Not contradictory to anything you wrote, but important to remember: a trader doesn't have to move through a city center in order to have its movement range refreshed by a trading post. That's how I was able to trade with England and the Maya in my first game as Portugal - I got a trading post in Stirling, which refreshed my traders' movement on the feitortia next to the city center, allowing them to cross the ocean to the east.
If it can, it will. Since Trading posts give extra gold to trade routes, and the game will automatically pick the route that yields the most gold from point A to point B, it will prefer Trading posts. The reason why your trader doesn't stop at Stirling because of the rule against embarking/disembarking onto the same tile during the journey, and because Portugal cannot connect Stirling to a nearby city using land. If you can give me the save file, I'd probably be able to look into it a bit more
Good job!
I don't agree that Helmsman is the obvious promotion for a Nau, I prefer Embolon. I tend to find that with Helmsman it's hard to survive a couple of encounters with barbarians, which means your Nau doesn't get very far.
I said Helmsman was the "standard" choice, which means I think if I have 10 Naus for example, there should be more Helmsman than Embolon. I say it is "standard" because Helmsman seems useful in all situations, even when there are Barbs around, since it helps you outrun the Barbs. Embolon is useful when you get surrounded and attacked by multiple Barbs, which can happen, but will not happen to every single Nau. In the case when you cannot run because of extensive ZoC, maybe Embolon helps you die a bit slower but doesn't guarantee your survival, but again, not really the problem you will have with every single Nau. Naus are naval melee, which are generally not very useful unless led by Harald, they don't do a lot of fighting, so preferring Embolon over Helmsman is like preparing a defensive army bigger than you need in case you get attacked. IF you get attacked, it's useful, but if you don't, it feels like a waste. Same here, if you get attacked by Barbs, it is helpful, but if you don't, it is not. I've played the game a lot on multiplayer, and I know different people have different preferences, and this is just personal, but generally, bonuses help you be proactive and take control of your own fate is better than defensive bonuses that help you react better to things that may or may not arise.
Since the purpose of the Naus is just to build Feitorias, it can do that with only 1HP and be deleted afterwards, since Caravels are still useless otherwise, sometimes to save time, I don't even promote Naus until they lose HP because they get hit.
Doesn't Embrasure not work with units that already start out with a free promotion? Haven't tried it with the Nau though.
It does. You will get double promotions. You can try with Janissaries.
Third opinion: One with Helmsman, one with Embolon alternating, spending the building charges, then combine both units to a fleet.
That is a great idea. The thing is you don't use naval melee units for fighting though. In a standard naval conquest game, I only sometimes use Caravels to capture coastal cities. Naus are basically identical to Caravels, but it can build Feitorias. In that case, this doesn't change a lot, if anything. If this is a naval ranged, absolutely.
A great article. I wish that all documentation was this extensive.
I do have remark: you advocate against building Feitora's in City States several times. But since both Wisselbanken and the Democray ability also work on City States you are Suzerain of, you will often get better yields from them than from a foreign civ you are not allied to. And even so, the bonus of these is applied to both sender and receiver. I usually much rather buff a city state than another civ with food and production, even if they are my ally.
I think that depends. I played my first Portugal game on Archipelago, the most water-y map out there, and unless the city-states were directly coastal, they wouldn't build Harbors. There is no CS type that favors building Harbors, commercial CSs build only C.Hubs. The second thing is CSs are always more underdeveloped than a city of a major civ, and as the article points out, international trade route yields depend on districts inside the destination. Later in the game when you have so much gold you don't know what to do with it all, you'd prefer your trade routes to have some other yields, and trade routes to CSs are always weaker in those regards. Besides, alliances with other civs give you both Open Borders (what you want regardless), a lot of extra yields to Trade Routes (something you also want a lot) and Diplomatic Favor for the World Congress. I'd not advise against Feitorias in CSs if you have an unlimited time window with this improvement, but you don't, so it is better to put a focus in some major cities of major civs other than spreading them out. Unless you have Kumasi in your game and you're the Suzerain of it, I don't really bother with building Feitorias in CSs.
Although arguably another reason was that I was actually limited in which AI cities actually were on the coast. In my initial map, basically my left side of my continent had 2-3 of my own cities but only 2 AI cities I could reach (one ally, one not). On the right side, I had about 3-4 cities there, but again, only 2 AI cities that I could reach nearby. So basically to max out my routes, I had to trade with CS. And I was lucky that a barb camp spawned where I could easily fit 2 Feitoria even with them building a harbor, so it generated basically the same yields as trading with the other cities.
