Portugal

[Funak]

Okay, here we are again.
Just like last time I will start by saying that my experience with Portugal is and have always been limited, I forced myself to play them two times in the latest patch before writing this, with varying results. Anyways the point I'm trying to is that I would love someone who actually plays them regularly(and preferably like the civ/playstyle) to lead this, but if no one is available I guess I will do it.


First of all, I guess I'll talk about the difference between my two games. The first one I got them on random when playing a regular pangea map and the other time I tried crafting a map I thought they would be good for, it involved archipelago and a lot of restarts.
As you might have imagined from the actual need for a second try, the first game was a total disaster, the second one worked out fine however.


The new UA worked really well on the island map, the science was awesome, and with the new effect on them the great admirals were a huge boon, I think I managed to consume ten admirals doing 'voyage of discovery' and the extra 20 luxuries were great actually, happiness, trade and so on, really nice.

On the pangea map, I actually started off with a coastal capital, and was pretty psyched about it, however it turned out that I was the only one with a city on that coast so I was forced to rely on caravans anyways. I could write that off as bad luck, but honestly I've seen a lot of games in similar situations and a lot of situations where you get an inland capital even with a coast bias civ. The great generals weren't exactly bad, but unlike the admirals I couldn't really use them well without pissing people off. I will still give them a pass for the UA anyways, having an advantage on coast is completely fine, and the inland effect was still good enough to be used.


The UI!
I think it always comes back to this one. Let me just start by saying that the buff to luxuries/pop was really nice, I never felt like I got any use out of the vision from the feitoria, I never conquered a city-state, so the bonus resources on the feitoria didn't really do anything for me either. I was planning on placing a feitoria close to my border and then snag it with a great general, but I accidentally used the nau in the wrong spot and I don't think you can change the location of it.

On my island game the feitorias were pretty helpful, at least early on. I got the Nau as soon as I could and spammed feitorias in all the citystates I could find. Eventually I lost track of which ones I had built one in and pretty much gave up on it, but until then it was pretty fine. Later on however I got my patronage going and started allying the citystates. Some time after that I realized that by allying the citystates I pretty much negated my UI, which felt pretty weird, I tried to remember if something was added that helped with that but I couldn't think of anything.
So by the time I won a diplovictory I had had no use of my UI for about four fifths of the game, which bothered me a bit actually.

On my pangea game i found one coastal city-state and another one with its border touching the coast, so I managed to get two feitorias done that game, and because of my coastal situation I had to build them with workers, not the UU (which is fine, I just wanted to point it out).
Honestly it all felt really underwhelming.


The UU is a boat, you build or buy a few of them and use them to dump Feitoria in city-states, other that I guess it has better sight and higher combatstrength than a normal Caravel. It really isn't anything amazing, but there are a lot worse UUs so I'm not going to complain about this one.
Natrually, being a boat, it is of limited usefulness on pangea maps.




To sum this up, in my opinion I think this civ is suffering from having too many eggs in the feitoria basket, and the feitoria basket falls short. The main purpose of the UU is to spread the feitoria and find new land to build feitoria, that by itself isn't terrible by any means, the UU is actually really helpful on the maps where you can guarantee that all city-states are coastal.
The Feitoria however, I just really don't like it. Even disregarding the fact that it is close to useless on a lot of maps, even on the maps it works on the effect isn't very really very powerful. The effect also goes from 'not very powerful' to useless if you're planning on going for a diplomatic victory.
The UA is fine.

 

[Edaka]

I can't say much about my opinion on Portugal as I don't have a well-defined one, but I'll try.

The UA seems pretty solid, the UU is unique enough to be good. I find it pretty hilarious that nau retains the promotion that allows to create feitorias upon an upgrade, but not the promotion with additional sight, so you can possibly have ironclads that can 'sell exotic cargo'.

The UI is neither bad nor extraordinary good, but I think it has its own little niche, which is good. I agree that it feels weird to utilise it by capturing a CS for the yields, but I suppose I'm just not used to the idea. I also share the displeasure of its restrictions to coastal CSs only, but I'm not necessarily saying that it's bad. It promotes building a largely coastal empire with island colonies, which is tematic and all that. Yeah, restrictions are rarely fun, but I'm mostly okay with this one.

Overall I don't think Portugal needs a change at the moment, but then I'm not the guy for whose opinion you are looking for

I would love someone who actually plays them regularly(and preferably like the civ/playstyle) to lead this

 

[Funak]

Overall I don't think Portugal needs a change at the moment, but then I'm not the guy for whose opinion you are looking for

At least you're someone

 

[Gazebo]

The idea behind the Feitoria is to facilitate conquest, not the Diplo Victory. You plant it, get the resources from the CS, then conquer it to keep the resources and get the super tile. This is fairly accurate to what Portuguese imperialism looked like in the early modern period (explore, build feitoria, conquer region around feitoria, rinse/repeat).

