Importance of Mortars

[pcups]

As we all know the portuguesse lack in some areas. One big one would be the ability to destroy buildings. Halbs work alright until later ages when things kill them to fast. So i seem to have found the perfect combination of artillery for my little port army.

4 mortars
4 Culverins
4 organ guns

Now some may say "there is no point in using mortars" But for the portuguese they are the best thing that could have happened.

The ports are a good DEFFENSIVE civ, they can take on anything that is coming at them but they dont have hte frontal attack power like some civs do. So why not just deffend.

I deffend my mortars with cassadors, dragoons and culverins and im all set. There isnt much you can do about it I guess massing guadarme against it would be effective. Ive figured out the portuguese strength! RANGE. All of their units have unbelievably long range. Besides dragoons, which make up for it in strength.

This is how ive been winning all of my online games. Ben knows how i start (its a secret) and then i just crank out my army.

I might throw 10 halbs int here just for those fast, pesky melee units. But the basic idea is move as a group, attack with only 4 units. I think 3 mortars take out a building in one volley. With culverins unbelievably long range they can fire at any pesky cannon coming into view. Actually i would probably only need 3 culverins.

Well now ive found another use for a useless unit.

[boorules60]

When I'm ay civ except the Russians, I always use morters... people panic when they see them, and if you can find a good spot in their base, they can do massive amounts of damage really fast. I think your attack should be centered around anticavalry units. With 12 cannons, you won't have tons of room for dragoons and halbs if you have cassadores too... any mass of heavy cavalry could flaten your entire army quite effectively without a good number of dragoons and halbs = an expensive loss.

[pcups]

^good thinking ;D

[Jake P.]

I love motars. Motars are crazy at taking shit down. All you have to do is protect them and you're fine. While falconets work well against buildings in large groups you only need 4 mortars to do some massive damage.

[d]

Let's see 4 mortars, 4 culvarins and 4 organ guns - that's 48 pop. You know every available pony is coming after you so you'll need 30 hlabs. No better make that 40. You need 70 settlers if you want to raise an army more than every 10 minutes. That leave 40 pop for home town defense. Your home town couild receive hussar raids, janissary raids and mortar or bombard attacks. Maybe 40 on home town defese might work. In regards to your attacking force, what if a few cannons blow away your halbs and the ponies get in? That's what the culverins are for you say, What if the cannons are bombars? They don't die easily. What if the conterattack is with janissaries? The janissaries have so many hit points that organ guns don't do much. Beware the Turks!

[pcups]

Hahahhaha, organ guns dont do much against jannisaries.

hahahaha great bombards against culverins hahahaha.

And i probably just wouldnt have the organ guns, probably just build more dargoons, but i would deff. have at least 2 culverins.

I dont really mind when someone attacks me, my peasant production rate is so high that if they kill some it doesnt matter (much) I have 4 tc's (im going to intregrate the card that allows me to build 2 more so 6) with over 11,000 hp each. 5 Barracks/stables pumping out what ever. Deffense has never been a problem with the ports

I almost won a 2 on 1 yesterday but my cassadors went after a unit that wasnt there and there happened to be 5 cannons but i lasted a half hour!

[punkybruster]

Pat a great bombard takes out a culverin in one shot. The end.

[pcups]

yea, an un upgraded culverin, besides even if your bombards were able to some how, magicaly unpack and get in range of my culverins before they shoot and actually, somehow kill them, then my dragoons would be all over those things like white on rice.

Yes!

[boorules60]

D never builds great bombards... the end

[d]

Pcups your attack formation is very effective, and if your opponets are unwise, it would be very effective. In our first game (B & pat v D & Tim), You and B effectively stopped my artillery with massive calvery. Others may not have french ponies and do as well though. B you're right, I don't build bombards to attack towns much any more because of the calvery conterattacks. That doesn't mean that I won't use them to attack infantry (See Jake for more details). Can we get Pcups to quarantee a Port enemy? I've heard all kinds of bravado but never a Port enemy. It would be fun.

[punkybruster]

3;44 am D? what were you up to?

[Jake P.]

Yeah yeah...I learned a valuable(sp) lesson that day

[pcups]

Even if D didnt build cannons ANY KIND OF CANNONS would kill cassadors. They might be one of the best units at range but they are the worst at close range (other than mortars)

Plus i might drop my peasant population if i find i need more pop, since i usually have around 80 peasants.

But yea, when i see calvary i fear for my cassadors. Ranged calvary arent so bad. Uhlans arent bad if i see them first. My worst fear evedently is the french pony.

[pcups]

Oh and i will be playing the portuguese for hte first Full game, my first civ for the rematch is disclosed

[boorules60]

Patrick... both you and I know that all you know how to do is talk smack. You and Tim could not beat us, we survived and flurished for over a half hour without our factories. Why? You guys had a total of 8 buildings killed... 4 of which were my 4 unprotected stables out in the middle of nowhere. Good job. D and I had about 30... and only 100 fewer units killed than you. I had an average of 15,000 of all resources at all times too... and I was ready to lauch a backdoor raid at your factories with 30 orps when I had to quit. The only tim you can talk smack is about killing D and Tim.