An historical attack on Portuguese as a civ

[adderbrain5]

My historical critique of The Portuguese as appeared in Age of Empires 3
I??ll just start this off by saying that I think that AOE3 has made the ports the lamest civ in the game. There is nothing I love more than fast aging with Iroquois and torching his new TC foundation with town destroyer as the wagon spits out of his first center, and then proceeding to brutally bitchpown his lame 50 musket rush before it can even mass up. And mams? Forget about sending those. You wont be gathering the gold for them, and plus I??ll make sure you have no houses and get popped. Gay minutemen army? Ill just run from it and come back with crackshot and blast a mass of them to hell in one attack. One time recently a Lieutenant tried me on Amazonia. LOL...he thought he was safe and picked a treaty deck. So I garrisoned one of my 3 fishing boats with my chief and the warhut travois and was even safer from any counter raiding he might have tried as I ran his plans for the game into the ground. Silly ports! Anyway I know the Iro rush is brutal for most any civ to stand up against, as I am currently the master of it on ESO... I??m done with the pure hating though let??s get to the facts .
Why Ports are stupid and OP(compared to what they should be historically)
The Portuguese under Henry the Navigator were certainly a significant player in history. Early exploration of Western Africa and even the Americas, and development of superior naval technologies was big, but that was like when, the 1400s? And yes they did colonize Brazil, but it was no mighty empire they conquered like the Inca or Aztecs, but a jungly waste of minor naked tribes. Thats pretty much where the buck stopped with the Portuguese. After 1650 they were pretty much historically irrelevant. They are given some of the best military techs in the entire game in the form of cards and troops, something I commonly refer to when I have finished beating a lame port player and start raging on the helpless man as a ??countergasm? This is just retarded. Other than a brief golden age in sailing/navigational technology the ports have invented nothing noteworthy in history that I can think of, and have never been technologically superior, but in fact considered THE most backward country of western Europe, and still are to this day in every single way.
Personally, as a history, architecture culture enthusiast I like this, and would love to visit Portugal but this should show you that they should not get the best military techs FFS! And economically they have never been rich, but somehow they get the best boom if undisturbed? The ports were undisturbed for most of history and managed to scrape up a few measly fishing villages on the atlantic coast and little more.

1808... ahhhh 1808 when Napoleon set his eyes on Portugal with his noble gendarmerie, and rather than fight with their invincible jinete(actually a spanish word BTW #EPICFAIL) they ran like cowards with their tails between their legs to Brazil where they had to stay until Napolean was locked up on some rock somewhere for the rest of his life. By the way, Ports knew they couldn??t hold brazil much longer, so the king gave it independence and made his brother or something the king to retain some influence. In AOE3 ports is like your GOTO civ for beating french especially in treaty. That is just ironically laughable as hell as I just described what actually happened when ports were facing threat of french invasion.

So lets go through the units.

Cassadores....the one unit that may actually be totally authentic....and it kinda sucks. Its HP is too low, and it shoud have better range like a forest prowler or move faster or something.

Organ guns!: designed by Davinci and first made by....ENGLAND!?!?!? there is no information I can find to show that ports ever even used them at ALL.

Jinetes: like I said before actually a spanish word for a type of horsemen(not even necessarily a dragoon) i mean seriously wtf? the most stupid OP type of unit and its not even authentic at all?

Falconets: wait ports dont get falcs you noob! EXACTLY...but just like every European power with any navy they had them aplenty... so wtf is this ES?

Extra TCs per age...this suggests that ports are some greatly expansive civilization which is just not really true. Unlike Brits, They never made big colonies of their own people anywhere, in fact in Brazil today you are hard pressed to meet anyone actually of Portuguese origin. The white people you do meet are german, Italian or Spanish. Ports should get outpost wagons or something per age up, thats all they ever made anywhere was outposts in the slave trade, or for markets in foreign ports.

Coastal defenses:this suggests that the ports were experts of defending their hard fought over coastline under constant threat of invasion. Should be called sleepy defenses. Portugal is way the fuck out in the atlantic ocean and an undesirable piece of land no one ever tried to take it by sea so they really have no experience with this technology unlike countries that do/should get it IE British and Dutch.

