EP9: PORTUGUESE

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France iNcog
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Re: EP9: PORTUGUESE

Post by iNcog »

duckzilla wrote: Gujarati Gunpowder(II)
Muskets have +2 range.
Broken!
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Garja wrote: ↑
20 Mar 2020, 21:46
I just hope DE is not going to implement all of the EP changes. Right now it is a big clusterfuck.
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Canada dansil92
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Re: EP9: PORTUGUESE

Post by dansil92 »

iNcog wrote:
duckzilla wrote: Gujarati Gunpowder(II)
Muskets have +2 range.
Broken!
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Re: EP9: PORTUGUESE

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Post by iCourt »

Gujarati Gunpowder(II)
Muskets have +2 range.
Not sure how to implement the range upgrade wether it should be on a card or tech upgrade, but I like the better range for units cause it plays into the Portuguese extra range gimmick.

Honestly if you want to make them more fun to play, boost their gimmicky strengths as opposed to making them more standard to play.

I'm sure there is a balance between OP gimmicky and fun to use gimmicky somewhere there.
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Re: EP9: PORTUGUESE

Post by iNcog »

dansil92 wrote:
iNcog wrote:
duckzilla wrote: Gujarati Gunpowder(II)
Muskets have +2 range.
Broken!
Tomahawks with Lacrosse: am i a joke to you?
Well Traumahawks are a bit less of a staple than Musketeers, but point taken
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Garja wrote: ↑
20 Mar 2020, 21:46
I just hope DE is not going to implement all of the EP changes. Right now it is a big clusterfuck.
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Canada dansil92
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Re: EP9: PORTUGUESE

Post by dansil92 »

Perhaps adding it to genitours? Goon range total was reduced so adding goon & musk range on the card seems reasonable and would make the card still appealing. 14 range musks aren't gonna break the game but would add an appeal
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United States of America Squamiger
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Re: EP9: PORTUGUESE

Post by Squamiger »

@dansil92 doesn't make a ton of sense to add it to genitours since if you send that you are making goons. would be wild to see extra range musks in age 2 tho. but that's really getting too far away from how the game is meant to work.
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Re: EP9: PORTUGUESE

Post by Le Hussard sur le toit »

iCourt wrote:
Gujarati Gunpowder(II)
Muskets have +2 range.
Not sure how to implement the range upgrade wether it should be on a card or tech upgrade, but I like the better range for units cause it plays into the Portuguese extra range gimmick.

Honestly if you want to make them more fun to play, boost their gimmicky strengths as opposed to making them more standard to play.

I'm sure there is a balance between OP gimmicky and fun to use gimmicky somewhere there.
In what kind of MU are you going to go musks when you have the best goons in the game ?
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Australia Peachrocks
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Re: EP9: PORTUGUESE

Post by Peachrocks »

Yeah I think if you're gunna give Port unique 1 card options you've got the following ideas. The first two already exist but tbh I think this is the theme of the civ that could be fun/unique. The first card sent in theory could dictate a lot of direction.

1. ATP
2. Schooners
3. Explorer card could be made significant stronger. Portugal after all are famous for exploring. Hard to replicate this in game other then making them good on water but doing something unique here could be cool. Most civs don't really have space/opportunity to use their explorer card, but Portugal could.
4. Livestock options. No civ really goes into this style of play, but giving options here could be interesting for longer term pay offs, especially on maps that have livestock. If Portugal after all are meant to be the civ that thinks about what card to send first rather than it being automatic this could be an interesting idea.

I mean some sort of native card or whatever could be added in age 2 to give them more options there as well as adding onto the ATP route though some people are suggesting things that improve for each native alliance. This isn't the best idea because some maps only have one type of native if they have them. Whereas something that helps universally might be more useful. I mean Portugal aren't particularly known for having good native relations but the Portuguese/Spanish Jesuits did make some attempts to protect them from the slavery while converting them to Catholicism so you could always go down that path.

I think improving their units at least with the late game in mind isn't really the issue. I mean sure they don't have the best late game, but late game is a mess anyway.
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United States of America dutchdude117
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Re: EP9: PORTUGUESE

Post by dutchdude117 »

Peachrocks wrote:Yeah I think if you're gunna give Port unique 1 card options you've got the following ideas. The first two already exist but tbh I think this is the theme of the civ that could be fun/unique. The first card sent in theory could dictate a lot of direction.

1. ATP
2. Schooners
3. Explorer card could be made significant stronger. Portugal after all are famous for exploring. Hard to replicate this in game other then making them good on water but doing something unique here could be cool. Most civs don't really have space/opportunity to use their explorer card, but Portugal could.
4. Livestock options. No civ really goes into this style of play, but giving options here could be interesting for longer term pay offs, especially on maps that have livestock. If Portugal after all are meant to be the civ that thinks about what card to send first rather than it being automatic this could be an interesting idea.

