Hey hi ! I'm very new to this forum and still discovering the Vox populi mod , but I have played quite a lot even for civ standards with another mod oriented toward competitive civ V ( the nq mod not to say its name ) and also the ol' vanilla civ 5 when I was young and unaware of the existence of the modding community.
I read a few of those discussions about balancing the civs after I first play because I like to compare what I understood and what is the general opinion on the subject , if we consider that a thing that exist.
It is a hard task to try and balance a civ so that humans and AI could do well with it no matter the map size and type and I like so much what you did that I felt the need to register and say it.
This civ is a very good civ to start with when you begin with Vox Populi imo , I was even thinking it would be considered "op " regarding the way they deal with happiness.
The smaller the map the better the portuguese in my mind , since there will be more variety of ressources available only to you via the absurd number of great admiral that you can create.
It will also empower the great general , as if you get 8 9 of them while being peacefull before renaisssance ( so you are most likely to get more ) and you plant citadels all around your land you
will gain a more significant portion of the map total land ( and ressources and control of chokepoint) , you can really create so many that planting a citadel , removing it and planting one a tile
aside don't feel like such a loss and useless move and allow you to steal stuff to others in a manifest destiny way.
And the number of admiral/general per city will be higher.
Typically I'd make 3 cities on a small map 6 players pangea or fractal , the less ressources on the map , the better you'd find yourself in compared to the others. With only 3 cities the bonus yield from the roads compared to what is needed for a tech with only twice the % modifier for city is VERY strong, it produces more science than the total city output for the early ages.
I found going autorithy is fun as you can act like a total jerk with your close neighbours ( those that will end up vassalized ) and taunt them to war so they crash on your citadels , giving you a steady stream of easy culture.
Here again with only 3 cities the culture yield per unit is stronger compared to the culture needed for a policy than if you were on 4 7 or 10 cities which is pretty much the max you can settle on a 6 player map ( usually 40/60 cities including city state at the end for the whole world).
I found that to work pretty ok on emperor and immortal , I have not tried it in deity as i don't feel confident enough yet.
This in my newbie mind is a lot of margin of manoeuvre as the citadels increase you army cap a lot with 2 or 3 citadels per city making it easy to send troops abroad once you are quite fed.
Other thing thanks to the flat happiness you get , you are able to focus full prod or food in your cities , even if that creates a lot of unhapiness from illiteracy or boredom or poverty or even famine when you try choping 1 turn of those wonders. It could enable you to skip the buildings like markets and library and even walls and baracks sometimes and just tank the unhappinness with global rather than local basically soften the initiation to the new happiness system.
Culture is what I aim at in early game with portugal as they have some sort of passive boost for science once the trade routes are set up, and you set them up earlier than with other civ so you will have the gold going earlier than them , and if you dont well you have admirals to take the gold of the far away people as your neighbours will hate you sometimes ^^
Pantheon like God of all creation works to emphasize the global happiness so you can start trading very early on your ressources and doing so tricks AI into dependance upon you for their early happiness , it gives you diplomatic leverage this way and gives enough culture with 3 cities to unlock authority at a reasonable pace.
I think this would prepare portugal to shine in the late medival early renaissance.
You have excess gold , excess units supply , excess happiness and good science that will scale with very few further investment, everything to make conquest very appealing , you have the luck to be able to pick your target , and be very proactive rather than resilient at this point.
Pick a good capital for monopoly , a religious city , a potential cultural runaway , the city that host petra ,a city state to liberate or the guy who stole your colossus , that reward exploration, and at this point you get the nau and some feitorias in your own land if you are lukcy because it cleary won't define your settlement patern it's just a boost not core.
Naus are very strong if you play authority i'd call them Dromon sinkers if you get the picture , it really feels like harvesting culture , you can basically upgrade any trireme for free , as you will get the cash back once you sell some goods, if on top of that you are building some , you can buy 1 for 1 you build or close as they come cheap with only 3 city the gold yield from the goods are higher compared to the price of a Nau ( at this point i'm not sure how the tech impacts the cost so maybie they appear cheap because i usually have tech lead at this point at least in thoseareas of the tech tree )
Even if they die and cannot really take cities alone they are a trade gold for culture which ranks from good to crucial if you cannot steal a good religion / monopolies like 10 % culture , prod ,gold even science or growth are those i aim at to prepare the expansion.