Long range Mortars: TOTAL BS that the measly ports should get this technology that would have existed in the 1800s when they were at that point obsolete as a country and the joke of europe. It makes them basically unstoppable on water maps, and that is just dumb, because as I said after 1500 the ports were irrelevant on the high seas.


So now I will say something actually good and I think authentic about ports:their explorer??s spyglass ability.


All in all the Portuguese are just an annoying civ to play against. They are just a huge fucking pain in the ass. There is nothing cool or fun about playing vs ports. They take advantage of unreasonable technologies in terms of balancing and historical accuracy/military realism. Their boom is just stupid, and a port player will just sit there and out counter you in his base all day until you mortar or petard his stupid ass out. He always loses in the end unless he gets really lucky with some dumb secret petard spam, or lucky enough to host Amazonia, or caribean or something and the only thing you can ever say at the end of the game is ...thanks ffs. when he finally quits.

End note. Ports are gay, and historically inaccurate. But of course this is a game and not necessarily 100 percent historically accurate. I know that. But they were actually trying to make it accurate. So if you wanted to know exactly why the civ you love or hate is so gay, I hope you understand now and enjoyed this article.
Have a nice day getting bitchpowned by my warchief port players. psh...lameass ports

[Good ol Ivan]

Yeah the game is only loosely based on history. Which is a pretty gay dissapointment if you an enthusiast - as you are much better off playing a paradox interactive title or something.
As the NE guys did, Ports would be interesting if instead/along of villies they could get cheap-ass slaves out of cheap-ass mills as opposed to a double TC boom. The outpost thing sounds pretty cool too because as it is outposts rarely play a role in this game.
Would be neat if they had cheap outposts + a higher outpost build limit + age up outpost. Outposts would take care of cav and cassas of HI. Also cassas used to be cooler because they had a very high attack but a bad rate of fire - nowadays they are just skirms with less HP and a slightly higher attack.
And indeed, the TC age up thing makes slightly more sense for... the Spanish maybe?

And now that you mention the spyglass - would be neat if they had cartographers trainable from church (just like in NE), which would give them LOS and/or temporary spies or something (why the fuck can the Japs do that with their Buddha statue again? - ffs Japs are pretty fucking broken as they are).


And, hm, out of all civs in the game I think Germans annoy me historically the most. I rarely face ports and they are pretty sucky anyways so I never really pay them attention.

[cowhax]

I clearly remember in European history when the renowned "settler" would just appear out of town centers. It's been extensively documented as a natural phenomenon that keeps the world a turning.

TL'DR: Tl'DR

And this just sounds like a rant from some nutty Brazilian player than a true criticism of an underappreciated civ.

[adderbrain5]

well I am not Brazilian, and basically it's a rant but I think I'm bringing some good historical details to light for those interested.

[adderbrain5]

Yeah the game is only loosely based on history. Which is a pretty gay dissapointment if you an enthusiast - as you are much better off playing a paradox interactive title or something.
As the NE guys did, Ports would be interesting if instead/along of villies they could get cheap-ass slaves out of cheap-ass mills as opposed to a double TC boom. The outpost thing sounds pretty cool too because as it is outposts rarely play a role in this game.
Would be neat if they had cheap outposts + a higher outpost build limit + age up outpost. Outposts would take care of cav and cassas of HI. Also cassas used to be cooler because they had a very high attack but a bad rate of fire - nowadays they are just skirms with less HP and a slightly higher attack.
And indeed, the TC age up thing makes slightly more sense for... the Spanish maybe?

And now that you mention the spyglass - would be neat if they had cartographers trainable from church (just like in NE), which would give them LOS and/or temporary spies or something (why the fuck can the Japs do that with their Buddha statue again? - ffs Japs are pretty fucking broken as they are).


