[C3C] COTM 171 Portugal Emperor

[MrRandomGuy]

Posting this a little early because I'll be busy the next few weeks.



In COTM 171 you will be Prince Henry of the Portuguese people, who are expansionist and seafaring. Starting techs are Alphabet and Pottery. Your Unique Unit is the Carrack, an improved caravel that doesn't sink in ocean.

Your start location:

It would be a near perfect starting location, but there's that pesky volcano which could be a potential problem...

Some of you might be thinking "Oh I can just move to a different starting location and avoid having the volcano near the capitol." You could try, but once you see the game specs you probably won't want to.

Civilization: Portugal
Difficulty: Emperor
Map size: Normal
Ocean size: 60% Ocean (pre-map editing, might be a little more or a little less)
Land form: Pangaea
Climate: Arid
Temperature: Cool
Age: 3 billion years
Rivals: Greeks, Japanese, Aztecs, Mayans, Persians, Egyptians, Ottomans
Barbarians: Raging
Required victory condition: None

In addition to rugged, arid, cool landscape, the map also has certain key resources located in one or two geographic areas of the world. Which resources? What areas of the world? That's for you to discover, and fight/trade for when you realize you need them!

Game starts: 1 Apr 2025
Submissions Due by 30 Jun 2025
Due to the nature of barbarians and the layout of the map, it might take a little longer to play this game than the average Emperor level game. However, it is doable and a fun map to play once you know your way around! Good luck!

 

[Più Freddo]

Portugal is one of the strongest tribes of C3C. They have a head start on the Republic sling-shot and fast Curraghs. We'll see just what kind of Settler factory will be possible in the starting location. A four-turner is given, but may need a lot of mining.

 

[Più Freddo]

One option would be to settle at E, SE, still have the Cattle and the River and be more central on the Pangaea. The two Fish could be used by two core cities at a distance of 4-5. So I'd move the Scout 2E to the Mountain rather than 2S to the Volcano and leave the Goody Hut for later. It the land to the east turns out to be as grisly, as is hinted in the description, then I can still settle in place.

 

[Lanzelot]

Portugal is one of the strongest tribes of C3C.

Very interesting that you think so. I always had the same opinion, but the standard Civ reviews/rankings (like Doc Tsiolkovski's review or Ision's review) place Portugal very near the bottom...

 

[MrRandomGuy]

One option would be to settle at E, SE, still have the Cattle and the River and be more central on the Pangaea. The two Fish could be used by two core cities at a distance of 4-5. So I'd move the Scout 2E to the Mountain rather than 2S to the Volcano and leave the Goody Hut for later. It the land to the east turns out to be as grisly, as is hinted in the description, then I can still settle in place.

What an intriguing idea. If you recall my Inca COTM, I arranged the map to where it was possible to have two full rings of cities around the starting position while still being a city by the ocean. This map is a similar idea but with one ring (6 cities) if you choose to settle in place.

Still, moving could be a good option if you like what you see after moving the scout. With either decision, it'll be interesting to see how people place their cities.

 

[templar_x]

What an intriguing idea. If you recall my Inca COTM, I arranged the map to where it was possible to have two full rings of cities around the starting position while still being a city by the ocean. This map is a similar idea but with one ring (6 cities) if you choose to settle in place.

Still, moving could be a good option if you like what you see after moving the scout. With either decision, it'll be interesting to see how people place their cities.

I think the creator of the game definitely should not comment the discussion in this way.
If you want such information to be available, it should be in the game description...
t_x

 

[Più Freddo]

I concur with templar_x. You could for example consider using the feature of the editor (in C3C only) to remove the "fog of war", i.e. to make more tiles visible in the starting screen.

 

[Più Freddo]

Very interesting that you think so. I always had the same opinion, but the standard Civ reviews/rankings (like Doc Tsiolkovski's review or Ision's review) place Portugal very near the bottom...

I guess that these guys weigh the Unique Unit way to high in their comparisons. For me, having Pottery and Alphabet, fast Curraghs, a Scout and guaranteed positive results of popping huts are great advantages in the early game, which then pay off during the whole game.

 

[Lanzelot]

Yes. And what people also forget, is the extra commerce from seafaring (which in the early game is even more than the extra commerce from commercial, which sets in much later). Combine this with the perfect tech-combo of Alphabet+Pottery, and you can get to Republic faster than anyone else. And getting to Republic a couple of turns earlier, easily out-weighs the little extra-food from agricultural...

And then all the early trade contacts you can get from scouts + seafaring curaghs. This makes your research faster than e.g. that of a scientific civ and you have enough gold in your pockets to make mass-upgrade at some point (e.g. Horsemen -> Knight) and have a stronger army than any militaristic civ... So in short, when playing Portugal, you basically have a civ with 6 traits instead of just 2... (If you know how to take advantage of their traits and how to direct your neighbor's tech & gold into your own pocket.)

I think, Portugal got the bad reviews, because back in 2004, when they were written, many of the advanced techniques/strategies for playing Civ3 well had not yet been discovered?! Nowadays, I would definitely rank Portugal as a first-tier civ. Only the Netherlands and the Iroquois may be slightly better. (Of course, any such ranking isn't worth that much, because in every game there may be specific circumstances that make one civ shine over the other. For example, if the "Berzerk-hit-and-run strategy" can be applied, then nothing beats the Vikings... But on Pangaea, something else might work better.)

 

[MrRandomGuy]

I think the creator of the game definitely should not comment the discussion in this way.
If you want such information to be available, it should be in the game description...
t_x

You're right, I made a mistake. Thankfully the mistake didn't give too much away

 

[Lanzelot]

Well, I think if everybody now knows this before the start of the game, it's no big deal...

One question, I forget those little details: does it make any difference with regards to what you can get from a hut, whether you pop it with a scout or by planting a town/cultural expansion?

 

[Più Freddo]

One question, I forget those little details: does it make any difference with regards to what you can get from a hut, whether you pop it with a scout or by planting a town/cultural expansion?

Not if you are Expansionist. Otherwise, only popping by planting yields non-barbarian results every time.

 

[MrRandomGuy]

One question, I forget those little details: does it make any difference with regards to what you can get from a hut, whether you pop it with a scout or by planting a town/cultural expansion?

Through testing multiple games due to making these maps, I've noticed that certain actions will give you the exact same result of popping a hut every single time. The hut you pop at the beginning due to settling in place is always going to be the same across the board for everyone. If you reload the game and do the exact same moves over again, popping the huts will yield the same exact result as it did the prior game.

If you do one move different though, the hut pops will be different. Some huts will pop the exact same way every game, some depend on your actions. I suspect the volcano works the same way because there were times where I didn't build a specific type of unit and the volcano never erupted. However, when I changed my city build to that specific unit the volcano started smoking in the IBT. Not going to say WHICH unit, but it's something that I think is worthy of further testing after you submit the COTM game.

 

[Più Freddo]

Let's settle up front:

This game will not be prolonged.

 

[Più Freddo]

The game release page is here.