The Portugal Thread

[banzay13]

Kaapstad and later Mombasa can be powerhouses. I'm not sure that GE need for TC, i use it for Patronage wonder, UU is quite strong (and cheap) to conquer Swahili and Congo without TC event. At first i settle 2 city (near Gold and Banana, aslo you can grab Spice a bit later) in Africa under Mali borders and on island there (or Spain of Netherland settle here, Edo is also good spot). I'm not sure that settling before renaissance is good idea, but maybe with culture slider can work​

 

[Bernd-das-Brot]

Has anybody succesfully finished the 2nd new Portugese UHV (2000 Gold through, pillaging, conquest and blockading)?

2000 seems a lot! (You get 2-5 for plundering a sea improvement, around 5-10 for landtiles, I got 76 for the conquest of the south Indian capital, Privateers blockading is 2/3 gold per turn,...)

I finished with around 600 gold, 1000 maybe doable with a more focused approach. But 2000? Not sure.

Am I missing something to achieve this goal? ;-)

 

[AOS9001]

I finished with around 600 gold, 1000 maybe doable with a more focused approach. But 2000? Not sure.

Am I missing something to achieve this goal? ;-)

Leoreth said he didn't test the new goals, that's our job. If 2000 is not doable on normal speed, I'm sure it'll be revised downward.

I'm still struggling with the 35% trade route control on normal, myself. I cannot remember how I did it last summer!

 

[Derdan]

Has anybody succesfully finished the 2nd new Portugese UHV (2000 Gold through, pillaging, conquest and blockading)?

2000 seems a lot! (You get 2-5 for plundering a sea improvement, around 5-10 for landtiles, I got 76 for the conquest of the south Indian capital, Privateers blockading is 2/3 gold per turn,...)

I finished with around 600 gold, 1000 maybe doable with a more focused approach. But 2000? Not sure.

Am I missing something to achieve this goal? ;-)

Haven't tried it myself yet, but sacking big cities while running Hegemony might be the trick.

 

[Bernd-das-Brot]

I am skeptical - as I said the 10+ Dravdian capital only offered 76 gold (without Hegemony). :-(

By the way: How is the plunder even calculated?

 

[a pen-dragon]

In BtS it is calculated as:

(20 + 10 × pop + rand(1..50) + rand(1..50)) × TurnsOwned/50

Edit: Here TurnsOwned is capped at 50, so if a city has been owend longer the capture gold will cease to increase.

See this thread: Pillage formula for conquer gold on city capture

Checking the mentioned files, it seems to have been changed to, with changes underlined:

(10 + 5 × pop + rand(1..50) + rand(1..25)) × TurnsOwned/50

GlobalDefines.xml contains a CAPTURE_GOLD_PER_BUILDING_COST, but as far as I can tell the code does not use this.

Edit 2:

sack and spare are handled in CvCity. CvCity::sack takes capture gold as an argument and increases this amount by 50% (or 150% for the norse). I guess the capture gold handed over to this function is the one calculated above?

 

[AOS9001]

The latest git commit definitely made Portugal more of a challenge. Increasing medieval tech costs has a huge impact on how soon you can get your trade route control conquest underway.

 

[Bernd-das-Brot]

The latest git commit definitely made Portugal more of a challenge. Increasing medieval tech costs has a huge impact on how soon you can get your trade route control conquest underway.

Played a portugal game today:

The first UHV is still doable, if you know what to do (some settlers, conquer east african coast and Kongo with Bandeirantes, culture slider before the deadline).

The 2nd seems impossible to me. Even 1000 is really hard.

The 3rd maybe doable. Sadly my Empire collapsed in turn 146. Stability is a problem, if you go for Brazil after all the indian Ocean conquests.

 

[AOS9001]

Yeah, I've managed to get a routine for the first goal down. The second goal... Definitely going to need to be revised downwards.

Goal 3, I haven't even gotten close yet.

 

[SultanRedSnake]

So far I'm definitely with yous about UHV #2 being either a total no-go or in need to severe adjustment. In principle it might be somewhere on the right track in terms of capturing the "Big Boat Crusaders" spirit. This has induced me to press a more firm case for a redesigned UP with naval prowess of some kind as its focus, and could be as simple as reassigning Spain's UP, which I already have problems with on its own.

 

[AOS9001]

So far I'm definitely with yous about UHV #2 being either a total no-go or in need to severe adjustment. In principle it might be somewhere on the right track in terms of capturing the "Big Boat Crusaders" spirit. This has induced me to press a more firm case for a redesigned UP with naval prowess of some kind as its focus, and could be as simple as reassigning Spain's UP, which I already have problems with on its own.

I still think your idea giving early access to the Renaissance starting buildings upon founding a new city (maybe starting with cartography) would be a great UP.

