So many questions (Portugal walkthrough)

[Jetstreamed]

Portugal is in a very bad shape nowadays. This game has changed so much to the point where colonization is simply not worth it anymore. Colonial nations LD is on rampage. Mercantilism? +LD. Relative power to overlord? +LD. Tariffs? +LD. War exhaustion? +LD.

As Portugal don't expect to have a big army enough to keep your colonial nations calm. Even with quantity ideas you have nothing to do about it. The lack of any military ideas & manpower is a huge disadvantage when fighting on Asia because as soon as you start conquering territories institutions will spread to them quickly. Mercantilism is not needed for the new world but definitively it's for India/Asia. Conquering harbors is not enough to drain trade power to Seville and light ships trade power is nerfed into the ground. So in the long run you have a weak nation, with weak ideas unable to maintain LD of your colonies under control and without any kind of military advantage against your neighbors which other colonizers have.

Having Castille as an ally is both a gift and a curse. You will be often involved in European wars you want to avoid, but you are going to suffer France sooner or later and that's a pain for your tiny army. So my suggestion is that if you want to play a colonization game, go for a big power. England is the easiest one if you abandon France because no one is going to disembark in your island-fortress.

It's actually not a Portugal problem, because patches ago it was one of my favourite nations to play with, but the recent changes have made the colonization simply not worth the reward you get for your colonies and trade companies. On top of this, berbers raid your coasts constantly and you are forced to landlock them having to core useless provinces that worth nothing to avoid the irritating raids.

Since you share your "virtual" end node of Seville with Spain, about 40% or 50% of your trade income is wasted unless you collect from trade in Asia/India which is a horrible option because the malus you get (-50%) from collecting outside of your main node.

Bad times for colonizers, sure.

A lot of this is incorrect.

First of all, a lot of people share their trade node. England shares it's node with netherlands and france, with england only having about 30-40% power in the node if it has no land in europe. It's your job to increase your trade power and not expect to just have 100% trade power in a node. With 100% Trade efficiency and 50% trade power, in a node, you receive just about 100% of the trade in that node, anyway.

Second, You can keep colonies under control with diplomatic, espionage, influence, or offensive-influence policy. All of these gives significant LD reduction due to either diplomatic rep or flat -10% lib desire.

Third, as countries like portugal, netherlands, etc, You can easily play tall. These countries are given large swathes of farm and grass land to develop. You develop your lands and build tons and tons of buildings so that your nation can rival larger powers. Your Land force limit may not be the same size, but your naval power and defensiveness (fort spam), can be significantly greater.

Forth, you can hunt pirates to reduce coastal raiding, instead of going off to core provinces.

 

[Afonso de Albuquerque]

I just bought Cossacks and not entirely sure if I use the estate feature correctly. I try not to get low loyalty and too high influence but this is rather boring.
Do I miss something interesting in this feature
What provinces is best to give what estate?

Since you are still unaccustomed with the feature, you are making the correct decision to not interact with them too much. The only thing I'll say is you *must* get the Grant New World Charter from the Burghers if you want to play a coloniser. This requires the Burghers have at least 40 influence, so make sure you give them enough provinces to get them there. The rule of thumb is: give any province with a trade modifier (Center of Trade, River Estuary, etc. like Porto, Tangier, Seville, etc.) to the Burghers; give high autonomy, high Base Tax to the Clergy; give high autonomy, high Manpower to the Nobility. As you conquer/diplo-annex new land you want to move the Nobles and the Clergy from your old, low autonomy land to the new states.

When you feel more at ease with estates, so that you know the kind events to expect and are used to managing their provinces, you can start playing more aggressively, which basically means trying to keep their influence in the 75%-80% sweet spot to extract monarch points from them as often as possible, while keeping their presence in your low autonomy provinces as minimal as possible. If you manage to do that you can get a very big advantage over the AI in MP generation.

 

[kmh42]

This is still unanswered:

Estates:
I just bought Cossacks and not entirely sure if I use the estate feature correctly. I try not to get low loyalty and too high influence but this is rather boring.

