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[spoiler=spoiler]Why should porto be so bad? discuss below [/spoiler]

Because EP7 Port is worse than RE Port.

What would you change about ports Breeze?

Riotcoke wrote:What would you change about ports Breeze?

He's been lobbying on every twitch chat for 30% RR goons for like a month now XD.
Also nilla cassadors.

RE ports are just imbalanced af. We should find a different solution. Basically every goon unit has seen its RR nerfed to 20% and probably musket riders will be next, i don’t see the point of asking for 25% or 30% RR goons.

[Armag] diarouga wrote:

Riotcoke wrote:What would you change about ports Breeze?

He's been lobbying on every twitch chat for 30% RR goons for like a month now XD.
Also nilla cassadors.

Well yeah, too bad he refuses to talk to me.

gamevideo113 wrote:RE ports are just imbalanced af. We should find a different solution. Basically every goon unit has seen its RR nerfed to 20% and probably musket riders will be next, i don’t see the point of asking for 25% or 30% RR goons.

The difference is that the only other 1v1 goon civ (France), relied mostly on skirms and falcs, and was a top 3 civ back then, so it could take that nerf. Port however, really relies on goons, and the civ was not so great in 1v1 (+ the vill cost used to be 80f but was nerfed because of Garja's lobbying).

I have been trying to explain why we shouldn't "fix" cassadors but goons, it's related to civ design, the key unit of porto recieved 2 big nerfs, first one is -%10 RR and the second one is genitours ( it was fine after -1 ) with additional overkill nerf goons became totally useless. Another issue is porto really need good goons, you can never balance the civ otherwise because cassadors are pretty much paper that does worse than skirm against anything, and now we still discuss and try to buff cassadors instead of stopping to be stubborn and admit the fact that porto relies on strong goons..

also Beta porto is basicly +100 coin crates for 2 times nerfed goons, worse mameluke shipments ah and "fixed" cassadors. it's like nerfing a bottom tier civ already

deleted_user wrote:I have been trying to explain why we shouldn't "fix" cassadors but goons, it's related to civ design, the key unit of porto recieved 2 big nerfs, first one is -%10 RR and the second one is genitours ( it was fine after -1 ) with additional overkill nerf goons became totally useless. Another issue is porto really need good goons, you can never balance the civ otherwise because cassadors are pretty much paper that does worse than skirm against anything, and now we still discuss and try to buff cassadors instead of stopping to be stubborn and admit the fact that porto relies on strong goons..

How are 19 range goons fair?

Riotcoke wrote:

deleted_user wrote:I have been trying to explain why we shouldn't "fix" cassadors but goons, it's related to civ design, the key unit of porto recieved 2 big nerfs, first one is -%10 RR and the second one is genitours ( it was fine after -1 ) with additional overkill nerf goons became totally useless. Another issue is porto really need good goons, you can never balance the civ otherwise because cassadors are pretty much paper that does worse than skirm against anything, and now we still discuss and try to buff cassadors instead of stopping to be stubborn and admit the fact that porto relies on strong goons..

How are 19 range goons fair?

How are they unfair?
The goon range was nerfed because Port was too strong in team, in 1v1 it's never been an issue. If you let your opponent go to the industrial age, get arsenal upgrades, and send a military upgrade without having a strong anti goon army, you just deserve to lose.

[Armag] diarouga wrote:

Riotcoke wrote:

deleted_user wrote:I have been trying to explain why we shouldn't "fix" cassadors but goons, it's related to civ design, the key unit of porto recieved 2 big nerfs, first one is -%10 RR and the second one is genitours ( it was fine after -1 ) with additional overkill nerf goons became totally useless. Another issue is porto really need good goons, you can never balance the civ otherwise because cassadors are pretty much paper that does worse than skirm against anything, and now we still discuss and try to buff cassadors instead of stopping to be stubborn and admit the fact that porto relies on strong goons..

How are 19 range goons fair?

