Zigzagzigal's Guide to Portugal (BNW)

An excellent maritime diplomatic Civ, Portugal will have little trouble with money or happiness later in the game. This guide goes into plenty of detail about Portuguese strategies, uniques and how to play against them.

Introduction

Note: This guide assumes you have all game-altering DLC and expansion packs (all Civ packs, Wonders of the Ancient World, Gods & Kings and Brave New World)



While various tribes and empires held pieces of land which would become Portugal (or the whole of it as part of a wider empire,) it could be argued a distinct Portuguese identity began to form with the county of Portugal in the 9th century of the common era, reconquered from the Muslim Moors. Over time, the county grew to a kingdom, conquering remaining areas in the contemporary borders of Portugal during the 13th century. But this would not be enough - the 15th century would see the first Portuguese colonies aiming to make a safe sea route all the way to India, and after Christopher Columbus' voyage to the "New World", the Spanish and Portuguese wanted these new lands, and divided the non-Christian world between them in the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas. And thus began the world's first truly international empire.

Portugal took land strategically, understanding that the largest of empires are not necessarily the most powerful. But France's invasion of Portugal under Napoleon in the early 19th century showed such international focus left them vulnerable at home. The royal family fled to Brazil, but this would lead to an expansion of Brazilian cultural identity and eventually independence. Portugal would be able to expand some colonies in Africa in the 19th century, but it would lose much. After the country going bankrupt twice on the turn of the century, political turmoil would eventually lead to a dictatorship. On the 25th of April in 1974, it would be overthrown, and most of the remaning colonies granted their independence. In 1999, with the handover of Macau to China, the first and longest-lived global empire - lasting over half a millennium - came to an end. And now, in another time of economic turmoil, it is up to you to take Portugal into this brave new world. The end of empire is not the end of your nation, but merely a new beginning! Take charge of Portugal, and build a civilization that can stand the test of time.



Before I go into depth with this guide, here's an explanation of some terminology I'll be using throughout for the sake of newer players.

Beelining - Focusing on obtaining a technology early by only researching technologies needed to research it and no others. For example, to beeline Bronze Working, you'd research Mining and Bronze Working and nothing else until Bronze Working was finished.
Builder Nation/Empire - A generally peaceful nation seeking victories other than domination.
Equilibrium - In the context of City-States, I'm referring to the influence resting point.
Finisher - The bonus for completing a Social Policy tree (e.g. Free Great Person for Liberty.)
Opener - The bonus for unlocking a Social Policy tree (e.g. +1 culture for every city for Liberty's opener)
Uniques - Collective name for Unique Abilities, Units, Buildings, Tile Improvements and Great People
UA - Unique Ability - The unique thing a Civilization has which doesn't need to be built.
UU - Unique Unit - A replacement for a normal unit that can only be built by one Civilization or provided by Militaristic City-States when allied.
Wide empire - A high number of cities with a low population each.
XP - Experience Points - Get enough and you'll level up your unit, giving you the ability to heal your unit or get a promotion.
ZOC - Zone of Control - A mechanic that makes a unit use up all its movement points if it moves from a tile next to an enemy to an adjacent tile next to the same enemy.

At a glance (Part 1/2)

Start Bias

Portugal has a coastal start bias. All three of their uniques gain from this, as coastal international trade routes have higher yields, Feitorias can only be built on coastal tiles and the Nau UU is a naval unit.

Uniques

Portugal really gains in strength in the renaissance era, where both their UU and UI are, as well as unlocking the ability to trade over ocean and hence take full advantage of their UA.

Unique Ability: Mare Clausum

• Resource diversity bonuses (having cities with different resources to each other on other ends of an international trade route) are doubled for Portugal.
  
  • This means 1 gold instead of 0.5 per different resource for land trade routes, and 2 gold instead of 1 for naval trade routes.
    
  • This has no effect on international trade routes not set up by Portugal.

Unique Unit: Nau (Replaces the Caravel)

A naval melee unit

Technology	Obsoletion	Upgrades from	Upgrades to	Production cost	Purchase cost	Resource needed
Astronomy Renaissance era 1st column (8th column overall)	Steam Power Industrial era 2nd column (11th column overall)	Trireme (160 )*	Ironclad** (270 )*	120 *	600 *	None

*Assumes a normal speed game.
**Upgrading requires 1 Coal resource

Strength	Ranged Strength	Moves	Range	Sight	Negative Attributes	Positive Attributes
20	N/A	5	N/A	3	N/A	Chance to withdraw rather than deal and receive damage if attacked by melee (Withdraw Before Melee) One-time-use ability to generate a lump sum of gold when adjacent to or within a foreign tile

Positive one-off changes

• 5 moves, up from 4 (+25%)

Positive stay-on-upgrade changes

Note: The Withdraw Before Melee attribute Caravels and Naus have carries over on upgrade.