And, hm, out of all civs in the game I think Germans annoy me historically the most. I rarely face ports and they are pretty sucky anyways so I never really pay them attention.

it''s a good point about germans, since anyone european at least might know Germany was not a state until pretty much the end period of this game''s setting. NERA deff did a much better job with that whole matter. But there were German colonies throughout the new world, and I think of the Germans in this as more of a culture than a country...so perhaps it is excusable. Militarily I am sure there are glaring problems though I''m not too versed on that...what I do know is that German heavy cav has been historically some of the most formidable in the world so I''d be surprised if in this time period they had resigned to only using Uhlans. My recommendation for germans has always been that german type mercy should be trainable from normal buildings and cost less pop

[Goodspeed]

It's just a game guys

[bpdscolony123]

how to install aoe3?

[Mr_Bramboy]

You really shouldn't play campaign if you care about historical accuracy.

[musketjr]

this OP is brilliant

[lukasl99]

In AOE3 ports is like your GOTO civ for beating french especially in treaty. That is just ironically laughable as hell as I just described what actually happened when ports were facing threat of french invasion.

So lets go through the units.

Cassadores....the one unit that may actually be totally authentic....and it kinda sucks. Its HP is too low, and it shoud have better range like a forest prowler or move faster or something.

I''m pretty sure that Ports lose to French in sup if both use their civs to max potential and in treaty French just rape Ports (well French are just the best in treaty by far).

Also I think that cass are faster than usual skirms and have more ranged resistance (50%). It''s really frustrating to play with strelets vs cassadores who just run away from you and you can''t even shoot once with your 14 range.

[adderbrain5]

In AOE3 ports is like your GOTO civ for beating french especially in treaty. That is just ironically laughable as hell as I just described what actually happened when ports were facing threat of french invasion.

So lets go through the units.

Cassadores....the one unit that may actually be totally authentic....and it kinda sucks. Its HP is too low, and it shoud have better range like a forest prowler or move faster or something.

Im pretty sure that Ports lose to French in sup if both use their civs to max potential and in treaty French just rape Ports (well French are just the best in treaty by far).

Also I think that cass are faster than usual skirms and have more ranged resistance (50%). Its really frustrating to play with strelets vs cassadores who just run away from you and you cant even shoot once with your 14 range.

is that true about french beating ports in treaty? If so why does everyone want to use ports vs french? Just for that strange sadistic losing battle that ports players seem to enjoy fighting? Im not a bad treaty player, but its not really my thing. Then again whenever I used to challenge timogurolfaggu (the lieut guy with most TR wins currently who only uses french) he used to refuse to mirror me and switch to ports.

[iNcog]

lol organs

[musketeer925]

I think I''m bringing some good historical details to light for those interested.

The next time I hear a historian tell me that a representation of a country is "gay", I''ll be sure to mentally note to give you more credit.

[lukasl99]

Im pretty sure that Ports lose to French in sup if both use their civs to max potential and in treaty French just rape Ports (well French are just the best in treaty by far).

Also I think that cass are faster than usual skirms and have more ranged resistance (50%). Its really frustrating to play with strelets vs cassadores who just run away from you and you cant even shoot once with your 14 range.

is that true about french beating ports in treaty? If so why does everyone want to use ports vs french? Just for that strange sadistic losing battle that ports players seem to enjoy fighting? Im not a bad treaty player, but its not really my thing. Then again whenever I used to challenge timogurolfaggu (the lieut guy with most TR wins currently who only uses french) he used to refuse to mirror me and switch to ports.

Yes its true, French are by far the best treaty civs thanks to 120 military pop while having a 100 vill economy plus fur trade, the best skirms, best heavy cav and very good art. I never heard of "timogurolfaggu" but if hes playing France all the time he cant be good, its comparable to only playing Iro in sup. Maybe he switched to ports cause he thought youd only spam Gendarme so he wanted the "best" goons but vs full Gendarme WW and dopps are a much better choice.

[musketeer925]

The next time I hear a historian tell me that a representation of a country is "gay", Ill be sure to mentally note to give you more credit.

This comment is a great example of when "liking" something would come in handy. I just want to like the shit out of it.

I appreciate your appreciation.

