Zigzagzigal’s Guides – Kongo (GS)

Overview

Kongo forgoes Holy Sites and the possibility of religious victory in order to become a wealthy cultural behemoth with huge cities. Here, I detail Kongolese strategies and counter-strategies.

Introduction

Following this guide requires the Gathering Storm expansion.

It also assumes you have all other Civ 6 content, listed below, though it is not necessary to have these to utilise the key strategies of each civ.

• Pre-Rise and Fall content packs
  • Vikings, Poland, Australia, Persia/Macedon, Nubia, Khmer/Indonesia
• Rise and Fall Expansion
• New Frontier content packs
  • Maya/Grand Colombia, Ethiopia, Byzantium/Gauls, Babylon, Vietnam/Kublai Khan, Portugal

These content packs include exclusive civs, city-states, districts, buildings, wonders, natural wonders, resources, and a disaster, but not core game mechanics – all you need is the base game and the Gathering Storm expansion for those.

Wherever the true faith may be, Kongo shall follow. But in the pursuit of cultural goals, Kongo shall lead. We can no longer contend with the depravity of the societies which would accept the kidnapping of our people, the plunder of our resources and the constraints of an oppressive legal code. Let God be our guide and our protector as we forge our own path through these pressing times.

This guide is divided into multiple sections explaining how best to use and play against this specific civ.

• The Outline details the mechanics of how the civilization’s unique features work and what their start bias is if they have one.
• The Victory Skew section describes to what extent the civ (and its individual leaders where applicable) is inclined towards particular victory routes. This is not a rating of its power, but an indicator of the most appropriate route to victory.
• Multiple sections for Uniques explain in detail how to use each special bonus of the civilization.
• Administration describes some of the most synergistic governments, government buildings, policy cards, age bonuses, pantheons, religious beliefs, wonders, city-states and Great People for the civ. Only the ones with the most synergy with the civ’s uniques are mentioned – these are not necessarily the “best” choices when playing as the civ for a given victory route.
• Finally, the Counter-Strategies discusses how best to play against the civ, including a consideration of leader agendas if the civ is controlled by a computer.

Note that all costs (production, science, etc.) mentioned within the guide assume a game played on the normal speed settings. To modify these values for other game speeds:

• Online: Divide by 2
• Quick: Divide by 1.5
• Epic: Multiply by 1.5
• Marathon: Multiply by 3

Terminology used in this guide and not in-game is explained here.

AoE (Area of Effect) – Bonuses or penalties that affect multiple tiles in a set radius. Positive examples include Factories (which offer production to cities within a 6 tile radius unless they’re within range of another building of the same type) and a negative example is nuclear weapons, which cause devastation over a wide radius.

Beelining – Obtaining a technology or civic quickly by only researching it and its prerequisites. Some deviation is allowed in the event that taking a technology or civic off the main track provides some kind of advantage that makes up for that (either a source of extra science/culture or access to something necessary for a eureka or inspiration boost)

CA (Civ Ability) – The unique ability of a civilization, shared by all its leaders.

Compact empires – Civs with cities close together (typically 3-4 tile gaps between city centres). This is useful if you want to make use of districts that gain adjacency bonuses from other districts, or to maximise the potential of area-of-effect bonuses later in the game.

Dispersed empires – Civs with cities that are spread out (typically 5-6 tile gaps between city centres). Civs with unique tile improvements generally favour a more dispersed empire in order to make use of them, as do civs focused on wonder construction.

GWAM – Collective name for Great Writers, Artists and Musicians. All of them can produce Great Works that offer tourism and culture, making them important to anyone seeking a cultural victory.

LA (Leader Ability) – The unique ability of a specific leader. Usually but not always, they tend to be more specific in scope than civ abilities. Some leader abilities come with an associated unique unit or infrastucture.

Prebuilding – Training a unit with the intention of upgrading it to a desired unit later. An example is building Slingers and upgrading them once Archery is unlocked.

Sniping – Targeting a specific city for capture directly, ignoring other enemy cities along the way. Typically used in the context of “capital sniping” – taking a civ’s original capital as quickly as possible to contribute towards domination victory without leading to a drawn-out war.

Start bias – The kind of terrain, terrain feature or resource a civilization is more likely to start near. This is typically used for civilizations that have early bonuses dependent on a particular terrain type. There are five tiers of start bias; civs with a tier 1 start bias are placed before civs of tier 2 and so on, increasing their odds of receiving a favourable starting location.

Complete information on start biases within the game can be found in the Civilizations.xml file (find the Civ 6 folder in Steam’s program files, then go through the Base, Assets, Gameplay and Data folders to find the file). DLC and Expansion civs have a similarly-named file in their corresponding folders.

Super-uniques – Unique units that do not replace any others. Examples include India’s Varu and Mongolia’s Keshigs.

Tall empires – Empires that emphasise city development over expansion, usually resulting in fewer, but bigger, cities.

Uniques – Collective name for civ abilities, leader abilities, unique units, unique buildings, unique districts and unique improvements.

UA (Unique Ability) – A collective name for leader abilities and civ abilities.

UB (Unique Building) – A special building which may only be constructed in the cities of a single civilization, which replaces a normal building and offers a special advantage on top.

UD (Unique District) – A special district which may only be constructed in the cities of a single civilization, which replaces a normal district, costs half as much to build and offers some unique advantages on top.

UI (Unique Improvement) – A special improvement that can only be built by the Builders of a single civilization. “UI” always refers to unique improvements in my guides and not to “user interface” or “unique infrastructure”.

UU (Unique Unit) – A special unit that may only be trained by a single civilization, and in some cases only when that civilization is led by a specific leader.

Wide empires – Empires that emphasise expansion over city development, usually resulting in more, but smaller, cities.

Outline (Part 1/2)

Kongo has a tier 2 start bias towards rainforest and woods tiles, making it very unlikely you’ll start without at least one of those tiles in range of your capital. Kongo’s unique Ngao Mbeba unit can see through them and pass through them as if they were open terrain, and they’re necessary to build the unique Mbanza district.

• The Palace has five slots for any kind of Great Work (including relics and artefacts), up from one.
• Every relic, artefact and Great Work of Sculpture adds 4 gold, 2 food, 2 production and 1 faith to the city that contains it in addition to normal yields.
  • These yields are doubled if part of a theming bonus.
• +50% Great Artist, Merchant and Musician Points.
  • This does not apply to Great Person Points received from completing district projects.

• Cannot build Holy Sites.
  • Capturing a city containing one will remove it entirely, freeing up a district slot as well as its tile. Stonehenge, however, will not be destroyed.
• Cannot found a religion
• If at least half of the cities in Kongo follow the same religion, receive its founder and enhancer bonuses
• Receive a free Apostle of the corresponding city’s religion when a Theatre Square or Mbanza is built.

Outline (Part 2/2)

A classical-era melee infantry unit which replaces the Swordsman

*Purchasing units with faith requires the Grand Master’s Chapel government building, which requires either the medieval-era Divine Right or renaissance-era Exploration civics.

**Ngao Mbeba units may be trained beyond the Apprenticeship technology if you have insufficient iron.

• Costs 110 production, 440 gold or 220 faith, up from 90, 360 and 180 respectively (+22%)
• Costs 150 gold, up from 110, to upgrade to from a Warrior (+36%)

• Costs 5 iron, down from 20 (-75%)
• 38 strength, up from 35
• +10 strength when defending against ranged attacks
• Woods and rainforest tiles do not block sight or slow movement
• Costs 110 gold to upgrade to a Man-at-Arms, down from 150 (-27%)

A medieval-era non-speciality district which replaces the Neighbourhood

*All districts increase in cost based on your technological and civic progress. If you have more or the same number of speciality districts as speciality district types you have unlocked and the former number divided by the latter is bigger than the number of copies of this district you have, you will receive a 40% discount.

**Purchasing districts with gold requires the governor Reyna (the Financier) with the Contractor promotion to be present in the city. Purchasing districts with faith requires Governor Moksha (the Cardinal) with the Divine Architect promotion to be present in the city.

• Must be constructed on a woods or rainforest tile
  • The tile retains many of the features of woods/rainforest tiles, including the defensive bonus, appeal bonuses/penalties and adjacency bonuses.