I mean some sort of native card or whatever could be added in age 2 to give them more options there as well as adding onto the ATP route though some people are suggesting things that improve for each native alliance. This isn't the best idea because some maps only have one type of native if they have them. Whereas something that helps universally might be more useful. I mean Portugal aren't particularly known for having good native relations but the Portuguese/Spanish Jesuits did make some attempts to protect them from the slavery while converting them to Catholicism so you could always go down that path.

I think improving their units at least with the late game in mind isn't really the issue. I mean sure they don't have the best late game, but late game is a mess anyway.

I really agree that live stocks is the solution to port food issue
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Canada dansil92
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Re: EP9: PORTUGUESE

Post by dansil92 »

+1 cow to every shipment

I mean i say this facetiously but it would help their early game and early fortress, incentivise a discovery shipment and would have minimal impact on their late game
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Re: EP9: PORTUGUESE

Post by Le Hussard sur le toit »

Just give them their 5th mameluke back (if it's possible to do it just for ports ?).
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Re: EP9: PORTUGUESE

Post by forgrin »

Why not give them the ability to make goons in age 2?

I think making them the goon counterpart to Dutch (the other euro "turtle" civ) gives Ports a real purpose and a nice niche. It's not a straight power buff, just a versatility one that meshes well with their existing cards.
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Re: EP9: PORTUGUESE

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Post by Kawapasaka »

Please don't try to make training livestock good. Some things are better left in the non-viable bin.
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Re: EP9: PORTUGUESE

Post by wardyb1 »

How about some compensation for the cheaper TC's? 100w cheaper so you could say Ports bonus is now worth 100w less every age. Maybe they get 2 vills with the covered wagon on aging? 200f = 100w. Helps with their boom a bit more but doesn't scale as fast as cheaper vills into the long game.
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Re: EP9: PORTUGUESE

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Post by Kaiserklein »

If ports would get free TCs while other civs pay for TCs, that would be okay. But what happens is ports get free TCs while other civs don't build TCs. Therefore compensating for the cheaper TC change is not needed; that change isn't a nerf to ports unless other civs also build TCs, which is rarely what we see.
Besides +2 vils isn't 200f. It's 2 extra vil cycles, as in, training time. You're up 2 vils in eco, regardless of their cost, and they'll gather much more than 200f over time.
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China fei123456
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Re: EP9: PORTUGUESE

Post by fei123456 »

The thing is, how do we define this civ?

RE port is an 100% industrial civ: they have awkward age 1 2 3, but insane industrial dragoon. They may not be a strong civ, but they're definitely unique. To buff their colonial and fortress may not be the right way to design this civ imo; to make it easier to get to age 4, and make their industrial age a bit better should be better.

1. Genotour give dragoon +4 range and +15% range resistance. 18 range dragoon can be countered by skirmishers, so giving them 30-35% rr is proper.
2. Llamas train faster. It takes 60 secs to train a batch of llamas WTF. Herdable animals is a great buff to portugals on on-water maps.
3. Mill upgrades FREE. Remove the 5% bonus before. Free upgrade mills help them to reach age 4 easier, while you don't need to worry about aggressive play with early mills.
4. Gunpowder infantry upgrades give musketeer 15% bonus, and cacadore 20%. 4.5 ROF cacadore is actually hard to micro, and port should have better skirm units as a gunpowder civ.
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Re: EP9: PORTUGUESE

Post by Peachrocks »

And RE is a really flawed creation, partly for reasons like this. Even RE Port isn't the best late game and really EsoC Ports vs. other late games civs is probably even worse off but extreme extra range Dragoons are just not a good mechanic. Not everyone has 20 range Skirmishers either.

Ultimately their identity or definition isn't particularly liked and I think that is because they are rather slow and the pay off while not awful, it's hardly mind blowing, you still lose to around 1/3 of the civs in the late game even if you gave them modest buffs and I think that's being generous. Designing them to make them 'like RE Ports' and give them a solid Industrial isn't going to solve the problems addressed at the start of the thread.

The Mill upgrades (and making mills cheaper in the same card or even tweaking advanced mill to be slightly better) might be something that could be converted into an age 1 card which I think is a much better starting point for giving them an identity, giving them a slight boost and making them more interesting to play by giving them loads of age 1 first card options that dictate the pace of the game that the Portuguese player wants.

