[R&F] Civ of the Week: Kongo

[acluewithout]

• Leader: Mvemba a Nzinga.

• Leader Ability: Religious Convert. Can't build Holy Sites (captured Holy Sites disappear) and cannot found a Religion. Receives all beliefs of any religion that has established itself as Kongo's majority religion (including Founder Beliefs). Building a Mbanza or Theatre Square grants a free Apostle of city's majority religion.
  
  
• Civ Ability: Nkisi. Relics, Artefacts and Sculptures provide +2 Food, +2 Production and +4 Gold. The Palace has four extra slots for Great Works (5 in total, vs 1 for everyone else). Receive +50% Great Writer, Great Artist, Great Musicians and Great Merchant points.
  
  
• Unique Unit: Ngao Mbeba. Replaces the Swordsman. Costs the same as a Swordsmen [can someone check please?], Maintenance 2, Melee Strength 35, Movement 2. Receives +10 Defence v Ranged Attacks and can see through Woods and Rainforest.
  
  
• Unique Infrastructure: Mbanza. Unique District which replaces the Neighbourhood. Half price (30 v 60), available earlier (Guilds rather than Urbanization), provides flat +5 Housing, +2 Food, and +4 Gold. Must be build on a Rainforest or Forest tile.

• Leader Agenda: Religious Convert. Likes Civilizations that spread Religion to him; dislikes those that have founded a Religion and not spread it to him.

• Suggested Reading: Archon_Wing; Lily_Lancer; Is Kongo Top Tier?

Notes:

• Last time I checked, the Ngao Mbeba is weaker than a normal Swordsmen (35 v 36). This seems to have been an error caused by Swordsmen being unbuffed and then later buffed (or was that the other way around??).

 

[blackbutterfly]

• Last time I checked, the Ngao Mbeba is weaker than a normal Swordsmen (35 v 36). This seems to have been an error caused by Swordsmen being unbuffed and then later buffed (or was that the other way around??).

On arboreal terrain or jungles the Ngao Mbeba is still awesome. Once you get the +1 movement from Commando (recently buffed) these units glide all over the forests and jungles.

Kongo is very strong still IMO.

 

[Boyan_Sun]

Top tier (maybe the best) for peaceful culture victory in R&F. It's hard to imagine any other civilization that could win CV within 76 turns, standard, deity. Born with 4 more slots, faster writer gain, all are big advantages in printing-Reyna combo.

 

[BenitoChavez]

I love the Kongo. The Ngao Mbeba is great because warriors are key to the early defense and being able to upgrade them without iron is really nice. Super powered great works is amazing especially if you can get suzerain of Babylon and Stockholm. Or if you get a relic from an early goody hut it's basically an auto win right there.

The only thing that is kind of awkward about them is the Apostles. The only promotion you want is the one that give relics but the way promotions work for Apostles you don't get that very often. You can't win a religous victory so spreading the religion only helps your opponents. So you end up with a bunch of near useless Apostles running around without much to do. I guess you can convert some barbarians with one and the rest can basically be substitutes for scouts.

 

[Leathaface]

What makes Kongo good for a Culture victory? They had 100% more Great Writers, Artists and Musicians points before but that was nerfed to 50%.

 

[BenitoChavez]

What makes Kongo good for a Culture victory? They had 100% more Great Writers, Artists and Musicians points before but that was nerfed to 50%.

GWAMs are good sources of tourism and 50% more is still better than 0% more. Plus the great works they generate make each city generally stronger. Particularly the bonus food and production helps you build more wonders, several of which are tailored for cultural victories and wonders are another source of tourism.

 

[Kwami]

I love the Kongo. The Ngao Mbeba is great because warriors are key to the early defense and being able to upgrade them without iron is really nice. Super powered great works is amazing especially if you can get suzerain of Babylon and Stockholm. Or if you get a relic from an early goody hut it's basically an auto win right there.

The only thing that is kind of awkward about them is the Apostles. The only promotion you want is the one that give relics but the way promotions work for Apostles you don't get that very often. You can't win a religous victory so spreading the religion only helps your opponents. So you end up with a bunch of near useless Apostles running around without much to do. I guess you can convert some barbarians with one and the rest can basically be substitutes for scouts.

You can use the apostles to convert your other cities!

