[R&F] Civ of the Week: Kongo

[playshogi]

T206 CV. Thanks to @Boyan_Sun for the idea of combining Pingala with the Oracle built outside of the capital, but the Apadana was gone by T60 and the Great Library was gone just as I finished Recorded History. Even so, Kongo has 4 extra slots, so it was all good. I ended up with 8 cities and was totally peaceful (except for capturing a free city with 2 warriors and an archer). I think having a research alliance instead of a cultural alliance would have served me better. The cultural alliance boosted my main competitor, while a research alliance would have enabled me to get to computers faster. The best thing about my game was having Babylon tucked neatly into my territory: science for great works of writing!

 

[liv]

Those wonders are tricky. Need to really think about how much there is to chop when planning it out. I had the Oracle snatched away with one turn left in one Kongo game.

Before R&F (and Shaka), Kongo, Brazil and Aztecs were by far the most difficult
opponents to beat.

I agree Kongo was strong before RF (because it built campus and not HolySite) but now I find that it is often a civ that gets taken over wholly or partly even before I get to them. I think that the lack of production that Kongo sometimes have with jungle starts hampers the AI

And I enjoyed the discussion this week. I looked at several of the saved games and admired your work and I think I learned a lot about cultural play

 

[Disgustipated]

In many dozens of games I have never seen Kongo eliminated.

They certainly struggle more on TSL maps after Rise and Fall in my opinion. Usually a combination of zulu and Nubia put the hurt on them. I haven't seen them eliminated that I can recall, but hampered in to be insignificant the rest of the game. Certainly not the dominators they were before Rise and Fall.

Looks like I'll fire up a Macedon game. I'll let the professionals create the thread for it. I doubt I could get all the background information looking all pretty.

 

[Ferocitus]

They certainly struggle more on TSL maps after Rise and Fall in my opinion. Usually a combination of zulu and Nubia put the hurt on them. I haven't seen them eliminated that I can recall, but hampered in to be insignificant the rest of the game. Certainly not the dominators they were before Rise and Fall.

Kongo is definitely under a lot more pressure on the largest TSL Terra maps with
Egypt, Nubia, Zulus and Arabia also in Africa. Egypt tends start well but the
others are usually far too strong in the long run.

 

[Boyan_Sun]

Those wonders are tricky. Need to really think about how much there is to chop when planning it out.

That's because most people don't like to use overflow exploit. With Magnus+Overflow, production is not a problem, and Kongo's capital is usually surrounded by woods.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Even with all the overflow in the world, it can be very hard to get the Oracle and Great Library as well as the other things in time. Let's say you can't boost Political Phi or something.

But I guess it is no war.

 

[kb27787]

Even with all the overflow in the world, it can be very hard to get the Oracle and Great Library as well as the other things in time. Let's say you can't boost Political Phi or something.

But I guess it is no war.

Mysticism is a horrible civic to beeline... Oracle is not really worth the opportunity cost (archers, builders, settlers are almost always better options early game) moreover, unless you have super early culture output, Magnus comes too late to help you beat the deity AI to it.

 

[Boyan_Sun]

Even with all the overflow in the world, it can be very hard to get the Oracle and Great Library as well as the other things in time. Let's say you can't boost Political Phi or something.

On our side, the more mature way is to have 3 cities around T30, and then there will be 3 monuments at the worst, which will complete Phi when it enters classical era or earlier. This involves opening moves. In fact, people who can play peaceful game are all very skilled warmonger, who can defense the AI and barbarian's early attack with the minimum force, which is another topic.

 

[playshogi]

Is it worth stealing a builder on turn 8, if I have 3 gems to improve? To repel the Spanish attack, my next 8-9 builds had to be warriors until I felt safe to build the monument. This start includes a relic found on turn 7.

 

[liv]

I would say it was not worth it. Given that you had a nice income you could buy the builder and focus on getting out a couple of cites. On culture plays it is good to try to avoid war.
However, It is possible of course that Spain would have attacked you anyways and you would have needed the defense. To avoid it maybe selling luxuries for more friendly relations would be possible . Maybe your first city should have been built on top of a luxury

 

[Boyan_Sun]

Mysticism is a horrible civic to beeline

This involves more sophisticated calculations. In fact, this civic is very interesting. First, it can first provide an envoy, if you send it to a cultural CS that's equal to an additional monument, or send to a military CS to boost unit production; second, it is usually the cheapest civic after Magnus, which provide a significant boost to chop value (3 civic - 43, 4 civic - 48, 5 civic - 54, 6 civic - 58). 54 is a critical number, which can guarantee only 3 chops are needed to finish Pyramids.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

This is a bit difficult to casual players, needs a lot of skills. Actually requires two combo, one for Reyna and one for Pingala.