• One-time-use ability to generate a lump sum of gold as well as experience when adjacent to or within a foreign tile
  
  • The further from the capital the Nau is, the more money and experience it generates

Unique Improvement: Feitoria

Technology	Enhancing Technology	Terrain Requirement	Base yield	Misc bonuses	Enhancement Effect	Final yield
Navigation Renaissance era 2nd column (9th column overall)	None	Coastal resourceless* tiles in City-State territory** (may replace existing improvements)	None	+50% defence to units on the tile Provides one untradable copy of each luxury resource type the City-State owns***	N/A	None

*Any sort of resource will prevent construction, whether it's a luxury resource, a strategic resource or a bonus resource (cows, wheat, stone, etc)
**Despite being in City-State lands, pillaging a Feitoria counts as an act of war against Portugal
***This includes the unique luxuries of Mercantile City-States. The Cultural Diplomacy Social Policy in the Patronage tree will not affect the happiness output of these luxuries.

At a glance (Part 2/2)

Victory Routes

Note these scores are a matter of personal opinion based on experiences with the Civilization. You may discover a way of utilising the Civ more effectively in unconventional ways.

Cultural: 5/10
Diplomatic: 10/10
Domination: 7/10
Scientific: 4/10

Portugal is a single-minded diplomatic Civ. Their UA and UU both encourage getting lots of gold, and if your UI provides you with luxuries you already own, you can sell off the tradable luxuries you own, keeping the untradable ones for yourself. However, gold and happiness are both useful for domination victories, and Nau cash can help to buy more Naus and build up quite an armarda.

Similar Civs and uniques

Overall

The Netherlands are particularly similar to Portugal, but their happiness bonuses come earlier and their gold bonuses later. The Netherlands are a more flexible Civ, being able to adjust to domination or science more easily, but Portugal tends to produce more gold and as such tends to win a race for City-State alliances.

Other naval diplomatic Civs include Carthage, Indonesia and Venice.

Same start bias

The coastal start bias is the most common in the game. Portugal shares it with Byzantium, Carthage, Denmark, England, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, the Ottomans, Polynesia, Spain and Venice.

Similar to the UA

Making international trading more lucrative is also the focus of Morocco's unique ability. While Portugal's UA doesn't affect incoming trade routes from other Civs, Morocco's does, resulting in a difference of emphasis - Portugal needs to make cities lucrative for their own trading, and Morocco needs to make cities attractive for those of other Civs.

The gold potential is akin to that of Venice's unique ability. Venice's individual trade routes aren't better than those of other Civs, but they get twice as many.

Another Civ with a bonus to international trading is Germany, via their Hanse, but unlike Portugal, the bonus is to production rather than gold.

Similar to Naus

Korea's Turtle Ship is the only other Caravel UU, but they could scarcely be more different. Naus are built around peacetime exploration, while Turtle Ships are worse at exploration than the generic unit it replaces in exchange for being significantly better at war.

A more alike UU is the Dutch Sea Beggar. It comes in the same era and just like the Nau, it can earn you gold. In the Sea Beggar's case, the gold comes from attacking cities thanks to its Coastal Raider promotions.

Similar to Feitorias

Feitorias are completely unlike any other unique improvement, but being able to reliably gain happiness from City-States is something in common with Greece's unique ability. In Greece's case, slow influence decay means you can sustain multiple long-term alliances and therefore constantly receive gifts of luxuries.

Unique Ability: Mare Clausum

Above: Note the "1" instead of the normal "0.5" in the "Different resources" section - that's Portugal's UA at work.

Portugal's Unique Ability alters a fairly obscure mechanic, but the net result is fairly straightforward - Portugal's international trade routes will be more profitable, bringing you more gold per trade route than other Civs.

The Mechanics of Diversity Bonuses

Diversity bonuses are part of the gold you get from having a trade route with another Civ, though it doesn't contribute to the gold you receive from another Civ sending you a trade route.

The exact bonus is 0.5 gold for each type of luxury or strategic resource that one of the cities on the international trade route has, but not the other. This is doubled to 1 gold for Portugal. Sea-based international trade routes have a 2x modifier applied after diversity bonuses, so they essentially double diversity bonuses as well - a Portuguese sea-based international trade route will essentially have four times the diversity bonus that a land route for a different Civ would have.


Above: Without Portugal's UA, that international trade route would be worth 5 gold per turn less - not an insignificant amount. Note that the special luxuries mercantile City-States offer do count towards diversity bonuses (and so does Indonesia's special luxuries if they're in your game.) Mercantile City-States will be useful for other reasons covered later on, too, so try to keep them alive.

For maximum gold potential, try to settle cities on the coast and near as high a range of luxuries as possible. Part of international trade route gold is based on the gold generated per turn in the respective city, so getting a few trading posts up will help maximise cash potential.