[tilanus]

[quote timestamp="1428878668" source="/post/4049/thread" author="@adderbrain5"]I??ll just start this off by saying that I think that AOE3 has made the ports the lamest civ in the game. There is nothing I love more than fast aging with Iroquois and torching his new TC foundation with town destroyer as the wagon spits out of his first center, and then proceeding to brutally bitchpown his lame 50 musket rush before it can even mass up. And mams? Forget about sending those. You wont be gathering the gold for them, and plus I??ll make sure you have no houses and get popped. Gay minutemen army? Ill just run from it and come back with crackshot and blast a mass of them to hell in one attack. One time recently a Lieutenant tried me on Amazonia. LOL...he thought he was safe and picked a treaty deck. So I garrisoned one of my 3 fishing boats with my chief and the warhut travois and was even safer from any counter raiding he might have tried as I ran his plans for the game into the ground. Silly ports! Anyway I know the Iro rush is brutal for most any civ to stand up against, as I am currently the master of it on ESO... I??m done with the pure hating though let??s get to the facts.[/quote]While I fully support your criticism of AoE3's lack of historical credibility, you're proving here you're just as bad or probably even worse than those Port 'gay' players by being an 'Iro lamer'. The Iroquois, being one of the lamest rush civs with an incredibly exaggerated power in the game if you'd set them into relation to the historical Iroquois just like you did with the Portuguese and their Colonial Empire. How can you seriously be so blind not to see, so dumb not to realize or so shameless not be embarrassed by this obvious contradiction? ^^

While Ports are a powerful civ that admittedly has some controversial boni I actually tend to laugh more about your own goal, hahaha. Sorry, but the irony in dissing a "backward" colonial empire's history as "too strong", but being proud of dominating them with some "minor naked tribes" is just too good not to laugh about it ^^ Actually, you could rewrite your whole posting and replace Portuguese with Iroquois, with the difference that it'd make actually make sense as your historical analysis of the Portuguese empire also isn't the best one. It might have been far from Napoleonic France, but its power was still centuries beyond any of those annoying TWC civs capabilities. It's not the Cassador that is too bad, but the Forest Prowler that was designed way too strong. Cassadores and especially the Atiradores belonged to the elite of professional marksmen, even in Napoleonic Europe.

Taken aside that little coherence in your reasoning, I do agree on the Jinetes and Organ Guns being historically highly questionable choices. Extra TCs are possibly a bit imba due to being free, but were also given to Portugese as a reference to the many small colonies as bases for a global trade network. And Ports simply gotta have better mortars to compensate their lack of falcs though. Jinetes and Organ Guns is feature creep, but mortars are first of all a balance thing. ES first of all wanted fancy nancy civs that were notably different from each other in features/playstyle. Actual history was a rather trivial source of inspiration for their civ design, which becomes obvious by the high level of stereotypes.

[quote source="/post/4076/thread" author="@calmyourtits" timestamp="1428917057"]It's just a game guys[/quote]Well, the Total War games are also just games, still they get way more history and playability into harmony than AoE3 does. ')

[quote timestamp="1428880650" author="@ivan" source="/post/4052/thread"]And, hm, out of all civs in the game I think Germans annoy me historically the most.[/quote]Actually, from that point of view, I find all AoE3 civs terrible. Which probably is why I enjoy modding them so much.

[quote author="@adderbrain5" source="/post/4059/thread" timestamp="1428898123"]t's a good point about germans, since anyone european at least might know Germany was not a state until pretty much the end period of this game's setting. NERA deff did a much better job with that whole matter. But there were German colonies throughout the new world, and I think of the Germans in this as more of a culture than a country...so perhaps it is excusable. Militarily I am sure there are glaring problems though I'm not too versed on that...what I do know is that German heavy cav has been historically some of the most formidable in the world so I'd be surprised if in this time period they had resigned to only using Uhlans. My recommendation for germans has always been that german type mercy should be trainable from normal buildings and cost less pop[/quote]The AoE3 Germans are a bad portrayal of the Holy Roman Empire, which was a confederation/union of many German "states" and is the predecessor of a German national state, mixed with some post-HRE Prussian references like needle gunners or Uhlans (which are actually Polish, but also served in the Prussian military). The War Wagon is actually an archaic Czech unit - with terrible visuals - and probably the unit which makes me puke the most.