G

 

[Funak]

The idea behind the Feitoria is to facilitate conquest, not the Diplo Victory. You plant it, get the resources from the CS, then conquer it to keep the resources and get the super tile. This is fairly accurate to what Portuguese imperialism looked like in the early modern period (explore, build feitoria, conquer region around feitoria, rinse/repeat).

I know how the Portuguese African trade-network worked, that's not really the issue. The issue is that imo the reward is just not big enough. Getting the luxury resource from a city-state without allying them is decent, sure. But no matter if you conquer or ally the city-state after that, you no longer receive that benefit anymore.

Let us start by just removing diplomatic victory from the equation, I guess it just wasn't meant for Portugal. This is a pretty rare action, but I guess it isn't limited to Portugal so I'm not going to complain about it.

Second you mentioned conquering city-states. For starters that's usually always a bad idea, but with the Mongols being an exception to that I'm willing to have Portugal as an exception as well, no problems.
Here we come to my main problem with this idea, all the benefit you get out of a feitoria in a conquered city is a tile that's about equivalent to a great person tile. And for the cost of a UB and getting the entire world mad at you for conquering city-states, that's just not a very strong reward. End result is that your UB replacement gets you one decent enough tile per city, and it only affects specific conquered cities.

Even if we assume extremes, you not expanding at all, just having Lisbon and 16 conquered city-states all conveniently coastal with legal feitoria locations, your building replacement ends up handing you one tile in 16/17 cities. Even if the tile was amazingly powerful, which honestly I don't even think it is, that's still less than 1 per city.


¨

Again I understand what you're going for with the feitoria, but I just don't think it translates very well into the game.

 

[Atlas627]

I love Portugal, though I do think they might need something.

Portugal is great because it is wonderfully flexible. The UA gives you science and either navy or army strength, depending upon which you clearly need (if you need a navy its because you were coastal and using naval trade, and vice versa). The UU is strong if you want to conquer, it gives you your UI and xp which are both flexible, and is the type of unit you'd build anyway (plus it is the first unit that is capable of doing what it can do, so you won't feel like you're wasting the UU by using the unit that comes before it instead). The UI gives you happiness and vision in peace, or yields if you conquer city states.

Want to worry about culture and tourism? You can focus on that while your uniques take care of diplomacy, trade, and keeping your military strong. Want to worry about science? You can trade while doing it! Want to worry about your military? Your UA will keep you supplied with GGs and GAs, your economy will be able to support your military, and you can get vision all over the world. Want to worry about city states? You can protect the ones that aren't even your allies by keeping vision over them.

Unfortunately I think the UI is a tad lackluster. Conquering citystates is pretty bad already, so you never get to use the yields (and your opponents often get to, so its a liability actually, which I enjoy). Luxuries are also really lackluster. If luxuries were better or if the feitoria also provided strategics, I think it would be fine.

 

[jacktannery]

Would it be possible to add to the Portugese palace something like: '+10 production per fetoria within controlled lands', to encourage the (frankly, non-optimal) gameplay suggested by Gazebo above?

 

[Gazebo]

Let's remember that the Feitoria is the only UI in the game that just flat-out gives happiness, and that bonuses from happiness scale with empire population.

G

 

[Funak]

Let's remember that the Feitoria is the only UI in the game that just flat-out gives happiness

'Flat-out have the potential to give happiness'

Conquering or Allying the city-state and it gives no happiness.
No coastal tiles and it gives no happiness.



I know this sounds like I'm angry/frustrated/whatever, but I'm really not. I'm just trying to make a point. The Feitoria have too many limitations.

 

[Gazebo]

'Flat-out have the potential to give happiness'

Conquering or Allying the city-state and it gives no happiness.
No coastal tiles and it gives no happiness.



I know this sounds like I'm angry/frustrated/whatever, but I'm really not. I'm just trying to make a point. The Feitoria have too many limitations.

All UI have limitations. Feitoria limitation is coastal CS. Not all that rare to find. Your choice if you want the happiness/line of sight or the yields from the tile. Also, they get their UI for free from their UB (or workers can build it manually), which is also quite rare and useful. Sorry, but I just don't see this UI as problematic or weak.

G

 

[Funak]

All UI have limitations. Feitoria limitation is coastal CS. Not all that rare to find. Your choice if you want the happiness/line of sight or the yields from the tile. Also, they get their UI for free from their UB (or workers can build it manually), which is also quite rare and useful. Sorry, but I just don't see this UI as problematic or weak.