The Broader Picture

Portugal's gold potential clearly makes it good at diplomatic victories, as you can afford to buy City-State influence. As diversity bonuses for international trade routes are essentially doubled for sea routes, it's a good idea to settle most of your cities on the coast. There's also a third element to Portugal's gameplay: building wide. Wide empires tend to have a higher gold potential than tall ones as small cities can grow faster, resulting in more citizens to work more tiles, such as trading posts. For most Civs, this would be a huge strain on happiness, but the Feitoria UI will give you all the happiness you'll need.

So, building wide can offer you extra gold. Your UA and UU will both offer you extra gold. Extra gold means it's easier to buy City-State alliances, and hence win the game diplomatically.

Unique Unit: Nau

Naus are incredibly good scouting ships, which can help you explore the seas faster than anyone else (except England and Polynesia) thanks to their extra point of movement. With the Exploration Opener and maybe the Great Lighthouse, it shouldn't take too long to discover the world's City States - City States are mostly found along coastlines.

But that's the straightforward part. Now for the more interesting bit - the ability to "sell exotic goods" when adjacent to or inside foreign land. This grants gold and XP for the Nau - the further away from your capital it is when it uses the option, the more gold and XP it gets. You don't need an Open Borders agreement or anything like that to use the "sell exotic goods" option, (though it'll be useful as even one more tile can be worth more gold and XP) and the other Civ won't get anything out of it. Using the ability doesn't end the Nau's turn, letting you go in and out of City-State lands for the full cash and XP potential without angering them if you're not already friends.


Above: It'll tell you the gold and XP you'll get before using the option, giving you an opportunity to compare spots for their potential. The screenshot above shows a city relatively close to my capital on a huge-size map...
Below: ...and this screenshot shows a city on the other side of the world.


You can build up a navy relatively quickly by using the "sell exotic goods" button and using the money to buy more Naus, but keep in mind they cost 600 gold each to buy on normal speed games - far more than the money you'll get from even the most distant city. Alternatively, you can view Nau-building as an improved version of converting production to gold - chances are, you'll get more gold out of it for your production than you would normally, and you get a fast Caravel on top!

It's not just gold you get from the "sell exotic goods" button, though, as it also gives a rather decent amount of XP for Naus. Backed with a Barracks, the XP will be enough to get to Sentry or Mobility, helping the Nau to scout even more effectively. Backed by a Military Academy, you can get three promotions without needing to fight anything or having the Brandenburg Gate wonder, which is enough to get the Nau to Supply, letting it heal anywhere.

So, Nau-building is great for converting production into gold, and also good for scouting out City-States and the map in general. They're no better at fighting than normal Caravels, but if you're going for a peaceful diplomatic victory, that won't be much of a problem.

Special promotions kept on upgrade

Regular Caravels as well as Naus have this:

• Withdraw before melee

And Naus have this as well:

• One-time XP and gold boost in or adjacent to foreign lands, based on distance from capital (Exotic Goods)

Steam Power will be needed on the way to important late-game technologies like Plastics, Penicillin and Globalisation, so you can't carry on building Naus forever. Any that haven't sold exotic goods to foreign cities still have a chance when upgraded, though Naus that already have won't regain their ability when upgraded.

Unique Improvement: Feitoria

Introduction

Feitorias may be a kind of unique tile improvement, but they work completely unlike any other. They have no yield, and you can't build them in your own lands. Instead, you can place them in coastal resourceless City-State tiles to get untradable copies of their luxury resources as if you were allied to them, regardless of your relationship with them.

Preparation

Before we go into detail about what effect that has, let's consider their placement on the technology tree. Feitorias are the last UI in the game, though their technology - Navigation - only requires Astronomy, which you'll be getting for Naus. Feitorias helpfully fit a niche for your Workers at a time after many of your cities are well-developed with tile improvements, but before railroads, meaning you probably won't need to build more Workers to take advantage of your UI.

Now, let's consider construction. You can't place Feitorias in any inland tile, nor those with any kind of resource, whether luxury, strategic or bonus (deer, wheat, bananas, etc.) Luckily, most City-States are located on the coast, and it's very rare that the entire coast will be made up of resource-filled tiles. You can replace existing City-State improvements to get your Feitorias up (and as you can build multiple Feitorias in the same City-State, you can wreck their improvements without declaring war if you think someone's aiming to capture the city.)

There's no downsides for you to placing Feitorias in every City-State where it's possible, so go and do so. Even City-States that have luxuries you already have are worth building a Feitoria in, so you can trade your domestically-produced luxuries, (those provided by Feitorias are untradable after all,) or they can provide a backup supply if another City-State is captured or has its luxuries pillaged.

The Luxuries

Above: I've got nearly every luxury type on this map. Minimal trading with Civs who hate me required.