 

[BenitoChavez]

To do what? Give me more useless apostles?

 

[Boyan_Sun]

What makes Kongo good for a Culture victory? They had 100% more Great Writers, Artists and Musicians points before but that was nerfed to 50%.

Great writers. 50% is better than 0%, which means when other civilization got 2, Kongo can get 3.

Each great writing provide 4 tourism, Reyna doubles it, printing doubles it again. Kongo's capital can have 11 early slots for writings (5 original, 2 from Apadana, 2 from Great Library, 2 from amphitheater), which provide 176 tourism. Remember that Kongo has the start bias to forests and jungles, with Magnus chop chop chop, it is not very difficult to achieve this before T80.

But Kongo's other abilities are less impressive, even cause some negative effects - lower strength UU, cannot win religious victory, inefficient UD, etc.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Kongo's gotten better since Rise and Fall, since being able to grow bigger has some advantages like loyalty and having the jungle bias, but it does seem like all their abilities come with a catch, such as their UU being weaker, being more expensive, and not requiring iron so it might actually set you back if you do have iron but it's nothing fatal like Egypt. They're pretty much centered around cultural victory with their great person bonuses, with the occasional bonus into merchants too. The Mbanza is very situational, but that's still better than neighborhoods since it actually comes at a relevant time, however, the jungle/forest limitation is a problem since you wouldn't be able to chop it. And their relic ability is very luck based. Currently I think the best ability is still to hold 5 works in the capital which is good with Reyna. Their bonuses still arrive on the late end though.



This game (Emperor/Standard/Normal Speed/Shuffle) is from yesterday.

Was lucky enough to get a relic and then Goddess of the Harvest.

Spoiler :

So with that in mind, I also built oracle and faith bought a Great General; conquering was very easy as a result. Focus was to get a commercial hub in the oracle cities for that 50% merchant boost.

Spoiler :

And later a admiral for an armada.

Spoiler :

There's a weird bug right now where Kongo can still take advantage of captured Holy Sites even though they are destroyed and can't be seen. As you can see, I can still put relics in these temples even though that shouldn't be possible

Spoiler :

And the capital at the end....too bad I didn't get the Great Library.

Spoiler :

Note: Turn 24 Save is the relic one.

 

[liv]

I always thought Kongo was a subpar civ. Its abilities based on luck and a unit worse than the one it replaces.
But I am happy to find I have it all wrong.

I have to try a culture win. This is new territory for me. I think I won culture games before they made it harder way back.

So what are the first few moves with Kongo? What are the first few goals? Rush to Drama and Poetry or....
Are these fast culture wins peaceful wins or war wins?

 

[Forster]

I have to be honest, I don't understand the developers' decision to make Kongo the way they did. Did Kongo produce a lot of great writers, artists and musicians in real life? Did it even have swordsmen? I never read about any colonial powers facing anything but spears and arrows in jungles of Africa.

 

[Disgustipated]

Post above says they are a top tier civ, but I'm just not seeing it. Am I just playing them wrong?

I tried 2 starts yesterday, and while the first start was pretty decent, I abandoned it since I forgot to make an initial save, and I just wasn't that into that game anyways.

My second start I ran into some trouble with Korea. I could have pulled back and regrouped, I obviously underestimated their strength, but I wasn't into that game as well.

Honestly their start bias really sets them up for poor starts. A good civ should persevere no matter what your start, this civ cannot in my opinion. At this point I'm ready to rank them below the Vikings. Seriously they just kind of suck in the beginning. Now if you can pop a relic out of a goodie hut, you've pretty much won the game right there. Or find Kandy pretty early.

All my games thus far have been my very first game, meaning I did not hit restart. I cannot say the same for Kongo. For this reason alone I have to rank them pretty low. But I'll wait until later before ranking them.

I'm pretty unimpressed with them at this point. I was frustrated with both of my starts yesterday and went to playing minesweeper. Yes I'd rather play minesweeper than play the Kongo. That's how bad this civ is. Though I like minesweeper. Unfortunately it doesn't come standard in Windows anymore, and you have to get the annoying free version with ads at the Windows store. Minesweeper > Kongo

Anyways, I know they shine later, and not early. I never even got out of the ancient age. I just struggled to get a good start and got frustrated.

