Kongolese (Civ6)

The Kongolese people represent a civilization in Civilization VI. They are led by Mvemba a Nzinga, under whom their default colors are yellow and red; and by Nzinga Mbande, under whom their default colors are light green and brown.
The Kongolese civilization ability is Nkisi, which gives them +2 , +2 , +1 , and +4 from each Relic, Artifact, and Sculpture (and Heroic Relics), increases the , , and points they earn, and allows their Palace to hold five Great Works. Their unique unit is the Ngao Mbeba (which replaces the Swordsman), and their unique is the Mbanza (which replaces the Neighborhood).
== Strategy ==
Starting bias: Tier 2 towards Woods and Rainforests
Kongo offers a distinctive take on the pursuit of Culture Victory under either of their leaders, as one is made to go tall in a game where the meta is to go wide, and the other latches onto religion without being able to form one. Either way, Kongo is able to quickly attract an endless wave of to their bustling jungle empire, and any contender on the cultural track should think twice when Kongo is present.
=== Nkisi ===
==== Additional yields for Relics, Artifacts and Sculptures ====
Compared to Artifacts and Sculptures, Relics are available a lot earlier, meaning if Kongo gets a few Relics early, their extra , , and can be completely game-changing. However, since the two Kongolese leaders are drastically different from each other in terms of how they obtain Relics, strategies regarding Relics will be mentioned in their respective sections. 
The Kongolese are clearly inclined toward a Culture Victory, and the huge bonuses they get for archaeological Artifacts make Archaeological Museums mandatory in every city - a fully stocked (even un-themed) Museum provides its city +6 , +6 , +3 , and +12 each turn. Add in the bonus and , and suddenly your Museums start looking more like places to house your cities, rather than the other way around. One thing that is helpful is to build the Terracotta Army early so that your Archaeologists can plunder Artifacts from the lands of other civs with impunity.
The bonus to points is another good reason to build your Theater Square districts, as you should have no trouble filling up your Broadcast Centers. Great Artists are a problem - you might build the Hermitage just to have someplace to stick their paintings, but for the reasons described earlier, the opportunity cost of building an Art Museum is just too high. You should only build Art Museums when you earn a that make Sculptures, which is great in that case since the bonus will kick in earlier compared to Archaeological Museums. There are currently only 5 s that can create Sculptures:
* Michelangelo (Renaissance - 2 Sculptures)
* Donatello (Renaissance - 3 Sculptures)
* Edmonia Lewis (Atomic - 3 Sculptures)
* Marie-Anne Collot (Atomic - 3 Sculptures)
* Boris Orlovsky (Information - 3 Sculptures)
The Kongolese can push their advantage in being able to make 3 different types of Great People faster by building the Oracle and effectively gaining 3 Great Person points instead of 2 points per Theater Square and Commercial Hub district. If Antananarivo is on the map, becoming its Suzerain will provide an additional 2% per Great Person earned. Having both can snowball Kongo into an unstoppable civics tree lead. 
In the expansions, you should build the Government Plaza and the National History Museum in your so you can leverage Reyna's (or Pingala's) Curator title - if you have an Amphitheater, an Art Museum, and a Broadcast Center with all their slots filled, you'll double the output of 15 Great Works. With the extra slots of the Palace, Kongo should focus on having as many Great Work slots in the as possible, to maximize the benefits gained from the Curator title.
==== Extra Great Artist, Great Musician and Great Merchant points ====
This is a powerful and direct bonus towards a cultural victory. Your job is to expand your empire to a reasonable number of cities, and then build Theater Squares in all of them. Although Kongo receives no extra points, the sheer number of Amphitheaters will end up generating more s than the number of slots you have anyway. Also, since you start generating s and s way before other civilizations, this will give you a headstart in both races, and the extra slots in your Palace will help store these Great Works before their respective buildings get built. However, remember to move your Great Works out of the Palace to make space for Relics as soon as you can.
Building Commercial Hubs to amass s is crucial for any land-based civilization, especially ones with cultural inclination. Kongo, with their bonus points, has even more incentives to do that. Below are a few s that directly assist a cultural victory:
* Giovanni de' Medici: instantly builds a Bank with 2 slots for any Great Works (including Relics).
* Sarah Breedlove: 25% to other civilizations which you have a to.
* Melitta Bentz: +1 . 25% to other civilizations which you have a to.
* Jamsetji Tata: All Campuses provide 10 each. 
* Masaru Ibuka: All Industrial Zones provide 10 each. 