Feitorias give you lots of luxuries, and from that you'll get absolutely masses of happiness. These are more stable sources of happiness than luxuries from City-State alliances, meaning you can support a huge empire. Building wide allows you to maximise resource diversity bonuses, work lots of Trading Posts and hence pull in loads of money.

Now, remember how mercantile City-States are great for diversity bonuses? That's not all. You can get a copy of their unique luxury with Feitorias, without needing an alliance. As such, you can focus your gold on alliances with other kinds of City-States until you need those delegates in the end-game (cultural City-States are a good idea to counteract the increased Social Policy cost of building wide.)

But, there's a problem with all this wide-building. The Order ideology is the one best-suited for wide, peaceful empires, but it doesn't offer diplomatic victories - the sort you're after. So, you've got two options - either build up a massive Nau navy prior to Steam Power and go for Autocracy, or build those many cities tall with Freedom. Yep, that's right - building wide and tall at the same time. Diplomatic Civs tend to have more spare production than other routes, so you should be able to manage to support that happiness if even Feitorias aren't enough. Lots of reasonably large cities can work a lot of Trading Posts, giving you cash potential almost as good as Venice.

Other Points

While Feitorias have no yield, they act as a Fort for the City-State they're built in. This can be useful for defending them from being captured, though the coastal restriction means they can be relatively easily bypassed. If you want to stop a Civ capturing a City-State, spamming Feitorias in it won't be enough. Bribe the Civ or provide the City-State with proper defence.

Speaking of defence, don't neglect your own. Upgrading units costs money you could be using to bribe City-States, but it's better than being wiped out by a late-game warmonger. Wide empires are particularly prone to having vulnerable cities, so make sure you keep your smaller cities decently defended to give enemies fewer reasons to invade you.

Summary

• Place a Feitoria in every City-State you can with a coastal tile
  
• Use the happiness to support a wide empire
  
• Use the wide empire to work lots of gold tiles in the end-game, propelling you to diplomatic victory

Social Policies

Start with Liberty; it'll be a great help throughout the game. Afterwards, mix policies from Patronage and Exploration. It's helpful to complete the former tree, but the latter doesn't necessarily need all the policies filling in. Remember that building wide makes Social Policy gain slow, so while there are some policies in Commerce that would be useful, it's generally more worthwhile just to go into Exploration instead.

Liberty

Opener

All your cities can expand their borders right away with this policy, meaning you can put off building Monuments if need be, or you can have this on top of Monuments for a good starting rate of border expansion.

Republic

Coastal cities are often production-poor, so a boost is very welcome.

Collective Rule

The earlier you can found a city, the more powerful it'll be. So, faster Settler production in the capital lets you expand at a good pace early on - particularly with that free Settler.

Citizenship

Develop cities faster! You can also get Feitorias up faster later on meaning you can get lots of luxury resources quickly, though the time your Workers spend travelling between cities is probably a bigger factor in overall speed than the time it takes for them to build those things.

Meritocracy

While Feitorias will offer lots of happiness, you've got to deal with the time before then as well - happiness tends to be tight in the mid-game, and so a bonus like this will still be very useful.

Representation

When Feitorias bring in lots of happiness in the renaissance era, that's a great opportunity to found new cities overseas. However, that raises both technology and Social Policy costs. The former may be a challenge to overcome, but this policy helps reduce the impact of the latter and provides a handy Golden Age.

Finisher

Getting a free Great Engineer to rush Petra or the Colossus is powerful. If you can't manage that, try a Great Scientist to help out with keeping up with the technology tree. A technological disadvantage may matter less to diplomatic Civs than others, but it's not something you really want to have.

Patronage

The slow Social Policy gain from a wide empire means it may be worth taking some of the earlier Exploration policies before finishing this tree, particuarly its Opener which synergises well with your Naus.

Opener

Slower influence decay! That makes it much easier to hold on to lots of alliances.

Consulates

With a higher influence resting point, you can spend less money to get a City-State alliance.

Philanthropy

And now all your gold goes further with gaining City-State influence.

Scholasticism

Wide empires often have problems with science, (at least, until the cities are well-developed) but now you can use all that UA gold to buy your way out of that problem.

Merchant Confederacy

More effective trading with City-States really helps out with the Treaty Organisation tenet in the Freedom tree. This is much less useful if you're going into Autocracy, but still, Patronage's finisher is good and merits completing the tree.

Cultural Diplomacy

Mostly just needed for Patronage's finisher, as you'll have plenty of happiness anyway, and a wide empire should provide you with the strategic resources you need.

Finisher

Bonus Great People! True, you won't know which ones exactly you'll be getting, but at least they don't require any additional effort to get.

Exploration

Opener

Extra speed and sight goes particularly well with Naus, exploring the world even faster. The Louvre Wonder isn't that useful to you (unless you want to deny cultural Civs it.)

Maritime Infrastructure

Coastal cities suffer from poor production... until now. Thanks to Liberty's Republic as well, even your brand-new cities will be going through the basic infrastructure buildings at a good rate.