How are they unfair?
The goon range was nerfed because Port was too strong in team, in 1v1 it's never been an issue. If you let your opponent go to the industrial age, get arsenal upgrades, and send a military upgrade without having a strong anti goon army, you just deserve to lose.

Anti-goon is skirm, on RE when goons have the same range with goons as you do skirms, meaning the the skirm's main advantage against goons is just removed, 19 range also sort of has the same problem.

Also consider if abus are nerfed in the future to have 18 range instead of 20 in fortress, how does otto counter full goon?

Skirms counter 20% RR goons, regardless of the range.
Anyway, getting 20 range goons is a huge investment, it's an age 4 card+arsenal upgrade+going to age 4, so you're super outmassed by the time it happens.

Otto can just kill Port if Port tries to go age 4.
Anyway, it's funny you're complaining about Otto when currently Port has no unit to counter abus because abus have 20 range xD.

Abus 20 range are bad yes, i'm saying if they got reverted to 18 range in fortress

The difference is that sometimes 20 range abus is relevant in real games, while you just can't go age 4 and afford arsenal upgrades+a shipment in 1v1. You can do that in team, which is why it was an issue there.

[Armag] diarouga wrote:The difference is that sometimes 20 range abus is relevant in real games, while you just can't go age 4 and afford arsenal upgrades+a shipment in 1v1. You can do that in team, which is why it was an issue there.

Isn't it a problem of balance for team then, seeing as team is on EP patch?

It is indeed.
Still, Port was rather weak in 1v1 (the goon range isn't very relevant, goon RR was the issue) and op in team, and now they're shit in 1v1 and okay in team. That's a balance issue. That goon RR change should have been compensated.

Yeah it seems like a problem with balance, because you can't just balance ep for 1v1.

How is a mobile unit faster than other unit in the game with high base damage and hp with the same range as their counter a balanced unit. Imagine if musks had 7.25 speed 20 range and CIR didnt affect them. I see no problem with it, 18 range is definitely worth. Its +4 range.

18 range goons are fine. The card could also have like +15% atk or some sort of compensation maybe, but i don't think that ports are bad because a card they get in mid-late game only gives +4 and not +6 range to goons.

Anyway if cassa cost gets decreased to 70f 35g i guess we could buff 7 and 8 cassa to 8 and 9 (heck, china gets 10 arquebusiers and 13 chukonus).

An organ buff would also be nice. The limber speed change seems decent, otherwise i'd just go for extra HP since i think they die in a single culv shot.

Bestieros buff could be worth considering although i don't think it is too impacful on the civ's general strength. Garja was suggesting 2k wood for 20 xbows or 1k6 wood for 16 xbows, interesting options imo.

Also, to be fair since in EP TCs cost 100w less port got an indirect nerf to its only civ bonus. I think giving ports a couple vills that come with the age up wagons could be a reasonable buff that makes up for port's weak early eco that barely keeps up with the TCs, and compensate the indirect nerf as well. At least it wouldn't be an ugly change.

Personally, despite the "randomness" of the change, i like the 100c bonus because it makes the discovery age market smoother as well as the naked FF out of 10/10.

Halbs have also been buffed. Probably irrelevant, but ports is one of the affected civs.

Well the bottom line is I really don't think there's a good reason to backpedal on 85f. Restrict to colonial onwards if you must. Port did see play on non water in the Lan and won a few too but wasn't even close to dominant. These changes while 'mostly' buffs the 100f revert hurts them badly and they'll be trash tier. All the stuff about Dragoons, Cassa's, it's a very tiny part of Portugal's competitiveness. Also 20 range Goons are an abomination that should be purged. The major reason Port felt bad is because they have so much of their economy locked into the extra town centers. If they aren't using them there's little point in playing Portugal.

Also yes, Halb buff is near irrelevant. Portugal doesn't get any cards to support them where as they do get both Musket and Goon cards. The big 'winners' out of that would be the Dutch.

