Kongo AI runaway

[skallben]

Is anyone else seeing a Kongo becoming a totally superior runaway?

Whenever Kongo got a good starting location in my games, they have quickly become the top dog of the game. And not by little, biggest army, four times more culture than second Civ, and two-three times the research of the closest contenders. When they start collecting great works it seems to snowball out of control.

Of course I have seen games where they don't take off, when geography or neighbors don't allow them. But in roughly every second to every third game I have seen Kongo become out of control very quickly. Emperor&Immortal difficulty.

 

[bladex]

yeah i have seen that it happens every single game...because I'M Kongo

 

[Plus Ultra]

Interesting. Not in my games, no.

Rome and Russia seem to outperform everyone in my experience.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Kongo were in my first game and were pretty insignificant. They were sandwiched between Gorgo and Tomyris and were left isolated.

Gorgo has been a menace in all of my games though, yikes.

 

[Browd]

AI Kongo's main advantage is that they can focus on campuses and theater districts, since they can't spam holy sites, like other civs can and do.

 

[RealHuhn]

Yes.
In my last game on Immortal, Kongo was my neighbour and was ahead in tech and culture by two eras compared to everybody else. I think it's a combination of his early housing bonus and his unique swordsman replacement.
Luckily, he was expanding away from me and never declared war on me. He was very scary in the early game and later when he got early anti tank infantry while I was still defending with horsemen and crossbows (I beelined computers and ignored military techs). Overall, he still suffered under the lack of unit upgrades though. Firaxis really needs to do something about that.

Anyway, the game was pretty funny mainly because I played as France and really made use of their spy abilities. I had a quartermaster spy at my capital (+1 level to each spy) and another one with +2 cultural heist and -25% operation length. Each four turns I stole one of his great works at a 90% success rate. Well, at least until a "top secret" access level message popped up and said "Kongo is no longer pursuing a cultural victory". Oh, really? You don't say . Meanwhile I was wonder spamming like crazy (16 wonders in total) and with all of his great works I won a cultural victory on turn 260 with 1262 tourism per turn. Which was apparentely enough to even beat a runaway AI with massive cultural defense.

Edit: Yes, his lack of religion is also a good point actually. Makes him even more focused.

 

[bladex]

only one that really gives me a run for me $ is Greece i can barely keep up with him in tech every game. and he only ever has like 5 cities the cheating SOB!

 

[Plus Ultra]

AI Kongo's main advantage is that they can focus on campuses and theater districts, since they can't spam holy sites, like other civs can and do.

That is a very good point.

 

[dexters]

Kongo does well. In my 2nd game they carved out a nice slice of the continent for themselves and was settling all the islands