Do I miss something interesting in this feature
What provinces is best to give what estate?

 

[LS22]

Since you are still unaccustomed with the feature, you are making the correct decision to not interact with them too much. The only thing I'll say is you *must* get the Grant New World Charter from the Burghers if you want to play a coloniser. This requires the Burghers have at least 40 influence, so make sure you give them enough provinces to get them there. The rule of thumb is: give any province with a trade modifier (Center of Trade, River Estuary, etc. like Porto, Tangier, Seville, etc.) to the Burghers; give high autonomy, high Base Tax to the Clergy; give high autonomy, high Manpower to the Nobility. As you conquer/diplo-annex new land you want to move the Nobles and the Clergy from your old, low autonomy land to the new states.

When you feel more at ease with estates, so that you know the kind events to expect and are used to managing their provinces, you can start playing more aggressively, which basically means trying to keep their influence in the 75%-80% sweet spot to extract monarch points from them as often as possible, while keeping their presence in your low autonomy provinces as minimal as possible. If you manage to do that you can get a very big advantage over the AI in MP generation.

This is still unanswered:

Not anymore.

 

[kmh42]

And another restart failes Morocco allied with Tlemcen AND Aragon. While Castile recover from a war against France, they attacked me. Castile dishonored me again and I was dead.

 

[indika_tates]

A lot of this is incorrect.

First of all, a lot of people share their trade node. England shares it's node with netherlands and france, with england only having about 30-40% power in the node if it has no land in europe. It's your job to increase your trade power and not expect to just have 100% trade power in a node. With 100% Trade efficiency and 50% trade power, in a node, you receive just about 100% of the trade in that node, anyway.

Second, You can keep colonies under control with diplomatic, espionage, influence, or offensive-influence policy. All of these gives significant LD reduction due to either diplomatic rep or flat -10% lib desire.

Third, as countries like portugal, netherlands, etc, You can easily play tall. These countries are given large swathes of farm and grass land to develop. You develop your lands and build tons and tons of buildings so that your nation can rival larger powers. Your Land force limit may not be the same size, but your naval power and defensiveness (fort spam), can be significantly greater.

Forth, you can hunt pirates to reduce coastal raiding, instead of going off to core provinces.

Is not incorrect. Is that I haven't explained myself enough. I don't want to write a large post.

1) A lot of people share their trade node. Yes this is right. But as England, I don't share my trade node. A screenshot describes it perfectly.

If you can see, Holland is the next one who has about 1/6 of my trade power. Basically I dominate 85-90% of the trade node and if you want you can declare a trade war and hurt them badly for 15 years. This is possible because mercantilism is so high (about 85% at the moment of the screen) and English ideas which gives embargo efficiency. This is way more complicated with Portugal because it's very hard to increase mercantilism. And Castille in the long term have more provinces to develop so they can hurt your income a lot. This can be solved of course, collecting outside of your main trade node but this is only useful if you absolutely dominate that node.

2) You have to waste a idea group where only one idea is worth it. So for me is not an option. It appears that devs have no idea how encouraging players to take espionage ideas, but in my case, raising liberty desire from mercantilism isn't going to work.

As you can see with maximum mercantilism + maritime ideas decision the embargo efficiency is (30% traditions, +50% mercantilism, + 25% maritime decision). So this is why I said in this case that GB is a exception. Literally I don't share my trade node with anyone. Even Holland with trade ideas can't earn a decent trade income. The problem with the colonies appear here:

At 100% mercantilism liberty desire will go up to +30%. Couple this with administrative efficiency and LD will go on rampage. My colonies are very small. I was focusing on India mostly and only taking ten provinces to increase naval force limit and merchants. As you can see British West Indies have only 5-6 provinces and 14% liberty desire. And -10% liberty desire is not going to solve this. You may say you don't need 100% mercantilism and that's right. But on a trade game your mercantilism is your prussian discipline so if colonies rebel at some point show them who is the boss

If you see relative power to GB is nonexistent. You know what will happen to Portugal when you have a fat CN like Mexico? That one of your rivals is going to support their independence. I mean if someone like one nation more than another is legit but don't trust the game advice. Portugal is not an easy nation to learn trade & colonizing because of their horrible starting position & development.

