Portugal

Portugal

Leader	Maria I
Benefit	Mare Clausum
Unique Units	Nau
Unique Improvement	Feitoria

Introduction

Portugal is another one of the new trade empires that are being released with Brave New World. Their special ships let you explore quickly and get bonus Gold in the process, their unique tile improvements are a Luxury hoarder's dream, and they get quite a bit of money from International Trade Routes if you have access to plenty of your own resources.

Compared with the other new trading powers, Portugal has more work cut out for them, but the potential rewards are extremely high. Venice gets millions of routes to play with, so that's an amazing power as long as they're able to support and defend those routes. Morocco gets a pile of easy money out of their routes. As Portugal, you have the base number of routes, and they don't automatically get any Gold bonuses. You have to settle carefully and choose the best possible routes; when you do, the maximum possible Gold is very high. Play Portugal if you want to explore, settle in diverse areas, and master the art of Commerce.

Passive Benefits

Mare Clausum

Resource diversity grants twice as much Gold for Portugal in International Trade Routes.

This passive benefit helps Portugal make quite a bit of money. However, this takes some active work to achieve. To benefit, Portugal needs to focus on getting additional Technology for Trade Routes as quickly as possible, and they also need to found cities with an eye toward the strategic resources and luxuries in an area.

Found cities near rivers and coasts, and always try to wedge these settlements in such a way that they'll grow and access as many resources as possible. Make those areas your trade hubs, and watch the money flow. Always upgrade those cities with Caravansaries or Harbors, depending on what type of routes you're creating there.

Unique Strengths

Nau

Naus give you an upgraded Caravel to explore the seas, find new continents, and scout around your own part of the world. Not only are these ships fast, but they also have a special ability. Once per ship, you can deliver Exotic Cargo to a City-State or foreign nation that your ship is bordering. This nets XP for the Nau, and Gold for your nation. This is a good way to pay back some of the inherent costs of building your early fleet.

Don't use Exotic Cargo close to your home. There is a bonus for using the ability as far away as possible, so you're heavily encouraged to explore with these ships. Look for new Natural Wonders, seek islands that would be good to settle, and try to get as much bang for your buck as possible.

In combat, Naus aren't anything special. They're likely to have more XP than their targets if you've used their ability, but that's about it. These aren't meant to conquer the seven seas. They're there to make sure you get paid for being a good explorer.

Feitoria

These unusual tile improvements let you construct a Fort inside of a City-State, even if you aren't friends or allies with them. You can even do this if they want to murder you, so long as you protect your Workers. Feitorias have the standard Fort bonuses on defense, but that's not the big perk of these improvements. They make a free copy of each Luxury Resource that the City-State is working. Your nation gets those copies! You can't trade them away diplomatically, but you otherwise get all of the benefits from having those goods.

There's every reason in the world to send your Workers all over the place. Build Feitorias in each City-State to get everything you can. It's not your land, so you won't even be sacrificing space that would be developed for anything else. Free stuff!

The Big Picture

Portugal is a trade nation with a good baseline of cash to do whatever they want. You're more likely to expand compared with some of the other traders; certainly Venice isn't going anywhere! So Portugal is the nation to take if you enjoy trading but want to mix in a little more expansion and even a bit of fighting (not much). They're one of the most active nations that rely on money, because Venice needs tons of people to trade with, and Morocco wants to be friends with a wide range of people so that routes come back to their cities as well. Portugal can afford to push more, either in settling a bit aggressively, or by fighting small wars to get land that they need. Just don't upset more than a nation here and there. You still need a few trading partners and you're not that great at sustained warfare.

Choose Portugal if you like to work with Liberty, Commerce, and Exploration. Given the specific game and map, you might go in many different directions after you establish your trade network. Portugal is a money maker, but they're not locked into a single route for victory. Culture and Diplomacy are both within reach, as is Science. A military path is less suitable, but that doesn't mean that you can't turn your substantial cash reserves into a working army for smaller wars. If you're having trouble getting influence over a specific nation, or if there's a pesky rival on the World Congress, then think about paying to make sure the nuisance goes away.

Portugal's only real weakness is that they don't have much going on outside of their Gold scene. They have no combative units and no special buildings for cool city bonuses, and their passive is all about the cash. You won't be able to control any part of the world without being in a superior position financially. Because of that, you can be overwhelmed if more than a couple things go wrong at once. Be wary of making enemies that have friends of their own; a larger war can drain your cash reserves and leave you with a military that doesn't do anything above average.