[Good ol Ivan]

ES first of all wanted fancy nancy civs that were notably different from each other in features/playstyle. Actual history was a rather trivial source of inspiration for their civ design, which becomes obvious by the high level of stereotypes.

Yeah but it's almost like they didn't make any actual research ffs.
That or they assumed 99.5% of the players wouldn't care anyway - which is correct I guess.

Also you guys (Tilanus and musk) are taking his post way too seriously - it's as if you actually feel offended because he called a mediocre colonial empire "gay". And that's gay.

[Mr. Pecksniff]

Yeah the game is only loosely based on history. Which is a pretty gay dissapointment if you an enthusiast - as you are much better off playing a paradox interactive title or something.
As the NE guys did, Ports would be interesting if instead/along of villies they could get cheap-ass slaves out of cheap-ass mills as opposed to a double TC boom. The outpost thing sounds pretty cool too because as it is outposts rarely play a role in this game.
Would be neat if they had cheap outposts + a higher outpost build limit + age up outpost. Outposts would take care of cav and cassas of HI. Also cassas used to be cooler because they had a very high attack but a bad rate of fire - nowadays they are just skirms with less HP and a slightly higher attack.
And indeed, the TC age up thing makes slightly more sense for... the Spanish maybe?

And now that you mention the spyglass - would be neat if they had cartographers trainable from church (just like in NE), which would give them LOS and/or temporary spies or something (why the fuck can the Japs do that with their Buddha statue again? - ffs Japs are pretty fucking broken as they are).


And, hm, out of all civs in the game I think Germans annoy me historically the most. I rarely face ports and they are pretty sucky anyways so I never really pay them attention.

Even paradox games aren''t that great at being historically accurate. Case in point: China in EU4.

[Papist]

Am I reading this correctly? Are you saying that Portugal is TOO GOOD? Have you ever played this game before? Every single civ in this game beats them handily!

[Papist]

Speaking of Portugal, I read recently that when they first made contact with Africans, they were impressed by their civilization and traded and married with them, and generally viewed them as equals. Some of this is disputed, but it is probably nothing but typical leftist whining about any hint of Western superiority.

A civilization is not culturally superior nor morally superior when it derives pleasure and profit from subjugating and destroying the culture of another civilization. I also find it funny that you label the evidence of the claim that Portugese settlers and African tribes intermarried as "typical leftist whining". It isn''t surprising though, considering that the conservative way has always been to cling to established norms and ideas and react poorly to any suggestion that they might be incorrect.

There are other documented incidents of Europeans and indigenous peoples having good relations, the French and Hurons are a great example of this. French trappers and traders were known to join the Algonquin tribes and marry in, showing the strength of the relationship between the two groups. The Dutch and the Japanese are another example. So again, I don't know why you view any suggestion that Europeans might not have been on top as "whining", but trust me, there have been European and native cultures that viewed each other as equal all over the globe.

[Good ol Ivan]

Yeah but its almost like they didnt make any actual research ffs.
That or they assumed 99.5% of the players wouldnt care anyway - which is correct I guess.

Also you guys (Tilanus and musk) are taking his post way too seriously - its as if you actually feel offended because he called a mediocre colonial empire "gay". And thats gay.

Tbh calling anything "gay" just seems immature.

Tbh thats pretty gay.

[divine_moon]

[face=comic sans ms" size="2]Dear lord!! someone hates the ports! (rofl)
On a historical point of view i''d not presume that the Iroquoi confed. had any specific WC who could siege down a building alone? P-)
Much like many troop units which i''m guessing have been added to enhance the gameplay &' increase the options available to a player (otherwise
it''d be boring if most civs had the same stuff - which is historically the case... been using the Asian &' Native American civs JUST for the variety of troops these days)

i do come across the occasional port, (where like the OP mentioned a rush is super-viable). ')
[/face]