Spice trade as Ports

[milku3459]

I have this Portugal semi-ff strat that I like to use if I don't feel safe enough doing the all-in boat boom FI.

Send CM as first card, age up with 400 wood, send spice trade, spam vills and build market and get upgrades, maybe a TP if I have leftover wood, send 700 gold and age up with 400 wood, gather 1000 coin in transition and build a bunch of houses, drop a stable and rax upon age up, ship mamelukes and begins training goon/cass. Follow up shipments are 8/7 cass.

What do you guys think? I like to use it because it does against Nilla players, who don't deal well with no-military boomy builds. Also, 5 mams is a great shipment (nilla 4lyfe) and two CM TCs right next to each other (I turtle in Age II) are really great for defense.

What do you think about Spice Trade? I like it in this build because I usually have problems with Ports in early age II not being able to fund double batches of villagers (100 food fatties!) in addition to military or an age up. Would it be more worth it to send 700 w? I haven't seen any higher lvl players send Spice Trade before...

CM, Spice Trade, 700 g, mams, 8 cass

[Hazza54321]

I have this Portugal semi-ff strat that I like to use if I don't feel safe enough doing the all-in boat boom FI.

Send CM as first card, age up with 400 wood, send spice trade, spam vills and build market and get upgrades, maybe a TP if I have leftover wood, send 700 gold and age up with 400 wood, gather 1000 coin in transition and build a bunch of houses, drop a stable and rax upon age up, ship mamelukes and begins training goon/cass. Follow up shipments are 8/7 cass.

What do you guys think? I like to use it because it does against Nilla players, who don't deal well with no-military boomy builds. Also, 5 mams is a great shipment (nilla 4lyfe) and two CM TCs right next to each other (I turtle in Age II) are really great for defense.

What do you think about Spice Trade? I like it in this build because I usually have problems with Ports in early age II not being able to fund double batches of villagers (100 food fatties!) in addition to military or an age up. Would it be more worth it to send 700 w? I haven't seen any higher lvl players send Spice Trade before...

CM, Spice Trade, 700 g, mams, 8 cass

spice trade is bad, so is colonial militia if there is no pressure coming

[milku3459]

So switch out CM for 300 wood if no rush incoming and remove spice trade altogether for 700w ?

[yemshi]

Keep it in deck but don't send unless pressured.

[Darwin_]

Spice trade is a decent card to send on Cascade Range or Carolina, just because there are so many berries, but I wouldnt even send it on those maps as the first or second card. I also wouldnt send CM as the first card, unless you are playing against russia or otto, and scout forward buildings.

[Kaiserklein]

Spice trade is mostly a bad card. When your vils already have 130% gathering speed (with steel traps), spice trade just changes this from 130% to 150%, which is not a 20% boost but in fact approx 15% boost. 15% boost, to be worth 4 vils, requires 27 vils on food, which means an eco of, say, 40 vils or so. This eco you reach around 11-12 min I think, if you don't lose vils, don't idle your tc, and age up to fortress rather fast. So you see, sending this card as first age 1 shipment, means it will be worth 4 vils only like 6-7 min later. And 4 vils isn't even an incredible shipment, and before this 11-12 min mark the shipment is worth less than 4 vils, which means you actually need even longer for it to be as efficient as 4 vils would have been during all this time (said in another way : all these resources you lost before 11 min, compared to a 4 vils shipment, you need to wait until later to get them back, when you have more vils). I'm too lazy to do the maths, but it's probs at least at 15 min that this shipment will start being better than sending 4 vils. 10 min after you sent it. This is way, way too slow tbh.
To this, you can add : you're going to run out of hunts anyway, usually around 20 min or so on high hunts maps. So at some point spice trade will become completely useless, unlike a vil shipment. Not good. Basically, when it starts paying off, you run out of hunts... Plus, you need to fight for hunts when you're ports. By sending spice trade, you're slower, so it's harder for you to get mapcontrol. It's kinda counter-productive.
Also, you can arguably send eco theory first card (I'm not debating here whether the card is good or not). With eco theory, spice trade becomes even worse, because you already have 140% gathering on hunts, instead of 130%.

There is 1 case where I would consider sending it, though : on maps with a lot of berries. Take cascade range, or deccan, for example. You know that when you run out of hunts, you're going to gather on berries, because it's better than mills anyway. Also these maps don't have so much food (deccan has a lot of hunts only in the middle, which you might not be able to control as portuguese in most match ups ; and cascade is super low on hunts), so you know you'll be on berries pretty early. Then, I guess spice trade can be a good card, since it affects both hunts and berries. The same would go on other maps, like araucania or indochina, or w/e map with low hunts and a lot of berries. I wouldn't send it early in most match ups though, because it's really slow and dangerous, but maybe in middle-late colonial. If you age up though, refrigeration and royal mint are better eco upgrades.

[pecelot]

Yes, I see a niche for this card in berries-maps.
Also, check this out:

[video]https://youtu.be/uc6U4YYd4Vo?t=18m48s[/video]
game 2, starting from approximately 18.30

[lemmings121]

refrigeration and royal mint are better eco upgrades.

bringing the discussion a bit off topic... how good do you think those cards are?

I assume you never send them early fortress, when usually you are forced to go military, and have to work hard to squeeze a 1000w/cavcombat when possible.

their eco bonuses are good indeed, and affects mills too, which is nice late game.. but considering the frequency that those cards come into play, in some decks i just swipe then with non ideal cards, like 1000f or an extra militar shipment for exemple.

think about royalmint, yes its good, but thats a 1k res shipment to improve gold gathering, in a time that mines are running out. ok it still afects plantations, but cmon, 1600w~2400w usually means its game over if your mines run out. (single plantation wont be near enough by that time..)

