How to win with Portugal

[RealHuhn]

"A rhetorical question is one that is asked already knowing the answer."

So, when you asked "Why would you pay money for a CS when you get their luxury resource for free after Navigation?" you already knew that the answer was obviously:

To gain delegates in world congress that can either help push or deny proposals, or contribute to the diplomatic victory?

To gain units, culture, faith, food, or happiness (mercantile CS do give happiness independent of their luxuries at friend status)?

To gain access to strategic resources, such as coal, when not having any alternative source, being first to industrial and wanting to have factories up to get an ideology running quickly?

As a defensive measure, if the CS is close, and its current ally may indicate an incoming DoW, or an aggressive tactic, if the CS is close to the target, where during war the CS units will pressure and/or distract to your benefit?

You would under no circumstances pay money for a CS when you already have a copy of their luxury?


Thank you for the brilliant insight delivered by a method of rhetoric that cannot be manipulatively misinformative whatsoever.

I could write an essay why you are wrong here but I won't because I don't wanna waste more time on a guy who only types one-liners to provoke people.

Have a nice day, sir. And next time, try to contribute something useful to the discussion.

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[chukownu]

I could write an essay why you are wrong here but I won't because I don't wanna waste more time on a guy who only types one-liners to provoke people.

Have a nice day, sir. And next time, try to contribute something useful to the discussion.

What exactly did you just contribute by saying you can argue in defense of your "designed for ignoring CS" assertion premised by your rhetorical question, but won't?

Moderator Action: And you trolled here too. It takes two to tango and you both need to learn to control yourselves. Only you can decide to stop the trolling by taking a deep breath, reporting and deciding not to respond
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[justaquestion]

Thanks for the replies guys. I am going to try them out.


I played Portugal and won a diplomatic victory but I had such a hard time winning with them more so im going to try other strategies so I can get better with them. Im gettin the hang of bnw. won with every new player!

 

[HiroProtagonist]

Just started playing Portugal as my first BNW game. Plenty of good ideas here to use. Thanks

 

[teqofc]

Portugal is obviously designed to ignore city states. Why would you pay money for a CS when you get their luxury resource for free after Navigation?

Don't ignore CS. The beauty of Portugal is you got money coming out of your ears so you use that to friend CS for their benefits, i.e +culture, +food, +religion and endless supply of military units. This is why Portugal is my new favorite. So much more fun and flexible than Venice and just as much money generation. And of course if you are doing for diplomatic victory then using all that money to ally with CS just makes it that much easier. It only sucks when you get a bunch of CS that are hard to get to build your feitora and when you get a yucky disproportional CS, like 60% religious and no military CS ugh.

After getting diplomatic victories on immortal and diety I have now disabled that condition and only allow science, cultural and domination. Makes it much more challenging.

 

[GrantBud]

Are you trying to make fun of me here? Everybody knows that.

The point is that you can spend gold on something else instead of investing into city states for a small bonus. I'd say only cultural CS are worth considering because culture can't be bought as easily in BNW.

But yeah you're smart, you would spend 1000 gold on a mercantile CS although you get both of their luxuries for free ...

Moderator Action: Please do not make this personal.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

Oh but how else would you get the +2 food per turn in the capital? OH wait, what's this, trade routes?

 

[GrantBud]

Basically, I'm of the opinion that *going* for diplomatic ability is a waste of Portugal's abilities. Better off, is going science, to get up the the UN era ASAP, and then you can swap into diplomatic victory with relative easy.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

I played Portugal once. i love the Nau but i dislike the Feitoria for a couple reasons. I tend to operate at worker minimums, enough to support my cities but not enough to spare one for a CS to build the Feitoria. the turn cost is more than I'd expect (if i didnt take Pyramids or liberty worker). plus, as mentioned already, the lux diversity in CSs are sometimes few and far between. plus, in most standard lands maps i have maybe 3-4 CSs within immediate vicinity to get to. The rest are either thru lands that are hostile or open borders arent good choices, or it will take many turns to cross an ocean to get a lux or two I dont already have. UI's that cant be within my borders feel REALLY inconvenient.

but at best, for me anyways, the Feitoria is good if you decide to take 2 policies in Patronage+Pledge for free friends and the lux happiness without spending gold on it. I'll still ally food and culture CSs but the others can forgo the cost. as its purely a gold boost civ, diplo seems the easiest to consider but it's also an already really easy VC.