If you haven't already, now's a good time to switch to the Patronage tree and reach at least Consulates. Later policies in Exploration are useful, but getting Patronage's Opener and Consulates too late will hurt your potential at the World Congress.

Naval Tradition

Even more happiness, which may seem somewhat unnecessary, but at least you won't have to worry about it later, once cultural Civs of rival ideologies start imposing their worldview on your citizens.

Merchant Navy

Reducing maintenance costs on the coastal building line can mean quite a bit of cash being recovered.

Treasure Fleets

Gold! If all of your trade routes are sea-based and international (as they should be,) this policy will be worth at least 32 gold per turn at the end of the game (or up to 40 if you have both Petra and the Colossus.)

Going beyond this point in the Exploration tree isn't particularly useful, so finish off Patronage at this point if you haven't already, or go towards a level three tenet.

Ideology

You have two routes to go down. Freedom is probably the easier route, though if you've spent a lot of time building Naus, Autocracy is viable too. I'll cover the best all-round tenets from the first "inverted pyramid" of both trees, so that's three policies from level one, two from level two and one from level three. Note that your situation may merit different choices (e.g. taking a defensive tenet when at risk of being attacked.)

Level One Policies - Freedom

Covert Action

Using Spies in City-States is a good way to maintain a level of influence, and this tenet makes Spies more effective at this task. Once you've researched Globalisation however, you should switch them to Diplomats for the delegate bonus.

Civil Society

You've got more happiness than you know what to do with, right? So, why not build your cities taller and get Great People in the process thanks to filling lots of specialist slots? It may seem a strange choice, but a higher population per city means it's easier to keep up with science, and you'll get gold out of things like merchant specialists and working Trading Posts.

Avant Garde

Great People are good for everyone, so getting an increased generation rate is highly useful.

Level Two Policies - Freedom

Arsenal of Democracy

Helps you defend, but more importantly, helps you get an additional source of City-State influence while keeping them safe from attacks. Diplomatic Civs tend to have a lot of spare production, and this is a good use for it.

Universal Suffrage

One thing having lots of happiness is good for is generating Golden Ages, and this tenet makes them longer. The odd Great Artist you may generate will be more effective, too.

Level Three Policy - Freedom

Treaty Organisation

While City-States may be often worth a little less cash than the routes of full Civs, trading with them with this tenet will save you masses of cash thanks to all that free influence. This is a major help on the way to victory.

Level One Policies - Autocracy

Industrial Espionage

In order to keep City-States threatened for Gunboat Diplomacy, you need to keep your tech rate up. Be sure to reassign your Spies as Diplomats once you've got the Globalisation technology.

Mobilisation

Dedicating a little gold towards to the aim of strong armed forces for Gunboat Diplomacy may be necessary, which this tenet helps out at.

Fortified Borders

Yes, you might have lots of happiness, but this is the best remaining choice for you out of level one Autocracy tenets. On the plus side, more happiness means more Golden Ages.

Level Two Policies - Autocracy

Nationalism

Cheaper unit maintenance means more cash for bribing City-States.

Total War

And faster unit production makes it easier to take full advantage of Gunboat Diplomacy.

Level Three Policy - Autocracy

Gunboat Diplomacy

Built a huge number of Naus in the past? Great! Upgrade them and send them next to City-States to gain lots of influence. Combined with your UA's gold, diplomatic victory shouldn't be too hard to achieve.

Religion

Wide empires have an advantage to faith generation, and founding a religion is fairly useful to Portugal. Keep in mind, however, that the Colossus and Petra - both highly useful wonders - are on the opposite end of the tech tree to religious technologies. Remember also that City-States sharing your religion have a 25% slower influence decay rate if it's above the equilibrium point, and regain influence 50% faster if it's below the equilibrium point, making it rather useful to put your own religion in such cities.

Pantheon

Note that highly situational Pantheons aren't covered here. Faith Pantheons in particular are useful for reaching a religion sooner.

God of the Sea

Together with a Lighthouse, you can really develop coastal cities rapidly. Building wide and having lots of rapidly developing cities is a powerful combination indeed.

Messenger of the Gods

Help offset the increased technology cost from having more cities.

Ancestor Worship

Wide empires can have trouble with Social Policy gain, so here's an easy source of culture to help offset that.

Founder

Papal Primacy

You can get City-States to a status of permanent friendship with this belief on top of Consulates, or just 25 influence off an alliance. That'll help make securing lots of World Congress delegates easier.

Church Property or Tithe

Both of these are Pantheons good for gaining money. Tithe will be stronger later on when your cities grow in size, but Church Property will be stronger earlier.

World Church

A decent source of culture for dealing with high Social Policy costs.