A naval focus UP would be interesting too. Spain's would definitely work for Portugal. I however remain in favor of further revisions of the carrack, which had a greater carrying capacity (ton for ton) than the galleon at the cost of being slower and clumsier. These ships excelled in the Indian and Pacific ocean because very few ships in that region were sturdy enough to withstand cannon fire or tall enough to scale the high sides of the carrack. However, carracks were dead meat when going up against European galleons, which could literally sail circles around them and were big and tall enough to close to boarding range (how most naval battles were decided before the English got so scared of the Spanish marines they turned their warships into floating gun batteries). That, however, is for my fantasy naval revision post I've been sitting on.

 

[a pen-dragon]

I just tried it, but mismanaged stability and ended up collapsing at around turn 365, on Monarch/Normal.

I think the main reason for my collapse is researching economics, gaining a negative stability modifier from merchant trade, which pushed me over the edge. Also triggering a GA too early, which otherwise may have helped me at this point. I was at -12 the last time I looked, with -5 from outdated civics.

Expansion stability is not that much of a problem due to the huge historical area summing to huge recent expansion boni. Expanding further can actually help getting more stable. Also UHV #3 requires a lot of cities to get the 10000.

Regarding UHV #1 I expanded a bit too slowly and ended up having to run the culture slider for a few turns to grab a few needed tiles. I was unwilling to grab the Swahili land, as they were a vassal to the moors who also kept Cordoba and capitulated the Spanish. I ended up settling on the islands close to the coast in the atlantic, a city in Guinea to bypass a cape, controlling most of the coast (including Congo) from there up to the Swahili land, as well as Socotra, parts of modern-day oman, as well as Anuradhapura (trading company). That got me UHV #1. I also grabbed Ziwa to pump units.

Tech-wise I went Cartography - Gunpowder - Exploration - Firearms, while trading for useful stuff. I got Commune, Gunpowder, and a few other, less relevant ones by trade. I timed things such that the trading company finished just after firearms. Trading away my world map as well as a few techs if they could grab enough gold allowed me to run the slider at 100% until around turn 355, where the important techs were in.

From the trading company, paying the gold, I got the spice islands from Java without a fight and went to war over the malay peninsula as well as Anuradhapura, held by the Malays and Dravidians respectively. The attack against the Dravidians was supported by fresh troops from Africa, and I soon went on to the subcontinent itself. At this point, at around turn 350 I had already got around 800 , mostly from capturing cities (Ganga, Anurad, Mascat), but also from pillaging.I already had converted3 cities in Asia to catholicism and had things plannd out to get to 8 in time.

Regarding the gold part of the goal, I feel like it should also include Africa to make it more achievable (or maybe even all historical and conquest area, although that may also make it harder?). Alternatively it could be replaced by something like control 10-12 cities in asia by that turn. Another possibility would be to rework city capture gold to depend more on city size and buildings and less on the time it was held by a certain player.

Unfortunately the dravidians collapsed before I could take more cities, preventing me from getting any more capture gold from them. OTOH this allowed me to quickly grab most of their cities (one going to the mughals), which together with Sumatra would have gotten me 16 trading company resources. I still needed about 6000 from trade routes in 20 turns, but was currently only generating about 230/turn at a bit more than 20 cities. Grabbing a few cities in Brazil, as well as Sumatra should have allowed completing this goal.

 

[SultanRedSnake]

I was unwilling to grab the Swahili land, as they were a vassal to the moors who also kept Cordoba and capitulated the Spanish.

Once Leoreth figures out the general problem of the Swahili's enthusiasm for voluntary vassalage, which is already warranted for reasons of its own, awkward moments like these won't occur anymore.

Another possibility would be to rework city capture gold to depend more on city size and buildings and less on the time it was held by a certain player.

I also think it would be reasonable for El Escorial gold to be included in this calculation.

I think the main reason for my collapse is researching economics, gaining a negative stability modifier from merchant trade, which pushed me over the edge.

Have you tried running Reg. Trade and using the bonus to Feitoria construction to make up for loss of free trade route? Or perhaps a mix of the two; Merch Trade for Lighthouses first, then switch? Also, consider stopping research altogether after Firearms? Running Culture has the secondary benefit of reducing Expansion instability by helping cities hit the 50% culture threshold earlier.

Tech-wise I went Cartography - Gunpowder - Exploration - Firearms, while trading for useful stuff. I got Commune, Gunpowder, and a few other, less relevant ones by trade

Presently I've been most focused on establishing a new canonical Research Order, which was upset by moving Reg. Trade to Companies. Beelining Companies would in principle speed up all subsequent research. Its mostly a matter of playing enough games to see which techs can be traded for in sufficient time.

Lastly, I think there's sufficient reason to extend the Asia focus to Africa as well, at least as a trial.

 

[a pen-dragon]

Also, consider stopping research altogether after Firearms? Running Culture has the secondary benefit of reducing Expansion instability by helping cities hit the 50% culture threshold earlier.