• Always provides 5 housing, regardless of appeal, instead of ranging from 2 to 6.

• Available with the medieval-era Guilds civic, instead of the industrial-era Urbanisation civic.
• -50% production cost
• Provides 4 gold per turn
• Provides 2 food per turn

Victory Skew

In this section, the civ is subjectively graded based on how much it leans towards a specific victory type – not how powerful it is. Scores of 3 or more mean the civ has at least a minor advantage towards the victory route.

Kongo is simply amazing at cultural victories. +50% Great Artist and Musician points means many more Great Works, and the Kongolese Palace has plenty of space to hold them. Free Apostles means extra relics, assuming you can get some to have the Martyr promotion. The Mbanza district helps support huge cities in the middle of the game, which is a considerable advantage when building wonders, which in turn will help your tourism yields later. Furthermore, because Mbanza districts ignore tile appeal when calculating housing, you can free up high-appeal coastal tiles to build seaside resorts for more tourism. What Kongo lacks is a good faith output to acquire Naturalists (which are necessary to create National Parks) as well as Rock Bands, but thankfully there’s a workaround late in the game. When all copies of a Great Person are depleted, remaining Great Person Points for that type will be converted into faith – Kongo’s extra Great Artist, Musician and Merchant points will turn into extra faith!

Diplomatic victory is a reasonable path for Kongo. Gold bonuses from the Kongolese civ ability as well as the Mbanza district help with aid emergencies. Free Apostles can also make Kongo perform well at religious emergencies, unusually for a non-religious civ.

Domination is a reasonable path for Kongo. Big rich cities can handle a strong army, but Kongo’s real edge comes with the Ngao Mbeba unique unit. With just one promotion and the Oligarchy government, they have 62 strength when defending against ranged attacks, making them great at dealing with enemy cities in conjunction with a Battering Ram or Siege Tower. Their extra strength and mobility also aids in reaching and sieging down enemy cities.

Religious victories are impossible as Kongo, as Mvemba a Nzinga’s leader ability bars them from founding a religion. Be aware that it’s easy to hand someone else a religious victory if you’re neither a warmonger nor playing the religious game – always keep an eye on who’s leading there. If you have cities following two different religions, building Theatre Squares and Mbanzas in them will grant you Apostles of both religions, allowing you to reverse the progress of either religion if they get too strong.

Science is a fine route for Kongo to undertake thanks to the production boost to certain Great Works and faster city growth translating to bonus science (each citizen is worth 0.5 science), though the lack of direct science bonuses is a limitation.

Civilization Ability: Nkisi (Part 1/2)

Kongo has substantial bonuses to the cultural game, and certain kinds of Great Work will also provide handy general bonuses on top. There’s a lot of stuff going on in the Kongolese civ ability, so I’m going to break it down somewhat chronologically.

Relics are one of the earliest sources of tourism, but unlike typical Great Works and Artefacts, they offer faith instead of culture. There’s five ways of getting hold of relics:

• Discover one randomly in ancient ruins
• Be suzerain over Kandy (a religious city-state), then discover a natural wonder
• Have an Apostle with the Martyr promotion die in theological combat (the most common method)
  • You can guarantee new Apostles get this promotion with either the Mont St. Michel wonder (medieval era, requires the Divine Right civic) or being suzerain over Yerevan, a religious city-state.
• Retire the renaissance-era Great General Jeanne D’arc. Unlike other sources of relics this can only be done once.
• Win a religious emergency as a coalition member. A religious emergency can be initiated when a Holy City (the city where a religion was founded) is converted to a different religion, so long as it is at least the medieval game era.

The first two of these depend heavily on luck, but can earn you a relic early in the game. Seeing as +2 food, +2 production and +4 gold is a really good bonus to have early on, make sure to explore thoroughly early on. Exploration will be helpful, even if you don’t score a relic, to uncover good future city locations and possible targets for Ngao Mbeba invasions later.

Kongo can acquire Apostles by constructing Theatre Squares or Mbanzas in cities that follow a religion. Without the Mont St. Michel wonder or Kongo being suzerain over Yerevan, you may need to generate several until you can obtain one with the Martyr promotion. Because Mont St. Michel is such a great wonder for Kongo to have, it’s worth getting the Divine Right civic at a reasonably fast pace.

While relics are a nice source of food, production and gold for Kongo, there’s two problems you’ll face once you have some.

The first problem is that because Mvemba a Nzinga blocks the construction of Holy Sites, you can’t build Temples – the main source of slots for Relics. Kongo’s civ ability gives you five slots in the Palace rather than the usual one, but beyond that, you’ll have to track down some very specific sources of relic slots:

• The Apadana wonder (requires the Persia and Macedon civilization and scenario pack) adds +2. It requires the classical-era Political Philosophy civic and can only be built adjacent to your capital’s city centre.
• The medieval-era Mont St. Michel wonder adds +2. It requires the Divine Right civic, and must be built either on a marsh or on floodplains.
• The renaissance-era St. Basil’s Cathedral wonder adds +3, and also doubles the tourism output of relics and religious Great Works of Art in the city. It requires the Reformed Church civic, and must be built adjacent to the city centre.
• The renaissance-era Great Merchant Giovanni de’ Medici can create a Market and Bank in a Commercial Hub. The Bank will add +2 slots for any kind of Great Work, including relics.
• The modern-era National History Museum building can be built in your Government Plaza once you have a tier-three government. It offers +4 slots for any kind of Great Work, including relics.

At the very most, you can get a total of 18 relic slots. There are 24 relics in all, but you can often fill all your relic slots before the world generates all 24. If you can’t, many sources of relic slots also function for other Great Works, and can be a great holding place for Great Art or Music prior to you building Art Museums and Broadcast Centres respectively.

The second problem is that the tourism output of relics is halved against players with The Enlightenment civic, unless you can get the Cristo Redentor wonder. If you generate a lot of relics and leave nowhere for your other Great Works, you could be hurting your cultural victory aims.

Because your capital will always have access to 5 relic slots that no other city can have, it’ll tend to end up more powerful than your other cities once it fills with relics. As such, your capital will often be your best city for building some of the more competitive wonders in. St. Basil’s Cathedral in particular will be useful as you’ll have a larger amount of religious tourism from your capital than other cities.

A Great Artist long before anyone else, and significant progress towards a Great Musician!

The most directly helpful bonus to cultural victory Kongo has is their 50% bonus to Great Artist and Musician points. Expand to a good number of cities, build Theatre Squares reasonably early and you should get a good number of Great Works out of it. While Kongo lacks a bonus to Great Writer Points, having lots of Theatre Squares with Amphitheatres should generate you all the Great Writers you can handle anyway.

Because Kongo’s Palace has five Great Work slots rather than the usual one, running out of slots doesn’t tend to be as much of a problem as it is for other civs – at least, not until your Great Artist and Musician generation really takes off. Be sure to keep moving Great Works out of your Palace as soon as you can to free up space for more relics (or simply other kinds of Great Works you don’t have the slots for yet).

Great Works of Sculpture are one of the kinds of Great Works that can be made by Great Artists, specifically these:

• Michelangelo (Renaissance era) – Two sculptures, one religious
• Donatello (Renaissance era) – Three sculptures
• Edmonia Lewis (Atomic era) – Three sculptures
• Marie-Anne Collot (Atomic era) – Three sculptures

If you can manage to get three from different artists (you’ll most likely need to trade for that), and place them in an Art Museum, the theming bonus won’t only affect the culture and tourism outputs, but the food, production, gold and faith bonuses as well!

Civilization Ability: Nkisi (Part 2/2)

An easier bonus to use relative to the one from Great Works of Sculpture is the one from artefacts. Build just enough Art Museums to handle any Great Artists you might generate, and build Archaeological Museums in all your other cities. Archaeologists are expensive, so you might want to buy them in your less productive cities (they cost 1,600 gold) rather than waiting for them to be trained.

To get an artefact theming bonus, you need three present in the same museum from the same era but different civs. To ensure a good diversity of civs, send your Archaeologists to other civs and city-states before you start excavating antiquity sites in your own lands. Place excess civilian or military units on antiquity sites in your own lands so other civs can’t steal them.

