Getting started as Portugal

This guide is to help you on your way to complete the short campaign as the faction of Portugal. This will be from personal experience as I go through in detail how I would go about conquering your surroundings. Hopefully this guide will be of some help to you and if successfull I will make guides for other factions on both Medieval and other games in the Total War series.

Getting Started

First off, to be able to play as Portgual, you must complete either the long or short campaign at least once which will not take very long. As with most Total War games the controls and the formula are extremely similar so it should not take you too long to get into the game. However, if you have not played either this game or the others in the series I would suggest you go through the tutorial and perhaps partake in a practice battle so that you get a feel for the game and its mechanics.

Starting as Portugal, you will begin with a city and castle. The city, your capital of Lisbon, is on the western coast of Iberia while your castle, Pamplona is in the north east near the Pyrenees. If you choose the play the short campaign then your goals are to hold 15 regions and eliminate the factions of Spain and the Moors. For the long campaign, you need to hold 45 regions including Jerusalem and Granada. Since this guide is just for getting you started it will not go into much detail for the long campaign however it can get you off to a good start if you wish to conquer the world.

The starting position for Portugal splits the faction in half with one region in the east and the other in the west. Separating then are the factions of Spain and the Moors. Despite being split in two, you do have to good opportunities for rapid expansion in the future. Your capital will be your money maker for the time being as Pamplona will provide you little income but with the cities of Iberia and Africa before you, it is only a matter of time before you become rich.

First things first, send your diplomat, or in this case princess, to the neighbouring factions to get trade agreements, map information and anything else you might want. However, I wouldn't bother getting alliances with Spain or the Moors because soon you will be at war with them. Now, get an army ready to take the city of Cordoba. The Moors themselves are not very strong and dont usually send troops over from Africa so taking Cordoba and then Granada should not present too much of a challenge. Remember to upgrade your building along the way so that you generate more money and can recruit better troops. While you are conquering southern Iberia, you should begin your conquest of the north, providing you can afford to.

Once you have control of Moorish held Iberia, retrain your troops, upgrade your buildings and prepare for the coming war.

United under one flag, Iberia

With the city of Cordoba under your control, your income should have been boosted considerably so now it is time to unite all of Iberia under the Portugese standard. Your first target up noth should be Zaragoza which is lightly defended. You will have to be quick however, as it is usually a target of both Spain and occasionally France. Once you have taken Zaragoza, get an army ready, preferably lead by a general, and go take the castle of Valencia. The rebels are lead my a man called El Cid the Chivalrous and should not be underestimate


Now you should focus your forces towards Madrid as this is where the Spanish will get most of their troops from. Usually the castle itself is not very well defended but Spain usually has a large army wondering about in the area so be careful. Once Madrid has been taken Spain will be considerably weaker and so wont put up much of a fight anymore. Now it is time to take Leon. Send an army up towards Leon and capture it.
Once Leon has fallen to your army, the nation of Spain will be no more and you will be the king of the Iberian Peninsula. As with last time, make sure you keep your building up to date and your armies re trained.

Look to Africa, for there a king will be crowned.

Now it is time get rid of your old enemy, the Moors. At this point they usually have around 3 regions in Africa, depending on whether or not they've expanded south into Timbuktu. If they have not, then you will only have to deal with the city of Marrakech and the castle of Algiers which should not be too difficult. At this point, you can take your time with the Moors if you are currently at war with another faction such as France, as you will need more regions anyway to get the minimum of 15.

So get an army together and send it into modern day Morroco. When doing this, it is advised to either send priests/cardinals with the army or before the army because once taken there will be some religious unrest. To save time you can try and take Marrakech and Algiers at the same as it wont be hard to do.

If, after you have taken these two regions the Moors have not been destroyed then your best bet is heading towards Timbuktu. Hopefully you will have explored or gained map information of other nations such as Sicily will usually take control of Tunis and Tripoli which means you wont have to go out searching for this last illusive town. To get to Timbuktu you will have to go through the mountains and then walk through the desert. This can take upto 10 turns so while you are waiting for your army to arrive find something else you preoccupy yourself with, such as other wars or just building/recruiting.

When you finally take Timbuktu (if it was necessary) you should have wiped out the Moors and control around 10 to 11 regions meaning you will need at least 4 more...

Finishing the grand conquest

Hopefully by this point you will only need a few more regions which, with your booming economy and immense army, shouldn't be too difficult. It is not surprising if France decides to declare war on you at some point, and even if they haven't, that is where I would look to for those last few regions. The French will usually be tied up in their own wars with the HRE, England or Milan at this point and will probably be quite weak.

Firstly, scout out the southern regions of France before preparing for an invasion. Your first target will be Toulouse as it is the closest. So go ahead and build up an army and lay siege to Toulouse before bringing it under your control. Toulouse is a good staging point for launching further attacks into Europe because by this point it is usually a fortress or even a citadel, depending on how much time has passed. From here, go and take Bordeaux and then Marseille, giving you control of southern France and drastically weakening the French.