=== Religious Convert (Mvemba a Nzinga) ===
Mvemba a Nzinga has, by far, the worst leader ability in the game. Even though other leaders like Gandhi or Wilhelmina have weak or unreliable abilities, Mvemba's ability actively hurts the civilization he is leading by almost entirely locking it outside of not just the Religious game, but also powerful -based bonuses, in exchange for extremely minor and unreliable benefits. In other words, Kongo with no leader ability at all would be better than Kongo under Mvemba, and playing him is basically trying to mitigate the damage caused by his "ability".
==== Inability to construct Holy Sites and found a Religion ====
If the Kongolese "bonus" of not being able to build Holy Sites, but rather enjoying all the founder benefits of whatever religion they catch from other civs sounds like a perk, then you haven't played the Kongolese. The dominant problem faced by this civilization is that they are expected to shoot for a Culture Victory, but have some of the worst generation in the entire game, which has only ever gotten more important since the game's release. Being without the Holy Site, they only have access to their pretty bad bonus from Great Works, from Relics (which Mvemba cannot obtain reliably), from resources (notably and , which spawn in Rainforest), natural wonders, and from their pantheon - which itself will require to found. As such, every Naturalist and Rock Band is a gigantic investment, and forget doing anything else with . And so lies the challenge in playing Kongo effectively - you must rely almost exclusively on your Great Works in order to accrue .
==== Faith and Religion as Mvemba a Nzinga ====
While a huge bulk of Mvemba's bonus relies on having a Religion, yet he cannot found one himself, getting a Religion established in his kingdom is an issue, especially when your next door neighbors are not religious civilizations. Your goal is just to get one city in your empire to have a majority Religion, and then build a Theater Square or an Mbanza in that city to receive your Apostles, who will spread that Religion to the rest of your empire. In order to do that, settle a city at the fringe of your empire. You should select a location where that city will receive religious pressure from multiple nearby cities, preferably pressure from the same religion to quicken the conversion. To make it even faster, send s from this city to other religious cities. Later, when all Religions are founded, pick one that you find the most suitable for your empire and try to settle a city away from your empire near the founding civilization of that Religion. You can also try to establish a Cultural Alliance with that civilization to negate their Loyalty pressure on your new settlement. 
Generating is a perpetual conundrum. Kongo is a cultural civilization through and through, and is an increasingly important resource for this playstyle, considering Rock Bands and Naturalists. Some sources of Kongo can rely on are:
* -generating pantheons: Earth Goddess, Fire Goddess, God of Craftsmen, God of War, Initiation Rites, Religious Idols and Stone Circles. Among them, the best one for Kongo is Earth Goddess, since it can be coupled with the Preserve and the Grove for even more .
* Moksha's starting title, Bishop, grants 2 per district in the city. With the generous and , raising district caps as the Kongo is simple. Later, Citadel of God also grants every time you construct a building. However, Pingala should always be prioritized over Moksha.
* A few early wonders also generate , some of which are great for Kongo, with the most significant one being the Oracle. If you want to focus on generation, the best wonder of all is Jebel Barkal, although finding a spot to build this is hard considering the starting bias of Kongo. 
* A few religious beliefs are also great sources of , but this factor doesn't depend on you. Mvemba benefits from all beliefs of a Religion, not just the Follower Belief, so keep this in mind when choosing which Religion you want to proliferate within your empire. 
==== Obtaining Relics as Mvemba a Nzinga ====
The Kongolese get the same bonuses from religious Relics, but their lack of control over whether and how they obtain them makes this bonus harder to depend on. Should you be so lucky as to become Suzerain of Kandy early on, then you can fill your oversized Palace with Relics as your early Caravels explore the world and locate Natural Wonders, and make your a global powerhouse. (Do not count on this very ideal situation however, even on Huge maps, there are only 7 Natural Wonders, the chance of you discovering 5 of them early enough to have an impact on your game is astronomically small, not to mention it has to align with the probability of Kandy appearing in your game).
Your free Apostles can and should be used to steer your empire toward whatever religion is most beneficial - Reliquaries can have a huge impact on your , especially if you built the Mont St. Michel (and then have your Apostles pick fights like you were Montezuma) or are Suzerain of Yerevan (to always pick the Martyr ) so you can score those sweet, sweet Relics. Do not go overboard and convert all your cities to one religion; if you do, you will have zero counterplay for religious civilizations going for a Religious Victory. Always keep at least one or two cities with a different religion - preferably small cities that don't have both a Mbanza and a Theater Square yet - so you can spawn an Apostle later and convert your civilization away from the winning religion.