A themed Archaeological Museum! As is the case with Great Works of Sculpture, getting a theming bonus doubles the food, production and gold bonuses in addition to culture and tourism. +12 food, +12 production and +24 gold is a very strong advantage to have.

Combined with the food and housing from Mbanzas, the artefact bonus can greatly reduce your need for farms later in the game. This makes it easier to slip in more wonders, seaside resorts, second-growth woods with lumber mills, and so forth.

Building plenty of Commercial Hubs is useful playing as any civ as a source of trade routes, as well as some gold and a source of Great Merchants. A useful one to go for moderately early is Giovanni de’ Medici; he can produce a Bank with two Great Work slots of any kind – including relics.

Generally, Great Merchants have bonuses that don’t favour any particular kind of victory route, but late in the game there’s four with significant tourism bonuses:

• Sarah Breedlove (Modern era) – +25% tourism rate towards other civilizations you have a trade route to.
• Melitta Bentz (Atomic era) – Increases trade route capacity by 1. +25% tourism to other civilizations you have a trade route to.
• Jamseth Tata (Information era) – All Campus districts provide +10 tourism
• Masaru Ibuka (Information era) – All Industrial Zone districts provide +10 Tourism.

Kongo’s 50% bonus to Great Merchant points will make securing more of these advantages easier.

• Explore early – you might find an early relic and hence good starting bonuses.
• Apostles from Mvemba a Nzinga’s leader ability will earn you more relics.
• Build Theatre Squares fairly early.
• Build plenty of Archaeological Museums and Archaeologists; try to get as many theming bonuses as possible.

Mvemba a Nzinga’s Leader Ability: Religious Convert (Part 1/2)

Gran Colombia may have founded the religion, but I’m also getting the faith from Pilgrimage.

Mvemba a Nzinga’s leader ability is among the game’s most unusual, altering the religious game considerably. Here’s the downsides:

• You can’t ever own a Holy Site
  • You can’t get access to worship buildings
  • You don’t have that key reliable source of faith
• You can’t found a religion
• You can’t directly unlock the inspirations to Theology, Divine Right or Reformed Church; the latter two of which offer very relevant wonders for Kongo which you’ll therefore be at a disadvantage building.

Now, this sounds pretty bad on the face of it, but remember that if you’re not playing a religious game, you generally won’t build many Holy Sites anyway as districts such as Campuses and Commercial Hubs are more important. So, instead of concentrating on those downsides, consider the advantages:

• You can access the founder and enhancer beliefs of a religion without having to found one yourself
• You have a really easy source of Apostles (and hence relics)

At first, you won’t have a huge amount of control over which religion spreads to your lands. You can try sending some trade routes to a civ with an established religion to get a little bit of pressure going, but the loss of food and production from internal trade may make that a less than ideal choice.

With a little luck, the religion you get will be one with good, appropriate founder, enhancer and follower beliefs, but that’s not a guarantee. To increase your chances of getting a good religion, consider settling a few colony cities away from the rest of your empire (preferably on a different continent). The other religion can then spread to that city, and once you get a Theatre Square and/or Mbanzas there, you can start generating Apostles to convert the rest of your empire with.

Because you can’t choose your specific religious beliefs as Kongo (aside from the pantheon), you should look for the religion with the most suitable set of founder, enhancer and follower beliefs. Here’s a crude chart of which are good or not. “Ideal” beliefs are among the best possible options, “Good” beliefs work well, “Functional” means you’ll get something out of it at least even if it’s not a strictly relevant bonus, and “Useless” means you can’t actually get anything out of it due to its dependence on Holy Site districts or elements of religion Kongo can’t access.

More information on the founder, enhancer and follower beliefs placed in the “ideal” or “good” categories can be found in the administration section of this guide, but remember that this ranking of beliefs is purely subjective. The situation you find yourself in your game could make certain beliefs better or worse than normal.

An interesting advantage of getting access to founder beliefs comes with beliefs like Tithe, Pilgrimage, Cross-Cultural Dialogue and World Church. Normally, their potential is limited if you struggle to spread your religion to another civ. For Kongo, you don’t need to worry about all that – the civ that spread their religion to you will likely have most of their cities following it, so you both get good yields from that.

Keep an eye on the civ whose religion you have present in your cities, however – you can easily hand them a religious victory if you’re not careful. As stated before, settling overseas can be a good way of securing Apostles of a competing religion. Alternatively, take any excess Apostles you may have and take them to somewhere where they’re likely to be killed either through religious or regular combat. Make sure they’re close to cities that follow their own religion, so when they get killed they’ll lower the strength of their faith.

The inability to build Holy Sites can be quite a problem later in the game when Naturalists and Rock Bands arrive, as both are great sources of tourism but must be purchased with faith.

Kongo’s most direct route to generating faith is by generating relics, Great Works of Sculpture and artefacts, but aside from relics these won’t generate that much.

Mvemba a Nzinga’s leader ability can give you a strong amount of faith if you can make a religion with the Pilgrimage founder belief dominant in your cities, but this depends highly on the actions of other civs and won’t be available in every game. Divine Inspiration and Reliquaries are also great sources of faith.

Some pantheons can offer faith. Seven can be used by Kongo: Earth Goddess, Fire Goddess, God of Craftsmen, God of War, Initiation Rites, Religious Idols and Stone Circles. God of War specifically requires you to kill units within 8 tiles of a Holy Site for faith, but it can be anyone’s Holy Site. If you want to take a faith pantheon, I’d generally recommend Earth Goddess due to it being consistently useful, while Religious Idols and Stone Circles are fine backups depending on the resources available in your lands.

Governor Moksha (the Cardinal) can be used for bonus faith. His starting promotion grants +2 faith per speciality district a city has – thanks to the huge food and housing bonuses Kongo has access to via the civ ability and Mbanza respectively, raising your district capacity is easy. The Citadel of God promotion can also provide a little extra faith every time the city constructs a building. Resist the temptation to promote Moksha too early in the game as Pingala (the Educator) has bonuses that are generally more relevant to Kongo early on.

Many wonders can generate faith, but with the occasional exception like Jebel Barkal, generally provide it in small quantities. Most faith-providing wonders arrive early in the game at a time where Kongo has more pressing matters to spend their production on like Theatre Squares, Commercial Hubs, expansion and so forth.

Finally, once all of the Great People of a specific type have been generated, Great Person Points of that type are converted into faith. This is particularly helpful for Kongo as once Great Artists, Musicians and Merchants are exhausted, the bonus to their respective Great Person Points will be converted into bonus faith!

Mvemba a Nzinga’s Leader Ability: Religious Convert (Part 2/2)

Assuming you have a half-decent religion being spread to your lands and the other civ isn’t threatening to win the game yet, there’s a few uses of your Apostles. Every Apostle generated has a choice of promotions to start off with:

• Chaplain: Apostle makes adjacent units heal +10 health on top of normal healing
• Debater:+20 strength in Theological Combat.
• Heathen Conversion: Can convert all adjacent Barbarians to your side by using a religious charge.
• Indulgence Vendor: Gain 100 Gold if this unit converts a city to your religion for the first time.
• Martyr: Relic is created if this Apostle dies in Theological Combat.
• Orator: Can spread religion 2 extra times.
• Pilgrim: Gains 3 extra religious spreads when moving adjacent to a natural wonder for the first time.
• Proselytiser: Religious spread eliminates 75% of the presence of other religions in the target city.
• Translator: Religious spread is triple strength in cities of other civilizations.

Normally, there’s three options and you get to pick one. However, there’s some bonuses that affect that:

• If you have the Mont St. Michel wonder, you’re guaranteed the Martyr promotion on top of a choice of one other promotion (even already-existing Apostles you control will be granted the Martyr promotion if they don’t have it already once the wonder is complete).
• If you’re suzerain of Yerevan, you can choose from any Apostle promotion rather than just three.
• If you have Governor Moksha (the Cardinal) with the Patron Saint promotion present in the city, Apostles will have two choices of promotion (the second promotion having a new random selection of three remaining promotions), but that requires spending a total of four Governor promotions which can be hard to justify when other Governors like Pingala have very relevant promotions for Kongo.