They are melee unit with a lot of strengh compared to the units on the ground at this era 30 melee str for 161 hammers while Knight are 25 for 202 and lancers 35 foor 353, this makes your army score jump quite a bit and create opportunity for peaceful vassal.
Worth mentionning , it is very fun to feel like you unleash the fleet and see it double in size a few a times in a row.
Feitorias are nice now with the food and production they provide when you trade with an allied city states that has one , it's a strengh late game for Portugal , and it synergizes pretty well with
the Corporations I like Firaxite for the 20% on buildings and the protection against pillaging because those are safe bonus even if you can't spread well your corporation because your vassals are too small , on small map you have more trade routes than cities , and also more trade routes than total number of city state making trade routes and civ that rely on them more powerfull.
The culture from statecraft based on the number of spy to increase it in your capital scales with the number of total city state and is therefore LOWER on small map than on bigger map , that is the weak part of it but I have read that there is a discussion about the scaling of statecraft for wide empire , so who knows ^^.
oh yeah I thought the markets exchange policy would give the monopoly bonus , and was to double the number of trade route , sigh , no santa either after the finisher
So for now my strat is aiming my conquest to fill that blanks on culture , but I don't go to the point where I add polynesia on the ai list if you see what I mean.
Then all the 3 trees are open I think which is another strengh of portugal , its versatility , adaptability.
Industry being my default one as i'm a gold addict and willing to have oversized city that creates unhappiness but are production powerhouse , the +1 happiness on luxury ressources proc on the admiral's ressources and is VERY strong on small map , it had reach 20 or 25 with only 7 8 cities. That allows you to rebuild infrascture in any order after conquest, preferably the production building first without the need of working the tiles the AI was working or face the famine / unhapiness. and of course the +2 roads . Diplo win
Imperialism is obviously if you can push your mid game advantage further and achieve domination , having rivals civs being naval or coastal increase the likelyhood of imperialism play drastically.
An rationalism is rationalism if eveything is fine , more science is always good i guess it depends on how you feel entertain if you have already crippled everyone and you will clearly be tech leader till the end but have not really good gears to speed up the late game , tech win with portugal is slow and painfull to my eyes as you dominate the others they won't be faster than you , but that doesn't make you fast for a bit. Or it could be the situation of the 1V1 at the end and you have more production and land than the other runaway but he has science advantage , so you adjust your pace. or maybie on bigger map to stay on-par with another distant empire that would follow the same curve as you , or if you have feelings and don't want to hurt your friendly trade partner of all time who is also the biggest threat for your hegemony , that would be weird after the early warfare and conquest , but who knows maybie your empire found widsom alongside the capture of the holy city and it leads to waves of pacifists in your land ^^
For the Ideology Autocracy has Iron fist , Syndicalism , commerce raiders , tyrany , if you have potential of rebelious Vassals and / or city states dominance for military win
Order has the crazy tourism boost if you can influence the world to order with your statecraft advantage and the crazy happiness you have , iron curtain , the cheaper gold purchase for buildings and 3 spies , ( so strong on small map ! )
and Freedom has the two additionnal roads , transnationalism and the 4 free delegates
Ideologies are not so important in my mind for portugal as they should use their might mid game and go from small to massive to a point where most humans would surrender , or maybie agree to sparethe world in two. I don't plan to have them accelerate on the late game but rather use short therms payback actions all in mid game and then stall and control.
I know it's a long post that doesn't propose any changes but I really enjoyed playing portugal and wanted to share it, you are not rushing against clock in early game to take lots of land , you are not playing catch up in science early game , you can have a war you decide , and then have time to sit back and watch your empire getting magnificent without being forced to war till end as you can win diplo if you feel like sparing a few lives.
They are really fun to play, thanks to all of you for making that happen .
I read that this UA was proposed for Morrocco at some point , I wonder what has happened that puts it to Portugal so i will finish reading the other thread but I like it on Portugal !
I hope it can be of some use IF there are changes to be made on them , they are very strong on small maps and despite being-terrain dependant , they have tools to grab the land they need , and the land they want.
is good, +4 
is weak, +4 
(why is there no Great Admiral icon?!?) is crap. Especially GAP is useless. If you go wide this bonus is just a little something something. If you go tall, that +4 
bonuses as a civ. And 