Follower

Pagodas or Mosques

Feitorias don't come until the renaissance era, so until then it's useful to have an alternative source of happiness - after all, the sooner you found a city, the stronger it'll end up being.

Asceticism

An easy source of happiness for handling having lots of cities before Feitorias are around.

Feed the World

It may seem an odd choice, but providing food from buildings means you can dedicate more citizens to working trading posts or suchlike instead.

Enhancer

Itinerant Preachers

This is a powerful belief as it allows cities of your religion to contribute towards religious pressure from further away, giving you an effect similar to Religious Texts (though a little weaker) on top of religious pressure spreading to cities that may otherwise not have it.

Religious Texts

Great for spreading your religion without needing lots of Missionaries or Prophets.

Religious Unity

Useful particularly with Papal Primacy to take full advantage of the raised influence resting point. This'll make it much harder for other Civs to overturn your religion in City-States, so long as you can keep providing them with religious pressure.

Defender of the Faith

Wide empires can be vulnerable to attack due to defensive forces being stretched thin. A 20% bonus will certainly help to hold off attackers until you can move the rest of your army in.

World Congress

Lots of money means lots of potential for buying City-State allies and hence a huge influence on the World Congress.

Note "priority" refers to how high you should prioritise your votes if it comes up, not how much you should prioritise putting them forward. Note also that voting choices can vary depending on your game.

Arts Funding

Medium priority
Vote no

Cultural Heritage Sites

Low priority
Vote no

Embargo City-States

Very High priority if taking the Freedom ideology
Medium priority if taking the Autocracy ideology
Vote no

Historical Landmarks

Medium priority
Vote no

International Games

Medium-High priority
Vote yes

The influence bonus makes this a useful thing to pick up. Try to deny cultural Civs to tourism bonus - once it's gone, they can never try to get it again.

International Space Station

High priority
Vote no

Natural Heritage Sites

Low priority
Vote no unless you have a Natural Wonder of your own

Nuclear Non-Proliferation

High priority
Vote yes

Scholars in Residence

High priority
Vote yes unless you're the leader technologically speaking

Sciences Funding

Medium priority
Vote yes

Great Scientists, Merchants and Engineers are more useful to you than GWAMs.

Standing Army Tax

Low priority if you're taking the Freedom ideology
High priority if you're taking the Autocracy ideology
Vote yes if you're taking the Freedom ideology
Vote no if you're taking the Autocracy ideology

World's Fair

Low priority
Vote yes

Golden Age points and the free Social Policy could come in handy, but other Civs may gain more out of it than you.

Wonders

Here's a selection of the best wonders for Portugal to build, though keep in mind that wide-building Civs tend to be disadvantages at wonder-building. Your game's situation may make certain ones more or less viable than normal.

Ancient Era

Pyramids (Liberty Only)

Two free Workers and faster Worker speed is a great help for developing cities faster.

Stonehenge

This really helps you found a religion early on. The gold or higher-influence-resting-point potential of religion means it can really help out on your way to diplomatic victory.

Classical Era

Colossus

An extra trade route makes this a high priority wonder. Portugal's potential from this wonder is second only to Venice, and well worth a technological detour if you think you can pick it up.

Great Lighthouse


Above: A Nau with the Great Lighthouse, Exploration Opener and Sentry promotion. If it had Mobility as well, it could uncover up to 88 tiles a turn!

The Great Lighthouse is excellent together with the exploration potential Naus already have. Even if it doesn't take long to explore the world, faster naval movement will help get them to a far away city for the maximum potential from the "sell foreign goods" option.

Oracle

Wide-building Civs often struggle with Social Policy gain, so picking up the Oracle will be useful to help reduce that problem.

Petra

You'll need a city by a desert tile for this wonder, but if there's a few desert hills around, that city will become amazing. A high priority wonder if you can manage it, due to the extra trade route.

Medieval Era

Angkor Wat

While not the most powerful wonder around, you still have uses for it. Faster tile accumulation means your many new cities can take good tiles sooner and hence develop faster without you having to spend too much cash on buying tiles.

Borobudur or Hagia Sophia

Helps to spread your religion (or in the case of the Hagia Sophia, found or enhance it if you haven't already.) Taking both wonders is usually unviable, so choose carefully. Borobudur's better if you're spreading your religion to lots of smaller cities, while the Hagia Sophia's often better otherwise.

Chichen Itza

Feitorias generate so much happiness that you may be able to get a few Golden Ages that way. The Chichen Itza makes them longer, meaning more money, production and culture potential out of them.

Machu Picchu

Happiness can support a huge number of citizens, meaning an awful lot of gold from City-Connections.

Renaissance Era

Forbidden Palace (Patronage Only)

Extra delegates is a direct aid towards diplomatic victory, and less unhappiness from citizens lets you grow your cities taller. A high priority wonder.

