British and Portugal

Im playing the British campaign on very hard and have a question.....

When starting the campaign, the advisor gives you and overview of the map and your recomended course of action.

For the British, she says "you must help your longstanding alli Portugal push through occupied Spain, opening up a second front and forcing Napoloeon to split his forces."


The last time I did the british campaign on normal, which is stupid easy, and ignored this advice about Portugal, but on very hard, Spain is putting up a good fight and proving to be quite annoying.

My MAIN question here is this: Why will Portugal take no action at all? I have tried every type of diplomacy to rally Portugal to help me with Spain but they decline all my proposals, all I can get them to do is trade.

Is it possible to get Portugal to alli with you and help "push through occupied Spain" with you, or are they programed to be hardcore isolationists and mind their own business?

Portugal's feelings towards my nation are "Very Friendly" and "Unfriendly" towards Spain....... they sit there in their own regin with 2 massive armies doing absolutely nothing......

The short answer, I'm afraid, is no. As you'll notice, diplomacy, trade, and research mechanics are different in the Peninsular campaign than in the Grand campaign, where every AI nation is fundamentally designed to act according to their diplomatic relations with the player and each other. In the Peninsular campaign, this isn't so much the case. For example, France can't make negotiate peace with Britain, Portugal, or Spain, as opposed to in the Grand Campaign where it would clearly be possible. Alternatively, Britain, Portugal, and Spain can never go to war with each other, no matter how unfriendly they become.

The most logical explanation is, surprisingly, in the pages of history : as your campaign begins in the game, Portugal has basically ceased to exist as a functioning part of the Peninsular War. In 1806 the neutral Portuguese monarchy openly refused to adopt Napoleon's foreign policy which basically called for the embargo of everything British. This turned out to be one of the dumbest decisions ever made by anyone ever, because it made Napoleon just angry enough to where he decided to send an army to invade and seize control of basically the entire Portuguese economy. For this, he enlisted the help of his weak and lowly allies, the Kingdom of Spain.

Over the next few years, Napoleon pulls a few amazing things from his bag of tricks, starting with the invasion of Portugal, which allowed him to make the Spanish think they were still safe from invasion while, in fact, invading them under the guise of reinforcing occupied Portugal. The Queen of Portugal, Maria I and the entire Portuguese Court of more than 10,000 people fled Lisbon with the help of the British Fleet, and set up a government-in-exile in Brazil. So, this left the Portuguese people with no de-facto figurehead to rally under. After a year of French occupation, the Spanish began to rise up in rebellion, which is why the Spanish guerrilla units play such a big role in game. After the Spanish began to rebel, the Portuguese rebelled shortly after, and once again gained control of the ports after driving out the French. This, in turn, garnered support from the British, who in turn sent much-needed supplies along with an army.

This is basically where we're at in the beginning of the campaign. Even though some time has passed since the British arrived, there's been a stalemate. At this point, the two major players, Britain and France, are hanging their big guns back and building up for the impending conflict, meanwhile the Spanish and Portuguese are basically just rebel factions, loosely organized and grossly under supplied. Though the Portuguese have control of Lisbon thanks to the wall of forts in the middle of the peninsula, there still isn't a Portuguese government ruling there. Still, they're grateful to the British for the much needed help, and in return give them all that they can spare: lives. Captured French artillery and arms and lots of poorly trained excuses for soldiers.