The Martyr promotion is your best choice until you run out of relic slots. Send your Martyr Apostles deep into the territory of a civ following a different religion, and wait for them to be killed by rival Apostles and Inquisitors. It’s a nice opportunity to see the military strength of other civs as well, seeing as Apostles are one of the few units that can enter rival lands without open borders.

Chaplain is a nice bonus, especially if you can get it early enough to use in conjunction with the Ngao Mbeba UU. Faster healing means less downtime in combat, so you can deal more damage.

Heathen Conversion is good choice assuming Martyr isn’t an option and you’ve already got a Chaplain or two. For most civs, taking the promotion is a bit of a waste of faith better-used on converting other civs, but for Kongo, that isn’t a problem. Converting Barbarians means you can turn a would-be nuisance into a nice little opportunity. Convert a Barbarian on an encampment and you’ll destroy the latter (which will give you gold in the process). You can even convert rebels that might emerge in a civ due to a lack of amenities – they tend to be stronger than typical Barbarians and are well worth converting! Finally, the Mbanza district is vulnerable to Spies carrying out the Recruit Partisans action, which spawns Barbarian anti-cavalry units in your land – but with an Apostle at the ready, you can convert them to your side and end up with a bigger army.

Indulgence Vendor can be decent for a quick bit of cash but be wary that spreading a faith to cities that have never had it before might be handing a huge advantage to the owner of the religion on their road to victory.

Proselytiser is a great choice if you’re trying to convert yourself to another religion, as it’ll clear nearly all trace of the old one in your cities.

Orator and Pilgrim are decent for spreading a religion around, but Kongo won’t be short of Apostles once you start building lots of Mbanzas.

Debator and Translator are mostly useful if you want to push a strong competing religion away. They’re generally some of the weaker choices of Apostle promotions when playing as Kongo.

• Consider settling a colony of a few cities near a civ with a different religion to your neighbours so you have choice in which religion to follow
• Avoid religions with bonuses mostly dependent on Holy Sites, or those owned by a civ close to victory.
• Give Apostles the Martyr promotion until you run out of relic slots; Heathen Conversion is a good backup.

Unique Unit: Ngao Mbeba

The Ngao Mbeba can be a good early defensive option for Kongo, but it also offers an alternative approach to Kongo’s typical game of peaceful cultural victories. With high strength, high mobility, a low strategic resource cost and an excellent defence against ranged attacks, the Ngao Mbeba can be a rather effective unit for early rushes.

The Oligarchy government offers a +4 strength bonus to all melee infantry, anti-cavalry and naval melee units, and the Ngao Mbeba unit fits the first of these three categories.

Here’s all the civics needed for Oligarchy:

• Code of Laws
• Craftsmanship (Boost: Improve three tiles – not hard)
• Foreign Trade (Boost: Discover another continent – impossible on Duel maps and hard on smaller Continents maps or Archipelago but easy otherwise)
• State Workforce (Boost: Build any district – Encampments are unlocked on the way to Ngao Mbebas and can get you an early Great General so it may be a good idea to build one, alternatively build a Campus.)
• Early Empire (Boost: Reach a combined total of 6 population in your empire – Founding a second city and waiting a bit usually suffices)
• Political Philosophy (Boost: Meet 3 city-states – Usually easy)

It’s also a good idea to pick up Military Tradition (Boost: Destroy a Barbarian Encampment) once you’re done with that so you can use flanking bonuses.

Now for the technologies for Ngao Mbebas.

• Mining
• Bronze Working (Boost: Kill 3 Barbarians – use Warriors to help with this; you can upgrade them to Ngao Mbeba units later)
• Iron Working (Boost: Build an iron mine – you’ll need iron anyway to train the unit in most circumstances)

While you’re on your way there, get some Warriors trained so you can immediately upgrade them into Ngao Mbeba units.

To get to Battering Rams, you’ll also need this:

• Masonry (Boost: Build a quarry – easy if you start near stone, marble or gypsum)

Use the Agoge (+50% production of ancient and classical melee and ranged units) to help you train plenty of Warriors and extra Ngao Mbeba units later and support them. Keep an eye on the maintenance cost, however, and be prepared to switch to Conscription (-1 gold maintenance per unit) if need be.

Now, with a few Ngao Mbeba units and a Battering Ram, you can take that force to an unsuspecting enemy. If you’re fast enough, they should still be using ancient-era units which will die rather quickly to your forces. More to the point, Ngao Mbeba units take very little damage from ranged attacks, making them excellent at sieging walled cities and against civs like Egypt, the Maya, and Nubia which rely heavily on early ranged UUs.

With just 15XP you can get the Tortoise promotion for another +10 defence against ranged attacks on top of the +10 they already get. Ngao Mbeba units will then defend better than unpromoted Musketmen against ranged attacks – rather useful if your enemies start pulling ahead in technology and use Crossbowmen against you.

The fact Ngao Mbeba units can move through woods and rainforests with ease makes a rush faster and hence more effective. Repositioning units becomes easier, meaning you can retreat your damaged units behind the front-line faster. There, they can only be targeted by ranged attacks – which in other words typically means they’re safe.

So, a Ngao Mbeba Oligarchy rush can be a pretty effective way to start your game by eliminating a neighbour. This gives you more space to expand, which can mean more Theatre Square districts, more GWAMs and more tourism.

Dedicating yourself to an Oligarchy rush can mean putting off a few things like building Commercial Hubs or Theatre Squares. Ngao Mbeba units aren’t cheap (at 110 production rather than 90, they’re 22% more expensive than a normal Swordsman), meaning you could struggle if up against a lot of Horsemen or Swordsmen. A rush won’t work in every game as Kongo; make sure you know your closest neighbour before you commit yourself to early warfare.

If you’re not going to bring Ngao Mbeba units to war, they still make decent Barbarian protection and good explorers. With the Commando promotion, they move as fast as a Scout but with a significantly better ability to defend themselves. Tracking down Barbarian Encampments and destroying them is a great source of era score up to and including the medieval game era.

Ultimately, Ngao Mbeba units are most powerful as part of a rush, but an early rush can be a distraction from your long-term goals. You’ll need to consider if such a decision is worthwhile. The units are best in woods and rainforest-heavy territory, but aren’t very cost-effective against cavalry in open terrain. If you can’t or don’t want to rush, you can still use the units for exploration and Barbarian-killing.

Unique District: Mbanza (Part 1/2)

Kongo has quite a few distinct uniques already, and Mbanzas are no different. Neighbourhood districts usually arrive in the late-industrial era and their high housing contribution combined with the fact you can built them in large numbers practically removes the limit on city population (assuming you can provide enough food and amenities – which isn’t as difficult late in the game).

Mbanzas arrive two eras earlier, allowing your cities to grow huge sooner. Large cities produce more science and culture, can handle more specialists, have a bigger district limit and are generally better – assuming you can handle the amenities.

As with regular Neighbourhoods, Mbanzas are unlocked through the civics tree. After getting the crucial Political Philosophy and Drama and Poetry civics, here’s what you need to get:

• Games and Recreation (Boost: Research Construction – Can be an awkward boost to get in time; you might need to research it without the boost.)
• Defensive Tactics (Boost: Be the target of a declaration of war – Mainly out of your control.)
• Recorded History (Boost: Build two Campus districts – Not hard assuming you’ve settled or captured a few cities.)
• Feudalism (Boost: Build/capture 6 farms – Easy.)
• Civil Service (Boost: Grow a city to size 10 – Can be tricky; getting Feudalism first for the food boost from farms built in a triangle is a good idea.)
• Guilds (Boost: Build two Markets. Considering you get 50% more Great Merchant points as Kongo this is something you should consider doing anyway.)

Neighbourhoods are pretty affordable districts to begin with, and Mbanzas cost half as much – furthermore, they’re even cheaper when you consider they arrive earlier in the game, and district costs scale to how many technologies or civics you have. Even low-production cities can get them up reasonably quickly if you make good use of internal trading, and your most productive cities will eventually manage to build them in a couple of turns. Doing so gives you an Apostle from Nvemba a Nzinga’s leader ability, so building Mbanzas in large numbers can be worthwhile if you need a few extra ones.

