Portuguese Nau

[GoreBush]

Any point for Nau providing more gold from his trade missions than itself costs?

It just literally money snowball now. I think it should be special unit that no replaces caravel and capped at some limited quantities ( like emissaries ) and with no option to purchasing it for gold, only through city-production. What do you think about this dear civfanatics?

 

[Stalker0]

The trade missions do give you a lot of refund on buying a nau, but I've never seen it outright pay for itself. I can't think of any way that would happen until autocracy's Military industrial complex, and by then should be well past Naus.

To me that power is one of the reasons the Nau is good. Its not a strong combat unit...at all...but the ability to mass them allows you to do a quantity over quality strategy. In terms of UU strength, I don't consider the Nau top tier by any means.

 

[GoreBush]

The trade missions do give you a lot of refund on buying a nau, but I've never seen it outright pay for itself. I can't think of any way that would happen until autocracy's Military industrial complex, and by then should be well past Naus.

To me that power is one of the reasons the Nau is good. Its not a strong combat unit...at all...but the ability to mass them allows you to do a quantity over quality strategy. In terms of UU strength, I don't consider the Nau top tier by any means.

It literally overpays himself. At least on standart speed ( but i think it scales with game-speed ). It costs 240 and perform around 2x200 in not so far cities.

PS Checked this on different speeds and realize yields from mission is not scaling. On marathon it nearly pay for himself and seem balanced. Other speeds gamebreaking now with Nau i think.

 

[Jhang]

I think the Nau being able to get enough money to buy Nau is okay, they are almost a utility UU. I honestly consider them one of the worst UUs in the game.

But that's okay because Portugal has an excellent UI and UA! If anything might be nerfed, it might be how big those city state Feitoria yields are getting on the trade routes, ever since they fixed the trade routes gain calculations.

 

[CppMaster]

I honestly consider them one of the worst UUs in the game.

Really? It's a stronger caravel with better sight and is basically free (You just have to have some pool of gold). Those missions also give some XP and a luxury from a CS. It's a very good UU. Not for the combat itself, but for economy.

 

[Jhang]

In terms of furthering Portugal's kit, I consider them to be good utility UUs, kinda like how the Merchant Of Venice is a utility UU. They do a great job setting up Feitorias, they are good at scouting and exploring, and they can even escape from melee attacks at a pretty high rate.

In terms of waging war, they are the weakest of the Naval UUs, and don't particularly make a huge power shift when they come online. I am also not so charmed by Caravels; while they are a jump in power and mobility when they come online, they don't exactly obliterate walled cities, to say the least castles.

In short you have a scout and exploration naval UU that can do about the same thing a Caraval can do, but with a little extra. It's just that a Caraval can't do all that much in terms of waging war.

 

[CppMaster]

Yeah, many unique components don't help with wars directly, but it doesn't make them weak.

 

[Jhang]

Not weak, one of the worst. I compare it to something like the Bandeirantes, which comes at the same time. Kind of a utility version of a kinda utility unit; Caravals are naturally more offensive bented than explorers, but a Nau, after it does it's utility job, isn't all that dramatically different from a Caraval, and a Caraval isn't that dramatic of a unit when it comes online. Now I think Naus are better than Bandeirantes, because I think Flag Bearers promotes bad habits.

Also note that, like Brazil, I am pretty tolerant of a mediocre UU on Portugal because I think their UA is very good and reliable, and their UI is pretty great too.

 

[Sgtslick]

There UI comes too late and UU is mediocre, she's probably ok on lower difficulties.

 

[zeofig]

They might not be that much stronger than a caravel, but they still get a significant increase in CS, a bunch of bonus XP, and almost pay for themselves. Naus will crush almost any AI with a few coastal cities, partly because you can make so damn many of them. The only time it isn't strong is when there's no one convenient to attack.

 

[stii]

I like how big the spread is from broken to utterly useless.

They seem a fine UU to me. Does something other than just attack. So if you aren't waring in the narrow window of the UU they still have a use. Above average I guess but hard to rate as they are rarely exciting but never useless.

 

[Sgtslick]

Compare it to dido's UU. It is a league above the naus imo, you get xp for exploring so its pretty easy to get lvl 5 lvl 6, the unique bonus is great and doesn't go obsolete even after upgrading.

 

[Jhang]

Compare it to dido's UU. It is a league above the naus imo, you get xp for exploring so its pretty easy to get lvl 5 lvl 6, the unique bonus is great and doesn't go obsolete even after upgrading.

That's kind of my point on it. Naval UUs are niche already, and of the Naval UUs (Quinquereme, Sea Beggar, Ship Of The Line), it's the worst of an honestly impressive lot.

I want to state, though, I don't consider them useless. Obviously you need them to finish up Portugal's Feitorias thing, and they are certainly spammable. And their retreat from melee can certainly help in blue water fights.

As for Portugal's viability, early consistent science and great generals that come online before territorial wars make a big difference. Being able to turtle up against hostile neighbors is one thing, but being able to turtle up and past them into a sturdy mid game is another. I find Portugal to be awfully consistent in practice, late bloomers who can science and turtle last their weak phase qualify for that.