Also, the fact that Mvemba cannot build Temple poses another issue: where to store these Relics, since now the most reliably source of Relic slots has been cut off. Under the Mvemba, you can gain a maximum of 18 Relic slots from these following sources:
* 5 slots from Palace.
* 2 slots from the Bank built by Giovanni de' Medici.
* 2 slots from Apadana.
* 2 slots from Mont St. Michel. 
* 3 slots from St. Basil's Cathedral.
* 4 slots from National History Museum. 
Considering that the maximum Relics you can earn in a normal game is 24, under Mvemba, you are playing with a lower maximum, and that is even before taking into account Apadana is quite a competitive wonder to have, and you are not guaranteed to be able to patronize Giovanni de' Medici. 
Later, to counteract the effect of The Enlightenment civic, remember to build Cristo Redentor.
=== Queen of Ndongo and Mtamba (Nzinga Mbande) ===
Since Mvemba a Nzinga sets such a low bar for a leader, pretty much any other alternative will be better. In comes Nzinga Mbande, a leader who is great in her own right and goes incredibly well with Kongo's powerful civilization ability. 
==== Relics under Nzinga Mbande ====
Without even taking into account her ability, just the fact that she can build Holy Sites and establish a Religion on her own is incredibly meaningful as a leader of a cultural civilization. This also means that she can fully leverage the powerful Relic bonus of Kongo, especially when combined with the Reliquaries belief. Kongo still typically plays for Culture Victory rather than Religious Victory, so the only two beliefs you will need are Reliquaries and Holy Order. From that point onward, you play Kongo similarly to how you would play Relic Poland: also focus on getting Mont St. Michel, trying to gain the Suzerainty of Kandy and maybe Yerevan, and building St. Basil's Cathedral, and later Cristo Redentor. 
Due to a heavy emphasis on Relics and Artifacts, Anshan is a remarkably powerful city-state for Kongo, especially under Nzinga Mbande, thanks to her reliability. It provides 2 for every Great Work of Writing and 1 for every Relic and Artifact, which is highly synergistic with the Nkisi ability.
As mentioned above, Relics are incredibly powerful when coupled with Reliquaries and St. Basil's Cathedral. Each Relic grants 8 and 5 and go up to 24 and 15 with Reliquaries. St. Basil's Cathedral will add another 8 to any Relic present in its home city, resulting in 32 each. And if you are able to pass Heritage Organization in the World Congress, each Relic can grant a maximum of 40 , miles ahead of any other types of Great Works. However, due to their limited availability, scarcity, and The Enlightenment civic, if you are unable to secure Cristo Redentor, their power tapers off quite quickly. Another downside of Relics compared to Sculptures and Artifacts is that Relics can never be themed (unless you are playing Kristina), while the other two can be if they are stored appropriately in a Museum. It is worth noting when themed, the , , and bonuses are also doubled, even the bonus from Anshan will be doubled as well in a themed Museum. Furthermore, Relics are not affected by the Curator title, while Sculptures and Artifacts are.
==== Extra yields for cities on her home continent, including the Capital ====
Her ability is reminiscent of that of Lady Six Sky, but instead of a restrictive 6-tile area, the bonus applies to the entire continent, including the . While this is a simple and quite boring bonus, it does its job and can create a snowballing effect especially if Nzinga can start her Relic game early. While there is not much to say about this ability, as it is quite self-descriptive what a player needs to do to leverage this, remember, Civilization VI is not punishing towards unproductive satellite cities, so even when they receive a yield penalty, they are still contributing towards the advancement of the empire. This is worth noting for a number of reasons: 
* Luxury resources are distributed according to continents, so if you just stick to one continent only, you are limiting yourself up to 4 luxury resources in your empire. This is not really a big reason, since you can always trade for luxury resources, but sometimes it may be worth considering. 
* Sometimes luck is not on your side and inside your territory, you cannot find every strategic resource you need. Don't hesitate settling a city far away from your core empire just to secure a node of strategic resource. 
* You are a cultural empire, and it is vital that you can send s to every civilization to maximize the output. A satellite city on the other side of the map may be useful for this purpose. 
Different from Lady Six Sky, Nzinga Mbande does not have a Combat Strength bonus to help her units defend better on her continent, so you still have to pay extra attention if you spawn next to a warmonger. 
=== Mbanza ===
Thanks to the Mbanza, the Kongolese can start building populous, prosperous cities as early as the Medieval Era. They also don't need to worry about searching for high-Appeal tiles as civs with Neighborhoods do - any forested area is prime real estate for them.
