Portugal

[Afonso I of Portugal]

I agree with you. We start with a large army and it's better to deal first with the Spanish. However, block Gibraltar to avoid the Moors reinforcements.
If the Spanish didn't move fast try to get Zaragoza and Valencia first with some mercs units as well. After conquer Spain you are ready to go for the Moors.
If you do this, the Portuguese campaign is a walk in the park!

[{Don}_Sky{Mh}]

The Portuguese Arquebusiers (don't think I spelled that right) have a pretty good ranged attack. Do pretty well in combat as well if it ever comes down to it.

Portuguese Arquebusiers

16 att, 11 sec. att, 11 def and 9 morale

Musketeers

14 att, 6 sec. att, 4 def and 3 morale

Arquebusiers

14 att, 6 sec. att, 4 def and 3 morale

Handgunners

13 att, 11 sec. att, 11 def and 5 morale

I havn't tried yet, but my bet on a melee fight would be the PA

[Von Nanega]

I built forts and staffed them with peasants on all of the passes in the mountain range between myself and France.

(Pretorian)
Spanish have to go first as they will become a power horse in no time.
Dealing with Spain in the beginning is the best way to aproach the Portuguese campaign, after aquire managment over the peninsula (moors have to go down also)
Either way so far and playing on M/M I think Portugal is a very entertaining Faction to play, but the start is not easy.

Concur with Pretorian. I also believe once the reconqista is complete, you need to turtle for a moment. You probably paid heavily in blood to unify the Iberian peninsula. The forts so far seem to keep the French out of Iberia. (about 20 turns or so)
Build those jinettes. They will be your battle winners in the early stage in field battles.

[llewellyn]

first turn i made roads and seiged zaragoza. then i took my southern army took toledo. after i had toled i stateded to pump out heavy cav and then took spains capital and with the rements of my northern army and some mercs i took valencia. after this i opened relations with france and gave them a 20 turn tribute, this bought me some time. then i retrained every single unit i had and bought some more. by the time this was done i had a stack and a half. i sent the full stack to north africe and the half stack to granada. o sacked granada and used the florins to build a new army to take corduba. then my army in NA had conquered up till algeris which i soon took. after that it was fairly easy and by turn 30 i had all of north africa and a lot of priests and cardinals feverently converting the population to catholicism. by turn 50 my economy was back on its feet and i was the richest faction and was producing elite (being feudal knights and almughavars) armies to conquer france and the holy land

[Jonathan_Thompson]

Ugh Portugal some great units but starting position is almost as bad as HRE. I'm halfway through Portugal on VH/VH and this is what my experiences taught me.

Opening Moves

Without a doubt Toledo has to be your first target. Unfortunately your forces are split so you may have to waste a turn joining them for an attack. The reason for this is Toledo appears very well developed and teched up. This means that for every turn the Spaniards have it they are making troops of a higher class than yours. Once Toledo is done things are (slightly) easier. Spain is broken and you will have a brief respite before they try anything. During this time blockade the land bridge connecting Africa and Iberia. If you don't you will get hammered by the Moors as you can't afford another war after Toledo. This is done by putting 3 fleets on the bridge, one on the arrow and 2 on either side of that. Now you can take Leon, Cordoba and Granada with relative ease. Once all of Iberia is yours(including all rebels) you have many options you may want to send a fleet to the opposite side of Africa and start conquering to Timbuktu to supplement your poor economy. You may get unlucky and France will declare war on you (on VH this is a given)But you have a decent platform to launch into Europe.

The Pope

The pope usually hates you. Not alot you can do about it so I usually just take the Exco and move on. If you are trying to play nice guy however it is possible to temporarily lift the blockade on the bridge to africa, send a priest squad across and stack the college of Cardinals with

Units

In early game your units suck, no nice way to put it but they stink. The only decent units are mailed knights and Almughavars (spelling?) but good luck being able to afford them on anything other than easy. Another complaint is the severe lack of spearmen. Aventuros and pikmen are only later in the game
so in the beggining you'll have to use merc spears as the basis of your melee infantry. An important tip is to only occupy Toledo, Zaragoza and the other province on the border to France who's name escapes me. Yo0u need the expand quickly to get to adventuros.

Economy

The Iberian peninsula is not a great money spinner. You need provinces bordering France to be castles for defence. This leaves precious few florins for teching up. Because of this is may be wise to send a merchant force to timbuktu and and build forts on the gold.

Summary

The Portugese are an often underrated faction. Most people choose Spain because of the easier early game but Portugal truly shines in late game with it being the best naval faction and a spread of high quality units. As a last random point you should generally stay away from Mongols and Timuirds. Your armies are not suited to fighting them.

[Aetius22]

I am currently playing a game where I have about 9 cardinals. The pope has been on my side for a long time. Trick is to send a lot of cardinals to convert the Moors and that seemed to work for me.

You really have only two options either take Cordoba and Granada right away, or go for Toledo. If you don't go for Toledo you are taking a risk. I took Cordoba first, but rushed an army towards Toledo from Pamplona. I think no matter what difficulty you play France will declare war on you. Once I dealt with France, Milan declared war on me as well.

The Portuguese have some very nice units that match very well against other Catholic factions in my experience. I will use the Jinetes to maneuver to the rear of the opposing army and the Almughavars towards the front. The Jinetes thin out their heavy cavalry, while the Almughavars take care of the heavy infantry. Then I might charge home with Portuguese knights (mounted and dismounted). But as Jonathan pointed out they don't do so well against the Mongols - then again I haven't found an army that does. In one battle the only thing that saved me from defeat were my aventuros. I am still puzzled as to how that happened - I didn't think they would have survived the barrage of arrows.

I wonder if anyone has used an army composed mainly of Portuguese Arquebusiers against the Mongols? My armies were mainly Almughavars, Jinettes, Portuguese Knights (mounted and dismounted) and Feudal Knights - with one army which had Aventuros and Knights of Santiago.

[Jonathan_Thompson]

I've tried various tactics in custom battle against mongol horde replicas and portugese arbequiser spam doesnt really work. They'll always outnumber you in missle troops as you need to bring along some adventuros to stop their charges. I think the settlement sieges or the peasant auto resolve spam are your only options.