 

[Jetstreamed]

Is not incorrect. Is that I haven't explained myself enough. I don't want to write a large post.

1) A lot of people share their trade node. Yes this is right. But as England, I don't share my trade node. A screenshot describes it perfectly.

If you can see, Holland is the next one who has about 1/6 of my trade power. Basically I dominate 85-90% of the trade node and if you want you can declare a trade war and hurt them badly for 15 years. This is possible because mercantilism is so high (about 85% at the moment of the screen) and English ideas which gives embargo efficiency. This is way more complicated with Portugal because it's very hard to increase mercantilism. And Castille in the long term have more provinces to develop so they can hurt your income a lot. This can be solved of course, collecting outside of your main trade node but this is only useful if you absolutely dominate that node.

2) You have to waste a idea group where only one idea is worth it. So for me is not an option. It appears that devs have no idea how encouraging players to take espionage ideas, but in my case, raising liberty desire from mercantilism isn't going to work.

As you can see with maximum mercantilism + maritime ideas decision the embargo efficiency is (30% traditions, +50% mercantilism, + 25% maritime decision). So this is why I said in this case that GB is a exception. Literally I don't share my trade node with anyone. Even Holland with trade ideas can't earn a decent trade income. The problem with the colonies appear here:

At 100% mercantilism liberty desire will go up to +30%. Couple this with administrative efficiency and LD will go on rampage. My colonies are very small. I was focusing on India mostly and only taking ten provinces to increase naval force limit and merchants. As you can see British West Indies have only 5-6 provinces and 14% liberty desire. And -10% liberty desire is not going to solve this. You may say you don't need 100% mercantilism and that's right. But on a trade game your mercantilism is your prussian discipline so if colonies rebel at some point show them who is the boss

If you see relative power to GB is nonexistent. You know what will happen to Portugal when you have a fat CN like Mexico? That one of your rivals is going to support their independence. I mean if someone like one nation more than another is legit but don't trust the game advice. Portugal is not an easy nation to learn trade & colonizing because of their horrible starting position & development.

1) That's because it's holland and not the netherlands. When netherlands forms it usually dominates the english channel and you need to spam light ships to gain back trade power. Portugal starts in a different position since it shares from the beginning. It's more the difference of starts, but portugal does have the ability to conquer quenta. I'm also not sure what year it is in that screenshot, but i got 100% merc (1.19) by late 1500s/early 1600s. Catholocism is really good to get merch points. It could've been faster if i was conquering and converting lands but I mostly used (+3) merc events, papal influence, and spare spare dip point when 95% merc.

2) What's the wasted idea group? Diplomatic and espionage are all very useful idea groups for colonists, even in MP; Espionage more sore than the rest. maybe influence/offensive can be considered wasted but how is diplomatic? It's a very good idea to gain PUs and Protectorates with.

The same issue can be done with Sevilla. Ships + Merc + embargo efficiency (which is raised by espionage). I get your point, but the thing is, england, yes, starts in a fantastic position, while castile, portugal and even france start off in a much worse one (at least trade wise). But, you can always bring these other powers up to exceptional trade levels. For example, I've played a french campaign where I had 50% trade power in english channel, Champagne and genoa. I was collecting trade in all 3 making obscene money with only 30% merc and poor embargo eff.

France trade, granted it was to play around with 1.19 beta so there was no real goal.


Also, granted, france was obscenely big (Gb is under a force PU like Provence and others were lol).

I've played GB plenty of times (the most out of any nation), so trust me i understand where you're coming from. I'm not saying you're wrong either, however you need to factor in 'starting' situation into your assumptions. GB has an exceptionally strong start trade, military and economy wise. So using GB as a use case is not entirely the best method. But let me show you a few screenshots to present something to you.

First of all, i need to apologize because this was an iron man save, so I don't have access to portugal directly (I was going for a few achievements including turn the table which I realise I failed at since it can't be achieved by releasing a colony, hence the reason i quit the save).