1. Pingala level 3 + Oracle in non-capital, which produces 6 times of GW points(for Kongo is 9), much cheaper than 5 more theaters.
2. Reyna level 4 + Great Library + Apadana in capital, to maximum double tourism writings.
3. Need too many productions to build wonders and theaters, so we usually use Magnus + Agoge overflow (I know a lot of people here are against that)
4. Keep in peace to avoid military costs. Really need good defense skill to deal with barbarians, and try to please AIs...

The key idea of this strategy is not just to get more tourism, but to keep AI from getting more domestic tourism. If you can get all classic and medieval writers, then AI will not (renaissance writers need too many GP), so they will lack of culture to generate domestic tourism, and they cannot trigger some inspirations like 3 great people. So it's harder to have Russia or Kongo in the AI.

6otM35 T97 CV and 6otM39 T107 CV were all using this strategy, but neither civilization is the best fit for it. Kongo is surely one of the best for this "special" strategy. (Besides, I don't really think this is special, as long as not against overflow, I can do it in every deity CV game, just slower in some conditions)

I don't have the temperament for this and have never done it, but it looks as though Sweden has just pushed the efficient CV into the ultraefficient zone. You get the tourism double the auto-theming then can redouble that with Pingala and Renya.

Spoiler :

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I don't have the temperament for this and have never done it, but it looks as though Sweden has just pushed the efficient CV into the ultraefficient zone. You get the tourism double the auto-theming then can redouble that with Pingala and Renya.

Spoiler :

View attachment 515044

It was what, 64 Tourism from the QB? That's gonna be crazy with whichever Governor has that double Tourism promotion.

 

[Disgustipated]

It was what, 64 Tourism from the QB? That's gonna be crazy with whichever Governor has that double Tourism promotion.

Currently Reyna, but going to be Pingala I believe.

 

[Boyan_Sun]

I don't have the temperament for this and have never done it, but it looks as though Sweden has just pushed the efficient CV into the ultraefficient zone. You get the tourism double the auto-theming then can redouble that with Pingala and Renya.

In GS you don't need Reyna any more, curator promotion now moves to Pingala. That means you can save at most 3 governor points, and don't need to build Oracle separately in another city(Pingala double writer GPP) from your capital (Reyna double tourism). Besides, overflow exploit is gone, so this strategy may not as efficient as in RF.

 

[Leathaface]

Kongo was a top tier Civ pre-R&F when housing was difficult to come by until neighbourhoods and they got double great person points. Now I think they are a just above average Civ, though they are still good at Culture victory.

(plus their music is awesome)

 

[Atlas627]

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.

I swear I used to get this boost before R&F, but yes it is definitely not working now.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

In GS you don't need Reyna any more, curator promotion now moves to Pingala. That means you can save at most 3 governor points, and don't need to build Oracle separately in another city(Pingala double writer GPP) from your capital (Reyna double tourism).

The changes to the Governors in Civ 6 makes them even more like the Social Policies of Civ 5. Now Pingala is more tightly focussed on Culture and Science, Amani on City States, etc. They were set up that way anyway, it's just even more tightly focussed with the GS changes.

 

[acluewithout]

The changes to the Governors in Civ 6 makes them even more like the Social Policies of Civ 5. Now Pingala is more tightly focussed on Culture and Science, Amani on City States, etc. They were set up that way anyway, it's just even more tightly focussed with the GS changes.

Agreed. Frankly, I'd rather have had FXS bring back social policies than the current Governors.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Main Strength: +4 palace slot, which enables the chance of very quick culture victory. (Though not stable on every map, of course. For example, in continent map this becomes a joke.)

Disadvanatages: All other things. UI basically provide a not too efficient investment, but at the cost of ~300 gold per city. UU costs more production with strength reduced. UA makes you cannot use most religion bonuses (since many of such bonuses require holy site), although the leader is dedicated to religion.