Leaning Tower of Pisa

Focusing on getting your UU and UI going may cause you to pick up the technology later than some, and it's highly competed-over, but Great People are useful for everyone. Not the highest priority as wonders go, but worthwhile to pick up if possible.

Sistine Chapel

More culture offsets increased Social Policy costs of building wide, and also helps defend against cultural Civs, which can seriously dent your happiness if they're of another ideology.

Taj Mahal

A free Golden Age means a good increase in gold potential.

Modern Era

Cristo Redentor

To help out with ideological tenets and the last few Social Policies.

Neuschwanstein

Castles now generate three things useful for a wide, diplomatic-focused Civ: gold, culture and happiness. Castles are quick to build by this stage of the game, so you can quickly achieve this wonder's full potential.

Prora (Autocracy Only)

Lots of happiness! And a free Social Policy! Both useful for wide-building Civs.

Statue of Liberty (Freedom Only)

While diplomatic Civs gain less from production than other kinds of Civs, it's not to say it's not useful. 1 extra production for every specialist and unemployed citizen makes a huge difference.

Atomic Era

Pentagon (Autocracy Favoured)

Taking Gunboat Diplomacy? That huge Nau fleet won't be suitable for intimidating City-States forever - eventually you'll need to upgrade them, which could be rather expensive. Luckily, the Pentagon can save you some cash, freeing more up for bribing those City-States.

Sydney Opera House

A free Social Policy is part of the benefit of this wonder, which again, is useful for offsetting the high Social Policy costs of wide empires.

Information Era

CN Tower

An easy way to greatly increase your culture-per-turn and deal with pesky cultural Civs, but on top of that, this wonder also offers an unhappiness-free point of population in all your cities. If you managed to build plenty during the time of Feitorias, enjoy a huge increase in your gold potential due to all those extra citizens able to work trading posts.

Pitfalls to Avoid

It's hard to steer greatly off course as Portugal, as it's a fairly straightforward coastal diplomatic Civ on the whole, but there's one or two things worth pointing out.

Straining happiness too much prior to Feitorias

Feitorias come in the second column of the renaissance era, which takes quite a long time to reach from the start of the game. Expanding too much early on will drain your happiness and hence hurt your potential for development. Build wide, yes, but make sure your happiness can handle it.

Building more cities than your science can cope with

On a standard-sized map, every city you found increases science costs by 5%. This won't really hold you back early on, but later in the game, founding an excessive amount of new cities can slow down your research rate and hence make you prone to falling behind in technology, leaving you vulnerable to other Civs.

Building multiple Feitorias in a City-State without a good reason

You only need one Feitoria in a City-State to get an untradable copy of each of their luxuries. Building multiple is redundant unless...

• The city's under attack and you want to provide the City-State with extra defence
  
• You want to replace as many of the City-State's improvements as possible to make the city weaker if someone captures it

Otherwise, building multiple Feitorias in a city will only waste your Worker's time.

Holding off Steam Power too long to avoid making Naus obselete

Naus are nice, but you're going to have to research Steam Power and make them obselete eventually, as it's on the way to important technologies like Plastics (for science) and eventually Globalisation (for World Congress delegates.)

Marginalise Maria: The Counter-Strategies

Portugal is an effective wide-building coastal diplomatic Civ, but takes a while to get going and is vulnerable to land-based attacks.

Playing against the UA: Mare Clausum

Portugal's reliance on international trade routes to provide the bulk of their gold can be a significant weakness - just a little bit of pillaging can completely wreck their economy. If you want to go to war with Portugal, find out where their major trading cities are (chances are, they'll be cities with a good variety of resources) ready to pillage plenty of Cargo Ships. Alternatively, you can encourage Portugal to trade heavily with you by planting a city near as broad a range of resources as possible, then declaring war on them to destroy all those trade routes.

Placing peacefully? Pushing through an embargo of Portugal as well as City-States will render their UA unusable, and lacking their main source of cash, it'll be hard for them to overturn it.

Playing against Naus

Naus don't really fight any better than regular Caravels - they have slightly more speed and once they've sold some exotic goods, they'll get a promotion with the XP granted, but they're rather vulnerable to stronger sea units like Frigates. Or Privateers. If you manage to capture a Nau before it can sell exotic goods, you can use that ability yourself. If the unit's on the front lines of a war against Portugal, you can use the XP from selling exotic goods to heal it up, and quickly contribute to the war effort itself.

Portugal may be inclined to put off Steam Power for a while, which will make their navies incredibly vulnerable as Ironclads are significantly stronger than the units that come before. Still, it's probably even easier to invade by land as their coastal focus will probably leave their army relatively small.

Playing against Feitorias

Unlike other UIs, there's no point in capturing Feitorias for yourself. Pillaging them acts as an act of war against Portugal, so don't just assume you have only that City-State to deal with. So, how do you deal with them?