Notice the size of Brazil (Just released) and the size of Portugal. Portugal is only as big as the screenshot shows, only extending to ivory coast since i wasn't playing a serious portugal campaign, only colonising brazil to attempt an achievement or two.

Notice the Force limit of brazil and portugal (Add about 10 to portugal and remove about 6 from brazil, since brazil was ex colony).

Notice the Dev of Brazil (409) and portugal (363).

Notice portuguese ideas, none of which are meant to affect lib desire, but mostly colonial speed (last one was picked by AI).

Notice that Portugal has 60% trade power in sevilla. Notice there's also barely any ships protecting trade (less than castile and far less than your england screenshot). Portugal's Trade power is also noticeably lower than your GB's, yet it has 60% trade power.

Finally, Notice that portugal has 200% trade power Eff from mercantilism, Meaning it has 100% Merc.

With all this data, Brazil was never above 50% Lib desire. In fact, I'm not even sure if they reached >50% lib desire even when I raised tarrifs to about 140% (100% + tariff bonuses), just to test how much money i could make off of that huge brazil just before release (it was about 60 ducats in tariffs, but I forget the exact figure).

I'm showing this, not to tell you that you're wrong, but to show that your data is incomplete and that scenario you've portrayed with england can quite easily be replicated with portugal. In fact, The data of portugal here could be far better if i actually planned a serious portugal campaign from the start instead of simply trying to get a few achievements (a protected market and not so sad a state... among them).

 

[kmh42]

How do I get Mercantilism so high and why is it so important?

 

[kmh42]

I had a couple fo failed restarts (initial wars failed, morocco allied Aragon and crushed me, army got wiped out by rebels,...) and now I am in the beginning (year 1470) again. France offered me an alliance and I said yes. Should I betray Castile now? They are already in a PU with Aragon but without Naples and allied with England.

 

[Afonso de Albuquerque]

I had a couple fo failed restarts (initial wars failed, morocco allied Aragon and crushed me, army got wiped out by rebels,...) and now I am in the beginning (year 1470) again. France offered me an alliance and I said yes. Should I betray Castile now? They are already in a PU with Aragon but without Naples and allied with England.

Is France rivalled with Castile? Have they set Castilian land as vital interest so that you might be able to call them into an offensive war on promise of land? If yes, then it might possible to backstab Castile, in which case your priority should be to grab Seville, and if they haven't started colonizing yet, also the Canary Islands and Cadiz to reduce their colonial range.

 

[kmh42]

Is France rivalled with Castile?

Castile hast France as Rival but not visa versa.

Have they set Castilian land as vital interest

no

Spoiler

So no backstabbing right now, right?

 

[Afonso de Albuquerque]

Castile hast France as Rival but not visa versa.

Since they aren't likely to become interested in Castilian land in the foreseeable future, this means you'd have to wait for favours to accumulate before being able to pull France into an offensive war against Spain, which might take a lot of time.

So no backstabbing right now, right?

It is risky, yes, if you want a smooth game keep the friendship with Spain and ditch the French before they pull you to a war you are not interested in. You don't need to expand in Europe to be successful with Portugal.

If you want to play more ambitiously keep the French alliance. If France declares on England who apparently allied Castile you might be forced to fight Castile sooner rather than later, which will be a tough fight since the French will not help you immediately and are on the other side of half a dozen forts from you. It might be a good idea to park your army in France so you don't lose it completely and you can coordinate with the French armies.

If you manage to keep both the French and Spanish alliances, and you are starting to accumulate favours with France, you might want to put into action your own offensive plans. If you have favours with Castile (or they are willing to go for land) try to use them in some war and let them take the brunt of the fight (and give them nothing, obviously). Don't break the alliance before you are 5 years away (the truce timer for breaking alliances) from earning the 10 favours with France. Be very careful about actually declaring the war, look carefully at the alliance chain and use the Ledger to evaluate the relative army sizes of you+France(+anyone you manage to get) vs Castile+Aragon+allies. Don't be afraid to go way into debt to make sure you crush Castile, you need to be certain that when you sign your peace deal, the next time you fight will be even more in your favour.

