the game a bit better, but oh well, there's a lot of AI issues we all would love to solve.

I don't recall exactly which buildings Lisboa gets when being built, but a wall and barracks doesn't seem unreasonable to have by that time.

To be honest, I've comtemplated giving the AI one defender and one worker for every colony it founds a few times already.

I like The Power of Exploration honestly, if I had it I'd start expanding much earlier. Also is it possible to make Feitoria reduce maintenance costs a little or hidden reduce distance costs?

I'd support that 100%. That would mean quite a bit for AI performance I'd think. But can it be made to realize that it doesn't need to produce another defensive unit, I mean... so that it "waits" to figure out what to build, after taking account the defender - and worker - that's being spawned?

civ_king said:

I like The Power of Exploration honestly, if I had it I'd start expanding much earlier.

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I don't know, stability seems to be quite unproblematic for the Portuguese most of the times, doesn't it? I don't think I've ever seen them collapse a single time, unless they lost Lisboa and was really being asskicked.

Cosmos1985 said:

I'd support that 100%. That would mean quite a bit for AI performance I'd think. But can it be made to realize that it doesn't need to produce another defensive unit, I mean... so that it "waits" to figure out what to build, after taking account the defender - and worker - that's being spawned?

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Depends on when the event for creating the new units is triggered. Worth testing.

another thing is that the feitoria could give some defensive bonus since they were also made for defense