Peachrocks wrote:Well the bottom line is I really don't think there's a good reason to backpedal on 85f. Restrict to colonial onwards if you must. Port did see play on non water in the Lan and won a few too but wasn't even close to dominant. These changes while 'mostly' buffs the 100f revert hurts them badly and they'll be trash tier. All the stuff about Dragoons, Cassa's, it's a very tiny part of Portugal's competitiveness. Also 20 range Goons are an abomination that should be purged. The major reason Port felt bad is because they have so much of their economy locked into the extra town centers. If they aren't using them there's little point in playing Portugal.

Also yes, Halb buff is near irrelevant. Portugal doesn't get any cards to support them where as they do get both Musket and Goon cards. The big 'winners' out of that would be the Dutch.

The reason to backpedal on 85f -100 starting food is to make 10/10 possible again, and also because we can find better solutions than just arbitrarily decreasing vill cost. The possible buffs of cassa, goons, bestieros etc, are not game changing by themselves, but the problem is that the civ is a bit lackluster in many of its aspects and i'd rather have a lot of small buffs that fix all of the civ's problems, instead of one big buff that maybe makes the civ average in some cases, underperforming in others, and a little too strong at times.

Anyway i would also like to point out that we can decrease the cassador RoF as much as we want, tweaking their damage in the process, but if the DPS stays the same then the unit is simply going to be worse because it's gonna overkill a lot. It's ok that different rates of fire are being explored, but the unit also needs an actual buff.

I think ports already boom and scale better than most other civs, but fare really poorly in the early game, therefore i don't see why we should further buff their boom while leaving their early game so helpless. If we give them +2 vills per age up with the covered wagon i think we can mitigate a bit their weakness and at the same time possibly avoid making them rely so much on their boom alone.

2 vill per age up is interesting. I’d be okay with that as compensation for reverting 85f. I don’t entirely like it because it makes them even more of an ff civ but I’ll settle for it.

I guess cus I kinda saw it as an age of empires 2 like bonus, it felt kinda okay and India has cheaper houses and starts with upgrades to compensate for wood vills. Portugal gets punished in all sorts of ways for the extra TCs, no villager cards or trickles, no real solid age 1 shipments to send first and doesn’t get anything at all except for the TC wagon it has to put a significant amount into to get something back.

Also I wouldn’t call it arbitrary. There’s a reason behind it, it’s just resulted in a design people don’t like it and i guess the bottom line is I’m okay with those grounds for changing it. I was just unaware there was such a strong dislike of it.

The reason to revert 85f cost is to revert the crap design while also making the civ mroe balanced. The scaling after let's say 40v is absurd and the only reason it's not from earlier is because we arbitrarily decided they should start with -100f just to compensate the other mistake done.
It both makes no sense and does no good for balance. Basically by pumping their scaling you're hoping that their eco will make up for their military deficit which is only the case when even 100f vills would be sufficient and still doesn't work when the opponent plays accordingly and crushes you before the eco is unstoppable.
Also the food saving argument is a bit bs mostly because on EP every single map has at least decent food and most have an insane quantity. And Ports anyway have some survival mechanics (e.g. extensively using gold heavy units such as mercs or organs) which are not even remotely tested in EP games for the same reason that resources are plentiful.

If we want to make Ports a bit more balanced and not just an on/off switch civ they need a slightly better army. Now, colonial is probably fine the way it is, for design reasons mostly. In fortress the cassador is the main and meta unit so it makes sense to buff it. However since the stats are not too bad (and you don't want a cheaper unit to be straight up better than the standard skirm) we could make a cost buff so that Ports still save some food but also trade more efficiently. At the same time organs could receive a buff in terms of speed and/or range to make it more competitive. 3pop organs it is also a legit change. Goons are fine, still a good unit and the best goon due to cards. Besteiros used to be quite an useful tech for Ports in past but now its cost is simply prohibitive. I suggest to lower the cost, possibly under 2k (for less units). This way Ports have a strong spammable unit in fortress that they can use either from start or when gold mines run out (restoring the winning condition for which in case of starvation for both players, Ports have both the eco and military advantage).