An alternative way of getting Mbanzas set up is to position Governor Reyna (the Financier) with her Contractor promotion in a city. This allows you to purchase districts with gold. Considering Kongo’s civ ability as well as this district can produce plenty, that can be a viable means of acquiring more Mbanzas.

Kongo can mange large cities sooner, but what does that mean? It’s time to be be more specific about the mechanics of population points. Firstly, here’s the downsides of city growth:

• Every point of population eats 2 food, stopping that food from contributing towards future growth. A size 5 city needs 10 food; a size 20 city needs 40 food.
• Cities grow at only 50% rate if they only have 1 housing left (e.g. a size 10 city needs 12 housing to continue to grow at full speed)
• Cities grow at 25% rate if they have no excess housing
• Cities don’t grow at all if they exceed the housing limit by 4. This usually only happens if you’ve had a lot of Neighbourhoods/Mbanzas pillaged.
• Cities lose 1 amenity for every 2 points of population.

And here’s the upsides:

• Every point of population adds a citizen, meaning you can work more tiles.
• Every point of population adds 0.5 and 0.3
• Size one cities can make one speciality district; this increases by one for every three points of population (so a size 4 city can make two speciality districts, size 7 can make three, and so on).

The most important upsides of a higher city limit will be to support more districts. Normally, the medieval to industrial eras require players to carefully pick which districts they want in a city, but Kongo is pretty much exempt from that decision so long as enough food and production is available. If you want a Campus, Theatre Square, Commercial Hub and Industrial Zone, you need a size 11 city – something that isn’t hard when you have Mbanzas and a few farms.

However, there’s a key downside to large cities earlier in the game, and an additional two considerations you’ll need to make. First, the big downside – large cities needs plenty of amenities. If you try and get around that by building Entertainment Districts, that lessens the advantage of having an extra district slot. On top of this, building more districts means you’ll need more production to do so, as well as Builders to improve nearby tiles. If you’re using citizens as specialists, you’re not using them to work mines or lumber mills which makes it hard to get everything built. Thankfully, Kongo’s production bonus from relics, Great Works of Sculpture and artefacts helps here.

Mbanzas produce enough food to support a point of population, as well as +4 gold. A tile producing +2 food and +4 gold would be quite good to work anyway, but considering you don’t need to use any population points, the districts don’t count towards your population limit and Mbanzas are very affordable to build, the districts can quickly make Kongo very wealthy. Still, you should ensure your cities still have space to work tiles, build new speciality districts and construct wonders if need be.

This gold can be used to buy buildings, districts, Builders and Archaeologists in your weaker cities, helping them to pull their weight in your empire sooner. This can be enhanced further if you have a surplus of amenities in your Mbanza-spamming cities, though this is hard to achieve until late in the game.

Unique District: Mbanza (Part 2/2)

So, getting a big population early along with food and gold is good, but it doesn’t stop there. Mbanzas come with an array of other advantages making them powerful even into the industrial era and beyond.

Because Mbanzas can only be built on wooded and rainforests, the tiles still count as being forested. This is very useful for maximising Campus adjacency bonuses – you can get the bonus from rainforests on top of the bonus from the adjacent districts.

Mbanzas always give +5 housing regardless of appeal. This allows you to free up your highest-appeal tiles on the coast for Seaside Resorts and hence extra tourism. That being said, if you do build Mbanzas on high-appeal tiles, they can benefit from the Public Transport economic policy card (industrial era, requires Urbanisation) for extra food and production. As a third option, you can start off placing Mbanzas away from high-appeal coastal tiles, but build up the appeal later with the Eiffel Tower wonder and other things like second-growth woods or city park improvements.

The modern-era Conservation civic allows your Builders to plant woods, allowing you to place Mbanzas on any grassland, plains or tundra tile. Note also that you can place Mbanzas directly on lumber mills, replacing the improvement. This means you don’t need to waste Builder time removing it.

There is, however, one big weakness of Mbanzas. As a Neighbourhood replacement, they are susceptible to the Recruit Partisans spy mission, a particularly nasty action which summons Barbarian anti-cavalry units in your territory. These Barbarians will be scaled to your research era, but won’t necessarily be units you’re able to research – that can be quite a problem if your civic progress is far ahead of your technology!

On the other hand, you can flip this vulnerability into an opportunity! Building Mbanzas will give you plenty of Apostles, and you’ll be able to give some the Heathen Conversion promotion. Position these Apostles on the city centres of your most vulnerable and most important cities, and if any partisans are recruited in your lands, you’ll be able to flip them to your control – essentially giving you a free army!

• Once you have Political Philosophy and Drama and Poetry, head to Guilds next for Mbanzas.
• Mbanzas are cheap, make you rich and stop housing being a problem.
• Ensure you have plenty of amenities and food to support growth
• Lots of Mbanzas and a higher district limit means you can get bigger district adjacency bonuses.
• Keep some Heathen Conversion-promoted Apostles around to deal with enemy Spies carrying out the Recruit Partisans mission in your Mbanzas.

Administration – Government and Policy Cards

Note that the Administration sections strictly cover the options that have particularly good synergy with the civ’s uniques. These are not necessarily the best choices, but rather options you should consider more than usual if playing this civ relative to others.

Classical Republic is ideal for those not going for an Oligarchy rush. A bonus to Great Person Point generation goes nicely with Kongo’s 50% bonus to Great Artist, Musician and Merchant Points, while the extra amenity helps support your growing cities. If you intend to use the Ngao Mbeba UU offensively, use Oligarchy for the handy +4 strength bonus.

All three tier one government buildings have their uses for Kongo. The Audience Chamber helps your cities to grow in the interim before you have Mbanzas available, and offers some amenities as well. But given how much housing Mbanzas grant, you might find the Ancestral Hall slightly more useful if you’re still settling new cities at this point. For those after an Oligarchy rush, consider using the Warlord’s Throne for a production boost from every city you capture.

Merchant Republic is generally the best option thanks to its good array of policy card slots and more relevant direct bonuses. Theocracy is limited by Kongo’s inability to build Holy Sites while Monarchy’s extra housing is redundant when you have Mbanzas, though it does carry with it excellent bonuses for a diplomatic game.

The best building will usually be the Intelligence Agency. An extra Spy can help keep your Great Works from being stolen, and protect Mbanzas from the Recruit Partisans mission.

Democracy is a good choice. Kongo is a rich civ and hence can get a lot out of a discount to gold purchases, and the high number of economic policy card slots is helpful. Yet Communism‘s production boost scales really well to huge cities, and few civs can build cities are large as Kongo can. That production boost can really help with some late-game cultural wonders.

Complement this with the National History Museum, allowing you to store extra relics or other Great Works.

Note: All policy cards relating to Holy Sites and Great Prophets are useless to Kongo.

Agoge (Military, requires Craftsmanship) – Ngao Mbeba units cost a lot to train, so this policy is pretty much compulsory if you want them in large numbers. You can also quickly train Warriors with Agoge, then upgrade them to Ngao Mbeba units once you have Iron Working.

Conscription (Military, requires State Workforce) – Ngao Mbebas aren’t cheap to maintain and at this point in the game, Kongo’s significant gold advantages won’t have kicked in yet.

Insulae (Economic, requires Games and Recreation) – This is largely a stopgap measure to help you grow your cities before Mbanzas become available; once you have some, replace the card with something else.

Retainers (Military, requires Civil Service) – Coming shortly before Mbanzas arrive, the Retainers policy helps you get enough amenities without having to build Entertainment Complexes or use valuable economic policy cards. It also comes at a very good time if you’ve just finished with a Ngao Mbeba rush; you can put all those units to work.

Serfdom (Economic, requires Feudalism) – Large cities require lots of tile improvements to work.

Travelling Merchants (Wildcard, requires Guilds) – Get more Great Merchant points! Quite a few later in the game offer valuable amenity or tourism bonuses.

Colonial Offices (Diplomatic, requires Exploration) – Colonising other continents is a good idea if you want to spread around a different religion to the first one you end up with. This policy card helps them stay loyal, and grow in size to match your other cities.

Frescoes (Wildcard, requires Humanism) – Thanks to Kongo’s civ ability, this gives you +3 Great Artist points a turn, and an extra +3 per Art Museum – useful if you want to grab more Great Works of Sculpture. That being said, you’ll probably end up with more Great Artists than Art Museums, so consider carefully if this is a necessary action to take.