 

[Kwami]

To do what? Give me more useless apostles?

Well, no. You get the benefits of the religions in your cities. That might be extra gold, culture, science, production, or whatever.

 

[Icicle]

Start next to Kandy then find a bunch of natural wonders for the meme factor.

Or just decide you hate religion and play the civ that enables this the most.

Or if you just wanna build a really, really, big city for some reason.

Kongo is good for several things! I always wanted to try them for like a one city challenge type game probably on a smaller map with a lot of warmonger type neighbors. Seems like it could be fun.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

Well, no. You get the benefits of the religions in your cities. That might be extra gold, culture, science, production, or whatever.

Well, no. You get the benefits of the religions in your cities. That might be extra gold, culture, science, production, or whatever.

Or to provide a medic (ie. Chaplain) to your turtle civ to defend with while you build up your Theatre Squares.

I just made peace in this game because I had to. These mad Mongol horses behave more like knights due to their diplomatic visibility bonus. I haven't met a knight as yet, and if I have my way with a cultural victory, never will. But if they do declare again, I think the Chaplain will be indispensable and worth his weight in cybergold.

Spoiler Chaplain :

 

[Archon_Wing]

One use of the apostles is to sabotage someone's religious victory. Just lose with those apostles on purpose and ruin their spread, possibly gaining relics in the process.

Honestly their start bias really sets them up for poor starts.

Jungle/Forest bias is one of the best start biases in R&F.

 

[UWHabs]

If you get a "good" religion spread to you, then Kongo can be a good civ. They're good to suicide apostles because you often don't care about religion or want to lose it, but it sucks if the religion spread to you is uesless (ie. feed the world doesn't help since you won't have temples). They really pick up late when artifacts come online, since you get a bunch of bonus production, not to mention getting extra food from MBanza. Another small advantage is that they can place MBanza and keep the underlying tiles, which helps for rainforests. Although everyone else can simply chop the jungle. Having them early also means it's easier to get the eureka for Urbanization too, and you can basically always skip building sewers, but housing is cheap anyways.

I've found that they're fun to play because they're different. You go crazy trying to rush a sculptor GA, but ignore the others. You obviously ignore religion, and being able to replace someone else's holy site can be an advantage when you capture a city. But then they get virtually no faith, which is a real pain when you would otherwise want to rush a great person or buy a naturalist.

 

[BenitoChavez]

So what are the first few moves with Kongo? What are the first few goals? Rush to Drama and Poetry or....
Are these fast culture wins peaceful wins or war wins?

Post above says they are a top tier civ, but I'm just not seeing it. Am I just playing them wrong?

The early game with Kongo is like the early game with most other civs. My opening build order is slinger->builder->settler->warriors + slingers/archers. Once you have a big enough army go conquer a neighbor and build science districts in your first 3-5 main cities. Expand wide and early as more cities = more theater districts later on.

Once you get to the mid game Kongo comes into it's own. Build theater districts as either the 1st or 2nd districts in all of your cities and get those GWAMs coming. I sell most of the non-sculpture great works of art as they do less for you than sculptures and artifacts*. For that reason I build mostly archeological museums and beeline humanism and natural history to do so. Once you get enough great works your cities will be amazingly productive and you can build basically anything. I go mostly for cultural wonders the top two being Cristo Redentor and Eiffel Tower as those are great for seaside resorts which is the standard go-to for CVs.

City States are really important to the Kongo as well. Babylon, Stockholm, and Antananarivo are the holy trinity of cultural victories so try to suzerain them or liberate them if they have been conquered. Yerevan/Kandy can also be good if you don't have to spend too many envoys to get them but they aren't a priority.

You can make huge cities if you use the unique neighborhood but you will also need a lot of amenities. If you go that route be sure to trade/conquer to acquire those luxury resources. I usually build just 1 for the era score.

I've never tried this but if you don't get lucky with goody huts and don't get an early game relic, you could try trading the AI for one if the trade doesn't cost too much.

* Also if you sell your great works the turn they are created the AI will buy them for basically all the gold they have.

 

[Human Crouton]

Has anyone ever gotten the bonus where you get a foreign religion's abilities to work with Kongo? Even when I've got the same religion as the majority religion in all of my cities, I do not get any benefit from it.