 

[GrantBud]

Are food states really worth it post BNW? Trade routes seem so much more effective, especially for coastal cities.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

Are food states really worth it post BNW? Trade routes seem so much more effective, especially for coastal cities.

i think they are. using both means huge growth potential. plus they have other resources worth being allies for. im still messing with what i like most about caravans. they are so flexible that im not using them exclusively for food.

 

[tmt393]

Portugal is obviously designed to ignore city states. Why would you pay money for a CS when you get their luxury resource for free after Navigation?

That's like saying, "don't use France for a cultural victory because it's a waste of their ability."

Not to mention you might not just be paying a CS money to get their luxury resources, but to get their votes.

 

[direblade99]

Are food states really worth it post BNW? Trade routes seem so much more effective, especially for coastal cities.

As portugal you probably want more trade routes outwards getting gold than inwards on food routes anyway, so using a small amount of said gold to ally maritime city states for food will probably be a good idea.

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

Domination - works well when AI has mostly coastal capitals, Autocracy might be better here for rushbuying an army instead of useless buildings

Diplomatic - no, it's a waste of their ability

Bakana!
Sacking a coastal capital when you can get 50gpt from a cargo ship there? Portugal favors everything except domination.

 

[anmattos]

Thats so annoying. In my game as portugal, 50% of the CS had only fur...

Same here. Got almost only Silver, and not even Jewerly, only Porcelain.

 

[zxcvbob]

I'm playing my first Portugal game now. Standard map, small continents, emperor level. IIRC, so far it's Tradition(5), Aesthetics opener, Exploration(1), Rationalism(5), Autocracy(5).

Babylon spawned close-by and immediately forward settled me. Backstabbed me and rushed with bowmen. I fought them off; he killed half my units and I killed all of his. (good thing I had walls) Peace deal. 20 or 30 turns later he was back. I fought them off again, and refused the next peace offer. I took Akkad and Babylon and left them crippled. They've been stealing techs from me the whole game...

Anyway, if Austria marries or Venice buys a CS where you have a feitoria, you lose the luxes and they basically get a free fort, right?

I'm at war with Austria right now; just about to capture Vienna. She took-out at least half of the CS's in this game. I had to watch carefully to see if she was allied with any and then I threw a bunch of gold at them, but she married a bunch before I noticed what was going on. (and a few even after whenever I got distracted)

 

[Sclb]

Yes you lose the lux if they annex your CS, easy way to deal with that would be to DoW and peaceblock them. Austria requires allied status to marry, so you could also just keep her from allying. Venice is usually not as bad since MoV are harder to come buy but they do not require friend or ally status, so it's extremely hard to watch for them.

 

[zxcvbob]

I had so much gold, even with half of my trade routes pillaged all the time, I just bought-off all the rest of the CS's and kept paying them gold to keep them allied.

I just finished winning a domination victory; captured the runaway culture leader first because he had a different ideology (he offered me 100 GPT for peace after I took his capital and all his wonders; hard not to accept a deal like that) Then Austria to stop her foolishness, then I went down the line from strongest to weakest. It was a fun game.

I would have gotten diplomatic victory eventually, but Austria's shenanigans messed that up for the first couple of votes.

 

[beetle]

I played the Portugal DCL a few times more after I first won. I really wanted to make the feitoria key to a VC. I could not make it happen. Money is good for any VC, and the UA is great for that. Nau did not seem to help as much.

The feitoria benefit, as far as I can figure, only helps in games where you can (1) afford to ignore the CS, but (2) stay at peace. If you are allied or at war with a CS the feitoria has no effect. But (1) and (2) eliminates Diplo and Domination. And Brazil was in the Portugal DCL game, so that was it for CV!