 

[Big Bad France]

I think defeating Castile after the wedding, even with France on your side, will be pretty difficult. I haven't played in that region much with the latest update, but it seems like the mountain forts at the French border and the new mechanics that go along with them should make it difficult for France to just steamroll Iberia like they used to. It might pay off to wait and hope for the Castilian Civil War to fire before declaring war.

Edit: Actually, waiting for the Civil War might be bad advice. I'm not sure it can fire after the wedding. You either need them to be in a weakened state or willing to go deep into debt to beat them with mercs over the force limit, though. It would probably be easiest to just drop the alliance with France and stay friendly with Spain. If you do go to war, you need to win big and force them to drop the PU with Aragon.

 

[indika_tates]

If you want to defeat Castille, why don't take Castille instead? Castillian ideas are far better than Portuguese one. And you have a bigger development since the beginning. The trick is to disable "Join offensive wars" while being allied to Castille. That's because the AI compares strength and "thinks" that with your army it would be able to crush France, but this is not going to happen. Castille/Spain is a reliable ally as Portugal and both increases trade power in Seville, the main purpose of a Portuguese campaign. If you have a good army it dissuades France from attacking Castille. Other thing is what Castille decides to do during the campaign. If they wish to suicide against France it's the AI problem not yours. The only point where I see profitable to attack Castille is if Aragon declares independence of France hurt them badly, so you can gain a new ally (France) by making Castille your rival to snap Seville, Granada or whatever you want from them.

If Castille is powerful enough you gain more being allied with them than rivals, because if your purpose is to annex the iberian region playing as Castille is a wiser choice.

 

[sigeena]

How do I get Mercantilism so high and why is it so important?

Mercantilism acts as a global modifier to provincial trade power. You can boost it via events, or through papal interaction. It's not dependent on technology, so if you increase it real fast, you'll enjoy its benefits for longer part of the game. The only negative trade off is that it increases LD in colonial nations.

 

[sigeena]

Perhaps if you want to learn the game on trade mechanics alone, you should consider Venice or Lubeck. People on the forums like to smash MR for their 20 provinces state limit, but I think it can be an interesting challenge.

 

[Jman47]

Just a quick rant im gonna drop in here regarding my current 1.15 portugal run.

I just logged into the game after getting home from work, ready to start my much planned war against a giant east africa Mutapa to control the zanzibar node, only to realize that at some point without me noticing they snuck an alliance with france >.<

Its 1633 and im now considering putting this ironman run is severe danger over going for the war anyway. if I pull my main fleet back to protect my land from naval invasion I may be able to keep france away from anything meaningful, but it will require intense Micro to manage that and a land invasion of mutapa.

Maybe I will get lucky and see someone else go after france too while they are distracted. I swear my next game is going to be England so I can just nip the french problem in the bud.

Anyone else think I should try to wait it out for a bit? Or should I just go for it now and hope for the best? I have other stuff I could do to pass the time, but im sick of Mutapa eating all my tasty trade by contolling almost the entire node outside of zanzibar itself (which I conquered from a opm malindi a few decades ago.)

 

[kmh42]

My ruler died with no heir and I am now under a PU with Castile? What to do now? Is this good or bad?
EDIT: Just one opinion point is missing and France would support my independence but it isn't doing well.
EDIT2: England and France support my independence.
EDIT3: I got the Ottomans on the boat!

When is a good time to fight for independence?

 

[sigeena]

If all your supporting nations are not at war currently, then it's probably good to declare war. But perhaps first park your units in France territory. It'll be easier to work with France to take out Castile from the north, rather than let Castile concentrate on either nation with their time.

 

[kmh42]

If all your supporting nations are not at war currently, then it's probably good to declare war. But perhaps first park your units in France territory. It'll be easier to work with France to take out Castile from the north, rather than let Castile concentrate on either nation with their time.

Are those nations my allies after my independence is secured?