I definitely considered it, but I did not want to do it. Barring mishaps like mine I do not think it hurts too much. Stability is tricky and culture would definitely help but I think it should be possible to win without. Also I personally like researching stuff in any situation, not researching things feels a bit wrong. I like to continue playing after the UHV and further research puts me in a better position. If focusing solely on the UHV running the culture slider would be better.

Have you tried running Reg. Trade and using the bonus to Feitoria construction to make up for loss of free trade route? Or perhaps a mix of the two; Merch Trade for Lighthouses first, then switch?

Anyway, switching civics beyond the first switch costs a turn and I think that merchant trade is very strong for UHV #3, meaning any other civic costs anarchy and requires more cities. I do not think that reg. trade can compete. Free enterprise could, but it comes late and I would have to crunch a few numbers to see if the revolution is worth it (if not Economics must not be researched).

The problem with reg. trade is that it does nothing for UHV #3. Merchant trade makes about 2 per city + faster LH. reg. trade will make about +25 in Lisbon + a few from improvements, beating merch. trade in commerce for an empire with less than about 20 cities. Portugal will reach 20 cities. Also pure commerce, i.e. research is not the biggest problem.I think the main problems are trade routes for UHV#3 and production for units for UHV#2.

The only switch besides trying to get out of merchant trade (too late) I did was to go into hegemony for more capture gold. Since #2 is harder than #3 I think this is a good idea. However, by that point I think that switching 2 civics would already take 2 turns, although this could maybe be done, but again for what civic. I do not think reg. trade is that good here.

I also think it would be reasonable for El Escorial gold to be included in this calculation.

+1

 

[AOS9001]

Presently I've been most focused on establishing a new canonical Research Order, which was upset by moving Reg. Trade to Companies. Beelining Companies would in principle speed up all subsequent research. Its mostly a matter of playing enough games to see which techs can be traded for in sufficient time.

I've been trying an education first strategy, building a national university while waiting on cartography. I've come very close achieving the first goal this way, I just need to stop being so reluctant to send wounded units into battle. With the national university, researching the other techs you need to win (firearms, logistics, exploration) are trivial at even 50% research.

Anyway, switching civics beyond the first switch costs a turn and I think that merchant trade is very strong for UHV #3, meaning any other civic costs anarchy and requires more cities. I do not think that reg. trade can compete. Free enterprise could, but it comes late and I would have to crunch a few numbers to see if the revolution is worth it (if not Economics must not be researched).

The problem with reg. trade is that it does nothing for UHV #3. Merchant trade makes about 2 per city + faster LH. reg. trade will make about +25 in Lisbon + a few from improvements, beating merch. trade in commerce for an empire with less than about 20 cities. Portugal will reach 20 cities. Also pure commerce, i.e. research is not the biggest problem.I think the main problems are trade routes for UHV#3 and production for units for UHV#2.

The only switch besides trying to get out of merchant trade (too late) I did was to go into hegemony for more capture gold. Since #2 is harder than #3 I think this is a good idea. However, by that point I think that switching 2 civics would already take 2 turns, although this could maybe be done, but again for what civic. I do not think reg. trade is that good here.

This sounds like a problem, because if any economic civic represents Portugal's royal monopoly (Casa da India) on the Indian Ocean trade, it's regulated trade. Perhaps a reworked Torre de Belem could come into play here?

 

[SultanRedSnake]

I've been trying an education first strategy,

Cool I’ve been mulling this over myself. Felt cursed at first but I suppose it could be a way to represent the kingdom-wide dedication to Naval/Navigational advancement embodied by Prince Henry’s salon at Sagres or something.

This sounds like a problem, because if any economic civic represents Portugal's royal monopoly (Casa da India) on the Indian Ocean trade, it's regulated trade.

I had exactly the same notion. Any other civic is Cursed.

Perhaps a reworked Torre de Belem could come into play here?

#BuffTorre

All that aside, although I’m grateful for the attempt at some new UHVs, this one doesn’t work for me *as implemented*, especially if achieving it requires running uncanonical civics.

 

[AOS9001]

All that aside, although I’m grateful for the attempt at some new UHVs, this one doesn’t work for me *as implemented*, especially if achieving it requires running uncanonical civics.

I'm certain we can find a way to revise them, or revise the civ's gameplay, to make them doable. For example, turning UHV 3 from "commerce from city trade routes" to "commerce from Lisboa's trade routes", thus giving the player incentive to run regulated trade and build Torre de Belem (even in its current form)?

 

[SultanRedSnake]

Have any of yous been trying to work New World conqueror armies into your strats? It's been part of mine since old map, at least Aztecs.

 

[Derdan]

Not since they got the mercenary promotion. They're too expensive to keep around for any useful length of time. I do keep the missionary and native units though.