Colonial Taxes (Diplomatic, requires Colonialism) – If you have any cities away from your home continent, any extra gold or production they generate via Mbanzas or the Kongolese civ ability will be magnified.

Public Transport (Economic, requires Urbanisation) – Mbanzas will now generate 5 gold instead of 4. Mbanzas on tiles of 2+ appeal will produce a total of 5 food, 5 gold and 1 production. On tiles of 4+ appeal, that’ll be 6 food, 5 gold and 2 production.

Public Works (Economic, requires Civil Engineering) – You’ll need plenty of Builders to meet the needs of your huge cities.

Skyscrapers (Economic, requires Civil Engineering) – By this point, your cities will generally be bigger than those of other civs, and bigger cities are typically more productive. Build on that advantage and get some good wonders constructed!

Symphonies (Wildcard, requires Opera and Ballet) – +6 Great Musician Points for Kongo, and another +6 for every Broadcast Centre.

Laissez-Faire (Wildcard, requires Capitalism) – More Great Merchant points to help you get those late amenity and tourism bonuses. Particularly effective if you have some Stock Exchanges built.

New Deal (Economic, Democracy only, requires Suffrage) – It may seem like a waste to get a housing bonus when Mbanzas are cheap, but amenities are very important for Kongo.

Cryptography (Diplomatic, requires Cold War) – Kongo is vulnerable to Spies via the Great Work Heist and Recruit Partisans missions. This policy card will reduce that threat.

Heritage Tourism (Economic, requires Cultural Heritage) – Although all tourism bonuses are very useful when playing culturally, this one has particular synergy with Kongo due to the unique bonuses to Great Works of Sculpture and Artefacts.

Space Tourism (Wildcard, requires Exodus Imperative) – Although Kongo has no direct culture bonus, strong generation of Great Artists and Musicians and an incentive to develop a lot of Theatre Squares typically puts Kongo at one of the highest culture outputs by the end of the game. As such, Kongo is frequently a key barrier to other cultural civs’ attempts at victory. You can take this wildcard to enhance that and slow down enemy cultural civs even more.

Administration – Age Bonuses and World Congress

Only bonuses with notable synergy with the civ’s uniques are covered here.

Pen, Brush and Voice (Dedication, Classical to Medieval eras) – Given Kongo’s incentive to develop Theatre Squares, this is a reasonable source of era score.

Free Inquiry (Golden Age, Classical to Medieval eras) – This Golden Age dedication lets you ignore Campuses for a time in order to focus on Commercial Hubs as a source of science – a district Kongo has more synergy with.

Pen, Brush and Voice (Golden Age, Classical to Medieval eras) – The extra culture is useful if you want to unlock Mbanzas as soon as possible.

Hic Sunt Dracones (Golden Age, Renaissance to Industrial eras) – If your empire is dominated by one faith, you may need to settle an overseas colony to be able to get Apostles of a different religion (and hence have a bit more control over what religion your empire follows). The bonuses on offer here will make setting up such a colony easier.

Robber Barons (Dark Age, Industrial to Information eras) – Only worthwhile if you have a good surplus of amenities to begin with as the penalty is harsh, but it’s potentially very powerful for Kongo. Getting +50% gold for cities already producing a lot from the civ ability and Mbanzas, and +25% production in cities benefitting from relics/artefacts/sculptures can go a long way.

How you should vote in the World Congress will often be specific to your game – if you have a strong rival, for example, it might be better to vote to hurt them than to help yourself. Furthermore, there may be general bonuses to your chosen victory route or gameplay which are more relevant than ones that have stronger synergy with civ-specific bonuses. Otherwise, here’s a list of key votes that have high relevance for this civ relative to other civs.

Border Control Treaty – Effect A (New districts built by this player act as culture bombs) on yourself

Mbanzas can be built in large quantities to push back rival borders, or just acquire some bonus land.

Espionage Pact – Effect B (The chosen Spy operation is unavailable) on Great Work Heist or Recruit Partisans

Kongo’s high generation of Great Artists and Musicians makes them vulnerable to Great Work Heists, while Mbanzas are vulnerable to the Recruit Partisans mission. As Great Work Heists often have a low chance of success, Recruit Partisans may be a better choice to target unless you have some spare Apostles with the Heathen Conversion promotion.

Heritage Organisation – Effect A (Tourism from Great Works of this type is doubled) on relics if you have a lot of them, or otherwise artefacts or Great Works of Art

Ultimately the best tourism yield will depend on whichever Great Work type is generating you the most tourism. It is possible to stack the +100% religious tourism bonus of St. Basil’s Cathedral, the effect of Cristo Redentor (prevents religious tourism being reduced in effect by other civs having The Enlightenment civic) and this bonus to make relics worth a massive 24 tourism each, and that’s even without the Reliquaries follower belief.

Migration Treaty – Effect A (+20% faster population growth but -5 loyalty per turn in this player’s cities) on yourself

Allows you to fill your housing capacity sooner.

Nobel Prize in Literature – Vote in favour unless your faith generation is particularly poor and you have enough votes to block the competition altogether

Kongo’s bonus to Great Artist and Musician Points means you can usually win this competition, but the reward – cheaper and more effective Rock Bands – will only be helpful if you can track down a decent source of faith.

Nobel Prize in Physics – Vote in favour.

Kongo’s extra Great Merchant Points makes this easier to win.

Patronage – Effect A (Earn double points towards Great People of this class) on Great Merchants

While Kongo has bonuses to producing Great Artists and Musicians as well, you’ll frequently run out of Great Work slots for them. Great Merchants, however, have no such restriction so you’ll be fine to generate as many as possible.

Urban Development Treaty – Effect A (+100% production towards buildings in this district) on Commercial Hubs or Theatre Squares

Aside from Markets (for the extra trade route capacity), Theatre Square buildings are usually more relevant for Kongo, so unless you have them mostly developed already, you should usually vote for Theatre Squares.

World Religion – Effect A (+10 strength for all religious units of this faith) on a religion you want to spread to your lands, or a rival to a religion that’s dominated your lands. Alternatively, Effect B (All players may condemn units of the chosen religion, and doing so grants 25 diplomatic favor) on a religion you want to clear from your lands.

Kongo can strategically use the World Religion resolution to push around religion within your own borders. Giving a strength advantage to a weaker religion can help them spread their faith to your lands, allowing you to secure Apostles of that religion for future religious expansion. Alternatively, you can make a rival religion stronger to give yourself a disadvantage at theological combat, allowing you to kill Martyr-promoted Apostles for relics faster.

World’s Fair – Always vote in favour

Kongo’s overall Great Person Points output is among the best in the game, making this an easy scored competition to win.

Administration – Pantheons, Religion and City-States

Kongo isn’t barred from founding a pantheon, unlike religions.

City Patron Goddess – Helps you to get your first district in a city up sooner – such as a Commercial Hub or Theatre Square.

Earth Goddess – Because Kongo can’t build Holy Sites, you’ll need alternative sources of faith if you want to acquire Naturalists and/or Rock Bands later in the game. This pantheon is perhaps the most reliable source of faith, though depending on your starting situation others may be stronger.

Fertility Rites – Speeds up city growth slightly allowing you to fill up your huge Mbanza-boosted housing capacity later on.

Fire Goddess – A situational alternative source of faith.

God of Craftsmen – An alternative source of faith, but a bit of a gamble as most strategic resources won’t be uncovered until later in the game.

God of the Forge – This pantheon makes Ngao Mbeba units more affordable to train, covering their downside and therefore making early rushes more effective.

Religious Idols – Another situational alternative source of faith.

Stone Circles – Yet another situational alternative source of faith.

You can’t pick these up directly as Kongo – try to encourage the spread of a religion with a good combination of these instead. A religion can have one founder, one enhancer, one follower and one worship belief, though Kongo cannot use the last of those.

Cross-Cultural Dialogue (Founder) – A potentially very powerful belief to Kongo to have, helping you get to crucial technologies like Radio and Computers sooner.