I don't think you can just give them mill upgrades for free but it's an okish idea to play with to counteract the fact they consume a lot of food just to use their bonus. I mean ultimately they are a 'town center' civ as their identity and mostly that is used to turtle but it can also be used for map control if there are valuable things on the map to control and they actually can hold onto what they want to claim. Ultimately if we continue to keep the 'get to age 4' design that seems to be built in as their only and realistic option, it's still not going to be well liked ultimately because Port basically won't 'win' the game, they simply just 'won't lose' until the opponent can't win and that sort of passiveness isn't particularly popular which seems to be the problem we are talking about here.
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United States of America Squamiger
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Re: EP9: PORTUGUESE

Post by Squamiger »

forgrin wrote:Why not give them the ability to make goons in age 2?

I think making them the goon counterpart to Dutch (the other euro "turtle" civ) gives Ports a real purpose and a nice niche. It's not a straight power buff, just a versatility one that meshes well with their existing cards.
Yes, this is 100% it. No other changes. Age 2 goons automatically, and suddenly ports are an interesting and unique civ. Dutch get skirms so why not
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Malaysia Aizamk
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Re: EP9: PORTUGUESE

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Post by Aizamk »

you'd be deleting the team early dragoons card that already sees some use in team games
oranges.
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Re: EP9: PORTUGUESE

Post by duckzilla »

That's true and kinda sad. I played Ports in hundreds of 1lt 3v3 random games and sent the early goon card frequently.
But hey, I won't complain if I can have early goons for free. For team games, this would definitely offer some colonial options, while not being overly powerful. For 1v1, I don't see the benefit since there are only xbows to combine goons with.
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Re: EP9: PORTUGUESE

Post by iCourt »

Le Hussard sur le toit wrote:
iCourt wrote:
Gujarati Gunpowder(II)
Muskets have +2 range.
Not sure how to implement the range upgrade wether it should be on a card or tech upgrade, but I like the better range for units cause it plays into the Portuguese extra range gimmick.

Honestly if you want to make them more fun to play, boost their gimmicky strengths as opposed to making them more standard to play.

I'm sure there is a balance between OP gimmicky and fun to use gimmicky somewhere there.
In what kind of MU are you going to go musks when you have the best goons in the game ?
I would assume it would depend how early of an age you gave them the range upgrade. If it was set in colonial it could potentially make their age 2 see some play.

However I should have separated my thoughts more from that comment.

My point with that post was if you want to make the civ more enjoyable to play you need to look for a gimmick to utilize, and try to balance around it. Extra range for muskets or xbows would be a gimmick to try and balance around. Extra range on their xbows would perhaps allow sending early dragoons an option, and would mesh pretty well with the church besterios. That's just one of many gimmicks.

Someone else mentioned making a lot more of their discovery age shipments more viable to dictate the direction the game goes. That's a gimmick that can be balanced around, and is very unique!

What you don't want is to be giving them a villager or trickle card otherwise it makes them play like every other civ. It's standardizing and it makes the civ not only less unique but even more boring to play.
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Re: EP9: PORTUGUESE

Post by duckzilla »

iCourt wrote:Extra range on their xbows would perhaps allow sending early dragoons an option, and would mesh pretty well with the church besterios. That's just one of many gimmicks.
I would love seeing viable xbows for Ports in a similar way as longbows for British.
Why not adding an age II card that gives xbows +4 range to bring them on par with skirms? Additionally, one could improve the church card by adding an imperial upgrade option to xbows when researching Besteiros. It would combine the uniqueness of Port range upgrades and Besteiros and, ideally, create new viable options for Port colo play which do not reach a dead end after Industrial.
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Re: EP9: PORTUGUESE

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Post by Astaroth »

Just one thought, while I agree that Ports ain't very interesting atm, a significant design change such as affecting their age2 unit comp drastically or adding completely new cards or mechanics would be similar to adding eco teepees to Sioux back in the day. A change that is now supposed to be reverted.

So people should probably first think about whether EP should focus on balance or also add significant design changes.
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Re: EP9: PORTUGUESE

Post by iCourt »

Astaroth wrote:Just one thought, while I agree that Ports ain't very interesting atm, a significant design change such as affecting their age2 unit comp drastically or adding completely new cards or mechanics would be similar to adding eco teepees to Sioux back in the day. A change that is now supposed to be reverted.

So people should probably first think about whether EP should focus on balance or also add significant design changes.
[sarcasm]What age2 unit composition?[/sarcasm]
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United States of America Squamiger
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Re: EP9: PORTUGUESE

Post by Squamiger »

Age 2 goons wouldn’t need to be paired with anything, it would be a hard counter to a 5-10 cav semi ff and would force other civs to adapt

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