Finally, finish off your campaign by taking the other French regions, depending on your preferance. Congratulations! You have now completed the short campaign as the great nation of Portugal. If you wish to play as Portugal in the long campaign then this guide will also be useful, getting you off to a good start.

Tips for taking Jerusalem

If you decide to play the long campaign then you will have take the ancient city of Jerusalem. This can be easy or difficult, depending on which time you decide to go for it in the game. Usually, taking Jerusalem is not the hard part, keeping it is. The Egyptians do not pose much of a military threat if you take enough soldiers and take Gaza and Acre, to get the better troops castles provide. Despite this, you may need to keep a high military presence in the region depending on whether or not the Mongols or Timurids have entered the game. They are exetremely difficult to get rid off if you do not have a vast amount of troops in the Holy Land so keep an eye out for the warning announcing them, and send out spies.

Another major factor with taking Jerusalem is religion. Because it is in a muslim area and if controlled by muslims for the start of the game you will need to try and convert the populace and quickly as possible, either with churchs, priests or advisably both.

Another thing you could do is just leave Jerusalem until the last, when you only need a couple more regions to complete the long campaign. This will remove any relgious fuss and threat of invasion as you will have completed the campaign.

Extra tips

Crusades are a key part of the game and can be very useful when fighting your enemies. However, if you choose to lead your armies in the Holy land then make sure you go prepared. The Turks and Egyptians will be hostile and later on in the game, the Mongols and Timurids will appear and they can cause massive amounts of damage if you are not ready. When you take a region in the holy land, make sure you have a large garrison and also try and convert the population to Christianity as fast as possible because this will lower public disorder.

ALWAYS keep up to date with new military tech. When gunpowder enters the game, get it as fast as possible. The new siege gear it brings with it is very effective and the units such as hand gunners are extremely useful in battle as they will often intimidate the enemy.

Around the year 1400, the new world will be discovered and is a great oppotunity for you to become even richer than you already are. If you do choose to go exploring, then take large armies because you will be vastly outnumbered. You should also take with you plenty of agents such as spies, priests and most of all, merchants. Using your merchants on items such as cocoa or tobacco can make you extremely rich, funding any future expeditions into the unknown.

Message

Thank you for reading this guide and hopefully it will have been useful. It will not be perfect so if you have any suggestions on things I need to add then feel free to let me know. If people do like this guide then I shall make more for other factions throughout the Total War series.

Feel free to rate, comment and share!

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=149633604 - Getting started as Milan (M2TW)

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=150214929 - Getting started as Great Britain (ETW)

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=160123988#-1 - Getting started as United Provinces (ETW)


If you would like me to do a another guide then simply leave a comment or message me, I will do guides for ETW, MTW2, RTW and perhaps Shogun 2 or Napoleon. I will also probably make guides for RTW2 when it comes out.

Question

So, after making 4 guides, soon to be 5, I was thinking about setting up a Steam group for general Total War discussion and where people could suggest ideas for new guides and give feedback from those that are already out. I'd like to know your thoughts on this so leave a comment telling me what you think!

[Deus Vult]

in selection tab there is no Portugal

[Poffean]

will a rebel guide be next?

[Ol' Snaggle Tooth]

Should be noted that once you have taken Toulouse if youre excommunicated the pope will regulary target that castle for crusades so for a military tip-keep
Toulouse garrisoned with heavy units. Also for economics-focus more on farming and ports to increase population-faster research and more DOLLA from taxes(becareful of squalor as this can affect public order so build public health buildings) rather than markets or mines,and merchants are only useful in the new world.

[Ol' Snaggle Tooth]

Good guide, which difficulty are you playing on. Please create a guide for Russia or the Byzantines :) Great work so far, and the steam group sounds pretty good, if you manage to set one up-please invite :)

[ItzAliBitch]

Good guide but you should have included the fact that Sicily will also most likely be your enemy and will have scripted attacks on Algiers, but you also remembered some of the little things like agents , I would maybe include just generally what units should be used as well against which enemies and who your allies in the early game should be (England, The Papal States mainly, I'd usually ally with Scotland, Venice, Denmark and Poland as well)

[kasixLv]

Pretty good guide, but could use some starting army build. Otherwise, good job!

[Dark Angel]

I very sensible and well written guide with some good basic tips for a successful campaign. Very impressive and recommended reading for any beginner.

[ribeiro42]

BTW even in Steam it is possible to unlock faction through editing the "descr_strat" file, whch should be in the /M2TW folder/data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign,.

You just change the nation from the ulockable section t the playable section right at the top of the file.

So it should go from this:
Campaign imperial_campaign
playable
england
france
hre
spain
venice
end
unlockable
sicily
milan
scotland
byzantium
russia
moors
turks
egypt
denmark
portugal
poland
hungary

To this:

Campaign imperial_campaign
playable
england
france
hre
spain
venice
sicily
milan
scotland
byzantium
russia
moors
turks
egypt
denmark
portugal
poland
hungary
end
unlockable

[Artorius]

Taking Jerusalem - yes. Useful, funny and well-written.