Crusade (Enhancer) – It’s very tempting to go on the warpath with this bonus. If you destroy the civ that founded the religion with Crusade, there’s no chance they’ll end up with a religious victory. Meanwhile, Mbanzas and Theatre Squares will give you plenty of Apostles to keep that religion strong enough.

Defender of the Faith (Enhancer) – A powerful defensive bonus which should keep warmongers away.

Jesuit Education (Follower) – Weaker for Kongo than many because of the lack of faith generation, but being able to get Theatre Squares filled out sooner is still good.

Pilgrimage (Founder) – A potentially very effective faith bonus that can really make up for your inability to build Holy Sites.

Reliquaries (Follower) – Makes your relics produce triple the faith and tourism!

Sacred Places (Founder) – An array of yields for constructing wonders, something that large, productive cities are great at.

Stewardship (Founder) – More science is always good to have around, even if it’s relatively little.

Tithe (Founder) – While the founder of the religion does all the hard work spreading the faith, you get lots of gold!

World Church (Founder) – Enjoy rushing through civics even faster. The stronger the religion is, the sooner you can get to the nice end-game tourism-boosting civics.

Zen Meditation (Follower) – Amenities will help support large cities.

Akkad (Militaristic) – Makes Ngao Mbeba units into an effective early-rushing force, which can slip through foliage and siege down cities without Battering Rams slowing them down. Especially effective with a classical-era Great General.

Anshan (Scientific) – All those relics and artefacts you’ve been collecting will now add science on top. As with the extra yields from the Kongolese civ ability, the science bonus on artefacts will be doubled in themed museums.

Antananarivo (Cultural) – Spamming Great Artists, Musicians and Merchants will help your civic accumulation in more ways than simply providing Great Work culture.

Armagh (Religious) – Not the highest-priority city-state, but you won’t need to be suzerain over it for long. It lets you build Monastaries, a tile improvement which in addition to providing faith, importantly allows religious units to heal. Normally, you need a Holy Site for that. If you want to convert cities using your Apostles via theological combat, that will help considerably!

Bologna (Scientific) – Bologna gives you +1.5 Artist and Musician Points for every Theatre Square you have thanks to the Kongolese civ ability, as well as +1.5 Great Merchant Points for every Commercial Hub. With a lot of cities, that can really pile up.

Buenos Aires (Industrial) – More amenities means you can handle bigger cities.

Brussels (Industrial) – Big cities are very good at wonder construction.

Chinguetti (Religious) – Can be an alternative source of faith if you have plenty of trade routes and a majority religion.

Kandy (Religious) – An extra source of relics, but don’t go overboard trying to win their favour. The envoy bonuses – extra faith for Holy Site buildings – is useless to you.

Mitla (Scientific) – Faster city growth means you can make more of Mbanzas sooner.

Muscat (Trade) – An ideal city-state for Kongo. If the benefits of internal trading weren’t enough already, Kongo’s 50% bonus to Great Merchant points will really push you to build lots of Commercial Hubs. Now, they provide amenities to help support your growing Mbanza cities.

Yerevan (Religious) – Just give all your new Apostles the Martyr promotion until you run out of relic slots, then you can give them Heathen Conversion to counter other civs targeting you with the Recruit Partisans mission.

Zanzibar (Trade) – A powerful source of amenities to help you support your cities.

Administration – Wonders

You’ll notice rather a lot of wonders are listed here. Keep in mind that’s because they all have distinct synergy with Kongolose uniques, not necessarily because they should be your top priorities to build. It’s perfectly feasible to win a Kongolese game without building any wonders, but these will certainly help. Generally speaking, wonders notable for offering Great Artist, Musician or Merchant Points, or those with indirect synergy (such as amenities, growth and Builder bonuses) are of a lower priority than those with more direct synergy with Kongolese uniques such as Mont St. Michel.

Hanging Gardens (Ancient era, Irrigation technology) – Faster city growth means you can get the full potential of Mbanzas sooner, while the housing means you can end up with a ridiculously strong city by the time other civs get Neighbourhoods. It might be a good target for capture in a Ngao Mbeba/Oligarchy rush if you don’t want to risk building it directly.

Oracle (Ancient era, Mysticism civic) – A good source of early Great Merchant and Writer points, and makes your limited faith stretch further when used for Great Person patronage.

Temple of Artemis (Ancient era, Archery technology) – Helps you grow a large city, helping you with the Civil Service inspiration, and also can potentially offer a lot of amenities to support a growing Mbanza-boosted city later on.

Pyramids (Ancient era, Masonry technology) – Another wonder that’s good to capture rather than build. Giving Builders more charges will let them keep up with your fast-growing cities.

Apadana (Classical era, Political Philosophy civic) – This wonder offers two Great Work slots of any type – which means you can hold two more relics than before. Furthermore, you receive two envoys for every wonder you construct in the city. Extra Relics means more production to help build those wonders, and Mbanzas will help your cities become large and productive to build the wonders even more effectively. Certainly a strong wonder to go for.

Colosseum (Classical era, Games and Recreation civic) – A powerful source of amenities which will help support your fast-growing Mbanza cities.

Terracotta Army (Classical era, Construction technology) – Arriving around a time you have a Ngao Mbeba force built up is rather good seeing as you can get a lot out of the free promotions. But the real bonus comes much later in the game – your Archaeologists can enter other civs’ land without an open borders agreement. That makes getting artefact theming bonuses much easier to obtain.

Jebel Barkal (Classical era, Iron Working technology) – A reasonable source of faith for a civ that can often struggle to generate it, but generally a wonder to capture rather than to build.

Huey Teocalli (Medieval era, Military Tactics technology) – A reasonable source of amenities for a large city near a lake.

Mont St. Michel (Medieval era, Divine Right civic) – All Apostles can make relics now, and you get 2 extra relic slots. A rather powerful wonder for Kongo, especially in conjunction with Cristo Redentor and/or St. Basil’s Cathedral.

University of Sankore (Medieval era, Education technology) – Kongo’s incentive to build lots of Commercial Hubs can lead to a good trade route capacity. Trading to your University of Sankore city is a great extra source of science, but also offers an alternative source of faith.

Forbidden City (Renaissance era, Printing technology) – Only Wildcard slots can hold the policy cards offering bonuses to Great Person output, including Great Artists, Musicians and Merchants.

Great Zimbabwe (Renaissance era, Banking technology) – Gain +3 Great Merchant points! On top of that, you’ll get lots of gold from even domestic trade routes from the city, and one extra trade route.

St. Basil’s Cathedral (Renaissance era, Reformed Church civic) – Has three relic slots, and increases religious tourism (including from relics) by 100% in the city. It’s a good idea to build it in your capital if possible due to the large number of potential relic slots it has.

Big Ben (Industrial era, Economics technology) – Save up some Mbanza cash and prepare to become even richer with a 50% boost to your current treasury. Also enjoy +4.5 Great Merchant Points a turn. Most importantly, though, this wonder offers an economic policy slot, meaning you can take lots of late-game tourism bonuses without having to fill all your wildcard slots.

Bolshoi Theatre (Industrial era, Opera and Ballet civic) – A couple of Great Work slots and +3 Great Musician points thanks to Kongo’s civ ability.

Hermitage (Industrial era, Natural History civic) – +4.5 Great Artist Points is very nice, but more importantly there’s four Great Art slots on offer. This frees up some room for more Archaeological Museums to house artefacts.

Ruhr Valley (Industrial era, Industrialisation technology) – A big city is a productive one, especially if it’s your capital and the Palace is stuffed full of relics. The production bonus Ruhr Valley offers will help you build strong future wonders like Cristo Redentor.

Broadway (Modern era, Mass Media civic) – Like Bolshoi Theatre, but even better.

Cristo Redentor (Modern era, Mass Media civic) – There’s two very useful effects here. Firstly, relic tourism is up to full effectiveness again, which is nice if you’ve managed to fill your Palace with them. Secondly, you’ll make even more out of all those breathtaking coastal tiles you’ve dedicated to Seaside Resorts, as they’ll produce twice the normal amount of tourism.

Biosphère (Atomic era, Synthetic Materials technology) – The tourism bonus is obviously useful for a cultural civ, but Kongo in particular can benefit from the appeal bonus to rainforest, which cancels out their usual appeal penalty. This means any Mbanzas you built on rainforest will no longer be a source of negative appeal, which could open up a few more spots for seaside resorts and National Parks.

