how to play as portugal?

[Pfundner]

im currently playing as HRE, and im really impressed with the javelin-weilding soldiers of portugal that i have been fighting. im thinking of starting a campaign as them however, although their javelins are very effective, they seem to have no answer to my heavy cavalary charges. has anyone played as portugal and developed a strategy which allows you to use the javelins and stop them getting massacared by bodyguards and such?

[Hungary Horace]

Use Jinetes as much faster then heavy cavalry. They will run away from the enemies cavalry whilst throwing Javelins at them which are armour piercing. I know that Portugal have rubbish early spearmen so you will want to recruit some merc. spearmen instead. But really the best counter you have will be jinetes. The AI will chase them all day long knackering themselves out in the process.

[TheTrueGreek]

portugal plays the same as spain, you just start kind of different, if you know how to play spain you will know how to play portugal, also, you shouldnt be facing heavy cav much if at all in the early stages, so you will be able to develop your military buildings since the next closest faction with heavy cav that you need to worry about is france and ally with them and unify spain then youll be able to work up your military to counter them

or you could goof around and migrate to britain, they will never be able to beat your jinetes, but how you spread is up to you