I've made my point, you've made your point, no real need to continue. I still think this is the weakest 'UB' in the game, possibly second to the Venetian, but that's just my opinion.

You others feel free to keep going if you want, but I'll stop now.

 

[Gazebo]

I've made my point, you've made your point, no real need to continue. I still think this is the weakest 'UB' in the game, possibly second to the Venetian, but that's just my opinion.

You others feel free to keep going if you want, but I'll stop now.

Changes aren't 'off the table,' however I don't really see a compelling change worth moving towards that wouldn't be lengthy and/or convoluted. I think the Feitoria is weaker, yeah, but I think the Nau and UA are both quite potent, and the latter scales very well throughout the game.

G

 

[Funak]

Changes aren't 'off the table,'

That's not what I said, I just said I was done, which I still am

 

[Der_Zorn_gottes]

I don`t think Portugal is quite there yet. The UA is crazy fun, I love to see those yields popping up.
But great general/great admiral doesn`t help them much.
You don`t really need more then 2 generals really - you can annoy your neighbors with spare ones, but what do you really gain from that?
Admirals get you luxuries, but the Nau already does that, too. You can sell them, but traderoutes and Naus already gave you so much money.
In the end, UA, UI and UU all do the same thing - give you luxuries and money. It is nice, because it gives the civ a clear profile, but it overshoots a bit.
I would argue for removing GG/GA creation and do something else - Golden age points, that would be boring though. Other Great persons could work, but please not GM, as fitting as it might be. Or we could just fiddle the numbers, increase the science and reduce the GP points, though the symmetry looks nice.

 

[Funak]

I don`t think Portugal is quite there yet. The UA is crazy fun, I love to see those yields popping up.
But great general/great admiral doesn`t help them much.
You don`t really need more then 2 generals really - you can annoy your neighbors with spare ones, but what do you really gain from that?
Admirals get you luxuries, but the Nau already does that, too. You can sell them, but traderoutes and Naus already gave you so much money.
In the end, UA, UI and UU all do the same thing - give you luxuries and money. It is nice, because it gives the civ a clear profile, but it overshoots a bit.
I would argue for removing GG/GA creation and do something else - Golden age points, that would be boring though. Other Great persons could work, but please not GM, as fitting as it might be. Or we could just fiddle the numbers, increase the science and reduce the GP points, though the symmetry looks nice.

I love the admirals/generals, Generals means you can grab natural wonder/resources from nearby city-states(or players), they are also awesome for defensive plays. Admirals I usually just throw away for free luxuries, they add up.

I still really dislike the UI however, to me it just doesn't exist.

My last game as Portugal I was landlocked in the middle of the pangea, and I was going to try out if the feitora still requires coastal tiles, and then while here if it still did, but I found myself just not caring enough to send workers to citystates to try and build the feitoras, and that's kinda the full story of the building really.

 

[Der_Zorn_gottes]

They do add up, but I had a copy of every off-map luxury from industrial times on. Considering that with the increase of trade routes a lot of trading is still to come, there is a lot going to waste.
On the Feitora though - does it provide only luxuries or strategic resources also?

 

[Funak]

They do add up, but I had a copy of every off-map luxury from industrial times on. Considering that with the increase of trade routes a lot of trading is still to come, there is a lot going to waste.

Really? There are like 30 off-map resources aren't there?

 

[Cerest]

The idea behind the Feitoria is to facilitate conquest, not the Diplo Victory. You plant it, get the resources from the CS, then conquer it to keep the resources and get the super tile. This is fairly accurate to what Portuguese imperialism looked like in the early modern period (explore, build feitoria, conquer region around feitoria, rinse/repeat).

G

Heya, quick question G, I noticed that the feitora isn't improved by the idealogy UI policies (urbanization, military-industrial complex, five-year plan). Given that you intended players to conquer city states with feitoras shouldn't they get the same bonuses all the UIs do?

 

[Gazebo]

Heya, quick question G, I noticed that the feitora isn't improved by the idealogy UI policies (urbanization, military-industrial complex, five-year plan). Given that you intended players to conquer city states with feitoras shouldn't they get the same bonuses all the UIs do?

Feitoria's are stacked up from the outset – I didn't see the need for it. If others disagree, we can add it. In any case, if we go that route, a github post would be useful for me to remember it.

G

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

A proposal for Feitorias:

Give them the capacity to do damage to adjacent enemies of Portugal ala a weaker Citadel. Maybe 10 or 15 damage a turn. This gives them a usefulness if the city-state is an ally or an enemy. It help defend the city-state against Portugal's enemies in the former condition and help Portugal conquer the city-state in the later.

If this makes Portugal overpowered, balance it by reducing the Feitoria's yield.