Estádio do Maracanã (Atomic era, Professional Sports civic) – Much like the Colosseum, it’s a good source of amenities so you can support your large cities.

Sydney Opera House (Atomic era, Cultural Heritage civic) – Gain a massive +7.5 Great Musician Points per turn. Keep in mind this wonder arrives very late, so it may mostly be useful for the Great Work slots and the faith it’ll generate once all Great Musicians are exhausted.

Administration – Great People

Great Generals and Admirals are only mentioned if their retirement bonuses have specific synergy with the civ; not merely for providing a strength bonus to a unique unit.

Due to the nature of Mvemba a Nzinga’s leader ability, you cannot use the Great Scientist Hildegard of Bingen’s bonus and as such you should choose to pass if you have the option to recruit her.

Donatello (Great Artist) – Provides three Great Works of Sculpture. Or, in other words, +6 food, +6 production, +9 culture, +9 tourism and +12 gold.

Giovanni de Medici (Great Merchant) – Instant construction of a Market and a Bank helps you deal with an undeveloped Commercial Hub you might have only built for the trade route and initial Great Merchant Points. More importantly, this Great Merchant is one of the few sources of Relic slots available for Kongo.

Jeanne D’arc (Great General) – Creates a relic when retired.

Michelangelo (Great Artist) – Provides two Great Works of Sculpture. Or, in other words, +4 food, +4 production, +6 culture, +6 tourism and +8 gold.

John Spilsbury (Great Merchant) – Provides amenities – Kongo’s huge cities will need a lot of them.

Joseph Paxton (Great Engineer) – Squeeze more amenities out of a single Entertainment Complex.

Shah Jahān (Great Engineer) – Allows you to essentially buy a wonder for twice its construction cost in gold – excellent considering Kongo’s high gold output and the high number of useful wonders for Kongo. If you have the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus wonder, you can do this twice!

Sarah Breedlove (Great Merchant) – A very important Great Merchant, offering a 25% tourism boost to any civ you have a trade route with. This nicely ties together Kongo’s cultural victory advantages with the bonus Great Merchant points.

Edmonia Lewis (Great Artist) – Provides 3 Great Works of Sculpture. This is the earliest point you can get Sculpture theming bonuses; a themed Art Museum provides 12 food, 12 production, 18 culture, 18 tourism and 24 gold!

Helena Rubenstein (Great Merchant) – A source of amenities.

Jane Drew (Great Engineer) – Another source of amenities.

John Roebling (Great Engineer) – Yet another source of amenities.

Levi Strauss (Great Merchant) – Yep, still providing amenities.

Marie-Anne Collot (Great Artist) – The last of the Great Artists offering Great Works of Sculpture.

Mary Leakey (Great Scientist) – A very important Great Person to go for, Mary Leakey offers a strong one-off boost to science and a considerable increase to tourism from artefacts.

Melitta Bentz (Great Merchant) – Another very important Great Person, Melitta Bentz offers a 25% tourism boost to civs you have a trade route with, and gives +1 trade route capacity on top.

Estée Lauder (Great Merchant) – More amenities.

Jamseth Tata (Great Merchant) – All Campuses provide +10 tourism, helping your strong Great Merchant generation turn into a nice end-game tourism advantage.

Kenzo Tange (Great Engineer) – A huge Kongolese city with a lot of speciality districts could produce an effective tourism output from this Great Person.

Masaru Ibuka (Great Merchant) – All Industrial Zones provide +10 tourism.

Counter-Strategies

Kongo might not be a threat to win religious victory, but they’re certainly a huge threat for cultural victories and have decent early-rushing potential.

Kongo’s yield bonuses to relics, sculptures and artefacts take quite some time to come into effect, giving you time to react.

• Kongo will mostly be receiving relics from Apostles with the Martyr promotion. If you’re not after a religious victory or desperately trying to prevent another civ gaining it, avoid killing them using theological combat – instead, consider starting a war and condemning the units instead.
• Kongo’s relics are also limited by the number of possible relic slots in the game. Building the Apanada, Mont St. Michel or St. Basil’s Cathedral wonders for yourself denies Kongo potential relic slots, as does securing the Great Merchant Giovanni de’ Medici.
• Only four Great People offer Great Works of Sculpture; if one comes up and Kongo appears to be leading in the race, consider using patronage or the Theatre Square Performances project to grab them before they can.
• Make sure your Antiquity Sites – and if possible, those in neutral lands – are protected from Kongolese Archaeologists (place military or civilian units over them) so Kongo can’t get artefacts out of them.

Kongo’s 50% bonus to Great Artist, Musician and Merchant points can make them a significant threat in the race for many Great People, but this is heavily dependent on their access to Theatre Squares and Commercial Hubs. If those are pillaged, or Kongo is incentivised to build other districts instead (such as Encampments due to a threat of war) the bonus will be considerably reduced in effectiveness. Light cavalry will be useful here (incidentally, Horsemen are decent counters for Ngao Mbeba units as well).

If you don’t want to go to war, patronage can be a good way of grabbing Great Artists, Musicians and Merchants before Kongo can manage it. Kongo gets no direct reduction to patronage cost, and before Mbanzas become commonplace, won’t be particularly rich.

Even if Kongo generates plenty of Great Artists and Musicians, they won’t do much good if they have nowhere to store those Great Works. The fewer cities Kongo can settle, the more of a problem this is likely to be for them. Alternatively, Kongolese cities can be a great target for your Spies via the Great Work Heist mission.

If you’re a religious player bordering Kongo, well done! You’ve just secured yourself an easy conversion. If you’re worried about Kongo exploiting your founder and enhancer bonuses, try taking beliefs like Holy Order, Itinerant Preachers, Monastic Isolation or Scripture, all of which are pretty much useless to Kongo.

If someone else has managed to spread the faith to Kongo first, and Kongo’s getting lots of Apostles from spamming Mbanzas and Theatre Squares, a simple solution is to start a war and condemn all those Apostles. Every condemned Apostle reduces the number of followers of its religion in nearby cities, and condemned Apostles (unlike those killed in theological combat) do not produce relics.

A computer-controlled Mvemba a Nzinga likes civs that have founded a religion and have spread it to them, and dislikes civs which have founded a religion but have failed to sufficiently spread it to Kongo. He cannot have the Devout hidden agenda as his inability to build Holy Sites makes generating faith difficult, and cannot have the Intolerant hidden agenda as it conflicts with his main agenda.

This is not a hard agenda to deal with on the whole. If you haven’t founded a religion, there’s no problem here, although you won’t get a relations bonus either. If you’re after a religious victory, you should spread your religion to Kongo anyway. The only problem emerges if you’ve founded a religion but aren’t after religious victory – try to convert Kongo before their Apostle spam gets too overwhelming if you want to secure an alliance from them.

The obvious step is not to use ranged units or Spearmen against them due to their bonuses against both. Instead, try using Horsemen. They have enough strength to stand up to Ngao Mbebas, are fast enough to deal with their fast speed through woods and rainforests, and crucially are cheaper to train. The lower cost should give you an advantage in a war of attrition.

If you don’t have access to Horsemen, regular Swordsmen are more cost-effective than Ngao Mbeba units though are weaker and require more iron. If they’re not an option, either, then promoted Heavy Chariots can work reasonably effectively.

The problem with having multiple yields on a single tile (housing, food and gold in this case) is that the civ that has that can become rather dependent on it. A few pillaged Mbanzas can suddenly mean Kongo has to deal with a housing shortage, starvation and economic ruin all in one.

If you’ve taken a city off Kongo and it’s likely to fall into their possession again, set it to produce a unit or a project and chop down all the nearby woods and rainforests you can. This will leave Kongo with a considerably weaker city than would otherwise be the case, while giving you something useful for your trouble.

If combat isn’t an option, there’s another way to hit Kongo – use Spies to initiate the Recruit Partisans mission against them. This will cause Barbarians to appear in Kongolese territory, which could result in a lot of their tiles being pillaged! Just be careful Kongo doesn’t have Apostles with the Heathen Conversion promotion at the ready if you want to take this course of action or else it could backfire and provide Kongo with a free army.

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