Additionally, Mvemba a Nzinga's leader ability will cause an Apostle of the city's dominant religion (if present) to spawn when a Mbanza finishes construction. Take advantage of this to spread religions that are most beneficial as you grow your cities.
In Gathering Storm, using the Public Transport policy card allows you to gain additional yields from your Mbanzas, more so in breathtaking areas.
=== Ngao Mbeba ===
The Ngao Mbeba gives the Kongolese player great advantage in Woods or Rainforests because of its much greater maneuverability. Furthermore, this unit is more resistant against the bane of the melee units - Archers and the like - and in vanilla Civilization VI and Rise and Fall it may be built even when the civilization doesn't have access to . Its defensive advantages against ranged units allow it to stand toe-to-toe with Crossbowmen, and even reliably win one-on-one battles against them.
Use these advantages to expand your civilization while others are still struggling to overcome all the early game difficulties that Woods and Rainforests present. Ideally, you should target and conquer a nearby civilization also based around these features (Brazil, for example) to secure a strong start in the game. Scout surrounding areas well and if such a civilization exists, mass-produce Ngao Mbebas and attack!
=== Counter Strategy ===
==== Mvemba a Nzinga ====
Kongo under Mvemba a Nzinga has a very obvious and exploitable weakness: its inability to contest a Religious Victory. If you are playing as a religious civilization with Kongo in the game, then a potential opponent is basically eliminated. But if your plan is to win another way, then the best counter to Kongo is to keep up your Spy network. The most highly-promoted Spies can steal their boosted Great Works, but even worse for Kongo is Spies' ability to prey on the Mbanzas they build en masse. If you can get a few Spies with Guerilla Leader, they can wreak havoc upon Kongo with the Recruit Partisans mission.
==== Nzinga Mbande ====
Nzinga Mbande is easiest to destroy in the early game. Forward settling makes her leader bonus effectively non-existent; since Nzinga doesn't have a Combat Strength bonus to protect her home turf against invasions like Lady Six Sky, she'll either expand onto other continents (and take a 15% penalty to all yields) or be forced to remain small. If you meet her in the mid- to late game where she has already expanded, then treat her similar to Mvemba: run Recruit Partisans to spawn Barbarian units on Mbanzas, or Steal Great Works to make Nkisi less useful (though you can't use this mission to steal her Relics). Invade only if you have a very powerful army, as the 10% bonus applies to and allows her to train units a bit faster than normal. 
Also, the most common way to play Nzinga Mbande is to found a religion, build Mont St. Michel, and then spam Apostles. Remember not to engage Kongolese Apostles in theological combat, because that's exactly what they want - use your military units to condemn heretics instead. However, you may either need to declare war on her or have the World Religion resolution active in the World Congress to do that. Most of the time, Kongolese Apostles will use all but 1 of their spread charges before going on a suicide mission for Relics. When they do that, the Holy War Casus Belli can come in handy to reduce the caused.
== Civilopedia entry ==
== Cities ==
==Citizens==
Males 	Females	Modern males	Modern females
Alongi 	Bela 	Bahari 	Amandla
Din 	Dinanga	Chiamaka 	Chalondra
Elombe 	Kabanga	Davu 	Ebere
Lumingu 	Kayipu 	Faraji 	Efia
Lumumba 	Lola 	Gazali 	Haracha
Mani 	Makemba	Issay 	Ifrah
Matadi 	Makiadi	Jumo 	Kainda
Ngweji 	Mosantu	Mablevi 	Mandze
Tshilongo	Mwimpa 	Naeem 	Nailah
Yerodin 	Zola 	Rafiki 	Rahema
== Trivia ==
* The Kongolese civilization's symbol is a BaKongo mask, a style of mask that is popular in the Congo region.
* The Kongolese civilization ability is named after sacred objects inhabited by spirits in traditional Kongolese religion.
* The Kongolese are referred to as the "Empire of Kongo" on the loading screen, unlike every other civilization in the game.
==Soundtrack==
== Gallery ==
File:Ngao Mbeba screenshot (Civ6).jpg|The Ngao Mbeba, the Kongolese unique unit
File:Mbanza First Look video screenshot (Civ6).jpg|The Mbanza, the Kongolese unique district
File:Kongolese capital.JPG|Kongolese capital in Medieval Era
== Videos ==
thumb|center|300px|First Look: Kongo
== Related achievements ==
== See also ==
* Kongolese in other games
ru:Конго (Civ6)
Category:Kongolese