The most effective solution is to stop them before they start, by invading Portugal to take them out the game. Of course, that's not really an option for more peaceful Civs, so the next-best thing is to take good city spots before Portugal can exploit its high happiness to build lots of cities.

Overall, Feitorias aren't really something you can easily stop, but on the other hand, Portugal's UA is easier than most to play against. Just remember that Portugal is going to have an awful lot of spare happiness late in the game.

Strategy by Style

Pre-renaissance Aggressors - Portugal shouldn't be too much of a problem to face.

Renaissance and later Warmongers - The high coastal emphasis of Portugal makes them vulnerable to land attacks, so deal with them that way.

Cultural Players - Settle a city in a spot with a high resource diversity and Portugal's likely to trade with you. That'll give you a strong tourism bonus on them, which could really dent their Feitoria-enhanced happiness later on if you're not on the same ideology.

Diplomatic Players - Try to get Portugal embargoed, and City-States as well if you're going into the Autocracy ideology. That'll destroy their UA and stop them being a problem.

Scientific Players - Naval and scientific technologies are close together, and despite Portugal's naval focus, they can be vulnerable to late-game attacks from the seas if they hold off Steam Power (which obseletes Naus) for too long.

Other Guides

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Meta-guides

These guides cover every Civ in the game and can be used as quick reference guides.

• Civ summaries (Gives a brief overview of how each Civ plays)
  
• Civ-specific tricks, secrets and clarifications (Compiles the lesser-known features of each Civ)

Civ-specific guides, in alphabetical order

All 43 Civs are covered in in-depth guides linked below. In brackets are the favoured victory routes of each Civ.

• America (Domination)
  
• Arabia (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Assyria (Cultural, Domination and Scientific)
  
• Austria (Cultural, Domination and Scientific)
  
• Aztecs (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Babylon (Scientific)
  
• Brazil (Cultural)
  
• Byzantium (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Carthage (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Celts (Cultural)
  
• China (Domination)
  
• Denmark (Domination)
  
• Egypt (Cultural)
  
• England (Domination)
  
• Ethiopia (Cultural/Scientific)
  
• France (Cultural)
  
• Germany (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Greece (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Huns (Domination)
  
• Inca (Scientific)
  
• India (Cultural/Scientific)
  
• Indonesia (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Iroquois (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Japan (Domination)
  
• Korea (Scientific)
  
• Mayans (Scientific)
  
• Mongolia (Domination)
  
• Morocco (Diplomatic)
  
• Netherlands (Diplomatic, Domination and Scientific)
  
• Ottomans (Domination)
  
• Persia (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Poland (Domination)
  
• Polynesia (Cultural)
  
• Portugal (Diplomatic)
  
• Rome (Domination)
  
• Russia (Domination)
  
• Shoshone (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Siam (Diplomatic/Scientific)
  
• Songhai (Domination)
  
• Spain (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Sweden (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Venice (Diplomatic)
  
• Zulus (Domination)

[Zigzagzigal]

Typically, building tall involves about 3-5 cities, and building wide is over that level. Penalties for building wide (unhappiness, increased technology and Social Policy costs) aren't as high in map sizes above standard, so very large empires are much more viable.

Nonetheless, building to 20 cities is usually excessive (unless some of those are captured, or you're playing a huge map with a low number of starting Civs.) Some AI Civs in particular (the Iroquois springs to mind, but they're not the only ones) really like spamming cities even when they're in terrible locations. Because the AI get bonuses to happiness above Prince difficulty, they can spam cities much more easily than human players can.

[Light]

One more thing:

Might I ask what your steam level is?
It has got to be huge man!
We can't see it because your profile is private... but you don't care if we know that right?

[Light]

Ok, so I didn't count, but as my last playthrough with the Inca (actually the only time I've EVER stuck with a Civilization and WON), the Ottomans had quite literally 20ish cities. Since this was my first time actually getting to the late game I don't know if this is generally the case.

And if I might say something... I hope its not the case, because 20-25 cities is retarded... I had 3 for most of the game and 4 near the end for Aluminum (I was the Inca building tall).

But here is my point:
I usually only build 5 cities, even when building wide...
And the reason I am writing this is because I want to ask if I am completely wrong in my perception of building wide. Is 20 cities normal? How many (generally) should I build when building wide? (I know that there is no such thing as a rigid number but please give me YOUR personal preference.)

Thank you,
Garrison

[Zigzagzigal]

No, but I have played Victoria II.

[PedeJo]

zigzagzigal off-topic but have you played europa universalis ?

[MyLunaBear559]

kool

[Light]

Yeah no pun intended right?

[Zigzagzigal]

Thanks, that's now fixed.

[Light]

There is a typo in the Social Policies where you say Than instead of That.

[Zigzagzigal]

And now, the 30th guide is complete. Arabia.

Just to warn people in advance, it may be quite a while until the next guide, and there's a good chance it'll be more based on the need for a guide than the number of requests.