I still have then on most of my decks, but frequently they dont get used, yet, i dont take them out because they are quite good when used right...

[deleted_user]

Imo they (refrigeration and royal mint) are cards you send when ahead. You need them because if the game does go later and your opponent has those eco cards you don't, you auto lose. When you win a fight hard or something similar, you can send it and in those situations it is more impactful than another unit shipment, per se. There also aren't enough good unit shipments nor crate shipments to take up all of your age 3 slots.

[tedere12]

The thing is ports generally dont stay in age 2 and spice trade would take so long to pay off, so it probably isnt worth sending it.

[pecelot]

I usually have at least one of the aforementioned cards in my deck, as they are necessary to compete in late stages of the game. Also, usually there's not a great choice in terms of possible counterparts.

[sdsanft]

honestly, eco theory is a better card to send in age 1.
Nilla scrub,

[momuuu]

I dont really think the refrigeration/royal mint cards are that great either. Many civs can just send military upgrades which are way better. As ports though you get to lategame often enough (and lack military upgrade cards) to the point where these cards are probably worth the slot, but as civs like germany or dutch Id definitely not put them in my deck.

[Mitoe]

Refigeration and Royal Mint are definitely worth it in most Port decks, since they affect all sources of food/coin income, and you do want at least a few lategame cards in your deck.

[Kaiserklein]

Royal mint and spice trades are cards I would consider sending in a fortress war. When you're fortress vs colonial, you want to spam your better units via units shipments, and win the game like this, with tech advantage. But in a fortress war, I think at some point sending 7 skirms doesn't have so much impact (unless in some specific cases, when you're like, fighting for the last hunts or sth, or when you both lost a ton of vils to raids). Investing in slightly longer term cards is better imo. Basically, whenever you don't need units soon, not sending units is better anyway... It's just about game sense, knowing when you can afford to ship it or not. I definitely ship it in some 1v1s, and not always in late game, just sometimes I just have the better eco and I know I can just wait for my opponent to push me for map in a few minutes, then I can afford to ship refrigeration instead of like 7 skirms who are gonna wait 2-3 min before they are used...
Also with ports, when you have so many vils (let's say 60 vils, around 15 min or so), royal mint/refrigeration work on a lot of vils which means they are better shipments than with a lower eco civ. On the other hand, shipping 7 cassadores at this point isn't so relevant, because you can mass so many of them anyway.

[lemmings121]

Yes as ports I agree.
I was talking more in a general sense.

Of couse militar shipments are avoided, but with many civs you have things like combat cav, combat inf, 1000w/g, also of course, some big unit shipments that have heavy impact early fortress, all those things imo come before refrigeration/royalmint..

[Challenger_Marco]

Yes u can send spice trade with ports definitely worth it @milku3459

notification

.This card is viable only if u do Irish strat,i have tried it and worked out pretty well.See the video that pezet mentioned u send eco theory in age1 and spice trade in age 2 as ur first card and put all ur vills on food by the time it gets like 7-8mins u will have 25 vills which is worth and u need trade food to gold in market that's all.

[Challenger_Marco]

There are several variations in using Irish strategy ,this comes into play only with good hunts + tp op like high plains ,don't do this in water maps would suck coz fishing better.Im not master n this strat ,have any doubts ask @Lord_IrishFaithful

notification

he may help u maybe.

[milku3459]

Thanks guys! Will change my deck soon.
btw did the duck win last night? I don't want to create a new thread

[momuuu]

He did

[pecelot]

Thanks guys! Will change my deck soon.
btw did the duck win last night? I don't want to create a new thread

You can ask on Discord

I guess you can fit at least one of these cards into a French deck, too:
1000 wood, 1000 coin, 7 skirms, 8 skirms, 5 goons, 3 cuirs, 2 falcs, cav combat, refrigeration, ranged inf att/royal mint

[Kaiserklein]

I guess you can fit at least on of these cards into a French deck, too:
1000 wood, 1000 coin, 7 skirms, 8 skirms, 5 goons, 3 cuirs, 2 falcs, cav combat, refrigeration, ranged inf att/royal mint

Well, you should actually have all those cards in bold in your deck. 7 skirms is the most arguable one but I don't think of something else to put instead that would be better anyway. Refrigeration and royal mint I strongly advise to have in deck (I have them in all my french decks I think) but I don't put ranged inf attack, it's a 15% card in age 3... I'd rather put skirm/xbow hp in colonial, and then have one more slot available in fortress

[pecelot]

Well, exactly? That's what I meant. I don't see a better equivalent for refrigeration, and arguably you can put ranged inf att instead of royal mint, but I don't like it either.

[momuuu]

wut? I consider 7 skirms a pretty great card tbh.

[Kaiserklein]

Well, exactly? That's what I meant. I don't see a better equivalent for refrigeration, and arguably you can put ranged inf att instead of royal mint, but I don't like it either.

"I guess you can fit at least on of these cards into a French deck, too" => I say, not just "at least one", but actually all in bold, and others most likely too.

wut? I consider 7 skirms a pretty great card tbh.

Well since you already shipped 8 skirms, in most cases you don't send this card. It used to be sent with dirty 3sw/700g german ff for example, because you didn't build a rax until long into the game and chopped obscene amounts of wood for houses. But in the current meta, you usually age up with a rax ready, and usually even squeeze 1000w into your build, so you basically don't chop wood, which means you can mass much more out of your rax. So I don't see why 7 skirms would be a great card. For sure it's a card I would send if I need skirms badly after having already shipped 8, but otherwise no reason to ship this, an upgrade/crates would imo be better in most cases