Looking at your provided Screenshot, I have some serious doubt about the position of your cities.
Especially Leira is at questionable position for me. Why did you found it?
To get the lapiz, the citron and iron?
It is at a very vulnerable position to the north. Border to three desert tiles with 2 of them having 2 plain forest tiles behind, the last another desert.
What that means there can sit three catapults 2 tiles away and you only can reach it with an horse man in the city. If there is a melee unit on the north eastern hill, there will be even a ZOC on a desert tile.
Your walled city can just shoot 2 tiles away to west, in the east the forest blocks it to 1 tile range. With that position, the enemy can bring his melee units through the (hilled) forests from the north east and shoot the city from the north west.
In my opinion you should have either settled on the south eastern Floodplain or on that forest (on a hill?).
But then you would had to place Braga and Funchal one tile lower too.
In that case I would have placed Braga between the oasis, natural wonder and the sheep. Not sure if it is now founded on plain Desert.
Funchal should have been in that case on the coast. I just dont like cities one tile away from the sea. Sure you have a UI for the coast, but it would just be one less.
In that location, a big amount of the potential tiles for Funchal is just useless 2
sea tiles, you sacrifice way too many and important buildings which are needed for coastal cities.
Instead of founding both Leira and Braga, I would just have settled one city north west of Braga on the desert hill. Your northern cities lack generally in
.
With that city you would have a hill start, a good wheat tile with the pantheon, one extra tile to grow and a 1
and 2
tile plus 2 hills.
Further, your city would have a range of 2 tiles, while it cant be attacked from 2 tiles from the north, not without a promotion.
The city would covered both the lapiz and the citron. The lapiz would be quite save to get, with the citron you probably would anyways have to race for it with Xian.
But it would be easily coverable with a citadel placed on the south eastern tile of the citrus and would make an approach from the north tougher.
If you get more and more GGs there is still the possibilty to place one directly west of the horse owned by viborg, securing an additional ressource and being in a good position for defence, because enemy units would end their turn next to it, like with the other.
The iron to get is very tough and should be not planed to get for sure at all with the placement of Xian. Was Xian settled later than Leira?
It is still available with a citadel and to be honest, your one GG for that citadel by Coimbra should have gone to Leira north west of the citrus.
It would have secured the iron and would hurt all units coming from the north because of the forest hills.
But that position would be also possible with Braga settled one to north west. You wouldnt be able to work that tile, but would have the iron.
In generally it is not so good to count with strategics directly on your third or even forth ring, because they will get pillaged very quickly. The same situation which happened with your placed one.
In short, Leira, the city you are losing, wasnt a good choice to settle in first place.
Thats for your north eastern border.
Lets have a look on Coimbra.
As I see it, your were trying to steal as much lapiz from China (or whos starting monopoly is lapiz?) as possible, your luxury monopol starting ressource seems to be incense.
It seems to me that you placed Coimbra there to get the lapiz in the south west, east of the city state. In the north, it looks like you secured 3 desert stone tiles and one lapiz on hills.
So Coimbra has just the desert hill, the one lapiz in north on the hill and some desert stone as production, but a lot of flood plains. And as it looks like you worked a lot of them, because it is already at 6
.
You build 2 farms there, but not one mine on the hill, depending on your production to the top, from where china might come and possibly pillaging those. Further, because all that is desert, it would take longer to repair. Im not sure, did you build quarries on the stone tiles there?
I would have 2 suggestions.
Settle Coimbra one tile to the north west on the stone tile, south east of the lapiz desert hill. You would still have access to the same production.
But at the same time, 2 of those lapiz in workable range of the third ring plus the wheat and the horse on top of it. Probably those tiles would only be available via the use of a citadel.
From a defense perspective, would better block the lapiz hill, because now, that one desert stone tile right north of your current position would be automatically improved with a road from the city, so you can easily hit the desert to the west, the lapiz and the stone to north.
The major defensible problem of that general location there is, that the floodplains and the river in north eastern direction is easy terrain for an invader from that direction.
To effiently hold that city, you have to have a beefy unit east of Coimbra anyways, you dont want to have that tile occupied by an enemy anyways. Right now, sth like a swordmen would completely block of your road connection to Coimbra.
Further it would open up a viable city location between Porto and Coimbra east of the lapiz. That city would have the incense in workable range too. In fact, that massive floodplain two stream land can easily feed three cities, all with juicy adjacent bonus farms.
Last but not least that city would have a good tile north west of the lapiz for a citadel with a road and would steal the luxury of that city state.
Regarding Portugal specifically, that City so near to a city state, maybe saved up with said citadel, would give you a very save trade route, if you can keep the City state neutral or allied to you.
You get yields for moving, not for the distance, so short trade routes dont hurt Portugal.
The second suggestion would be to give up on those four northern and just settle a city next to the lapiz. You some production and the lapiz plain hill and the forest would provide it, the river in the north seems to make the enemy end his turn anyway there.
With Braga settled on the north west desert hill position, you would have 2 lapiz copies, one for yourself and one for trade.
Sure, all that desert ressources look tempting with the Desert Spirit pantheon, but Coimbra lose its pantheon anyway or was settled after you got your religion
So in short, you would just have one city on your north eastern border and maybe 2 on your north western border. Desert is best to defend if you set up your roads so you can circle your archers through to shoot your enemies 2 desert tiles away.
Additionally, I would have used the GG for the citadel on another position. If you cant maintain it for some rounds, you are quite wasting its power.
If you really wanted to use it mostly for defense, placing it right next to your city, connected with a road would be the best position.
Im not sure how the south of your empire looks in that southern coast line, so I cant give any usefull advice there, maybe Funchal would have been to tough to defend there.
But settling it on the iron might be not that bad, securing its ressources from pillaging, only having one coast adjacent and the iron would have blocked your UI anyways.
Besides the position of your cities, what was your tech route? Did you tried Petra? As Portugal, gunning for Petra is worth a try, an extra trade route, a free one, and pumped up flood plains seem to justify going for risks.
On the other hand, did you consider going for Great Wall after you have discovered your surrounding area? As bad desert might be to defend, it can be a pain to attack. With Great Wall those northern cities might be better to defend and you will probably place a lot of citadels.
Great Walls and Citadels together are always awesome, because your citadels will always take a bloody price.
