Kongo - Africa or America?

[GinjaNinja1997]

Hey guys. Just started a new save as the Kongo, as despite being wise in the ways of CK II I still suck and don't understand this game =P Anyway, I prefer the more unique and interesting cultures or religions, so when I saw a Shamanist nation outside of Alaska I felt I had to go with it.

Its 1494 now, and I've annexed my two starting vassals, Ndongo and Loango. I've also colonised Luanda and am joint colonising St. Helena and Benguela. However, I now have 3 options infront of me, and I don't know which to choose. (http://postimg.org/image/h5l792g59/)

Here's my ideas:

I can't colonise any further south by land, as its wasteland until I hit a small little space, more wasteland, but then South Africa itself. Taking all that would be nice, and then I could push up and colonise the East coast, but Kilwa is there, and they are much bigger than me already. I'm not sure if I could hold them off. If I did though, I would probably then be unapposed, and could colonise Madagascar and maybe even push up to Somalia. (http://postimg.org/image/xq6bhrh8b/)

I could colonise upwards and gain more land in my main trade node, but this would give me a border with the West Africans, and from the wars they've been having, they seem quite eager to fight. Plus, I'm the only Shaminist among them, and they don't exactly like me... To make matters worse, I've discovered than Portugal is over there, and has already eaten half of Mali, so I don't want to be anywhere near them for awhile. On the other hand, maybe it would be best for me to colonise the lands before they do, seen as we're likely to get a border eventually? (http://postimg.org/image/r29pv5xq3/)

My final idea is to wait to get to the Americas. Castille is taking East Brazil, but my plan is to take the Southern Argentina area, so that we won't come into conflict. However, I'm still tribal myself, and my techs suck, so I don't know if I should build myself up before I create a colonial nation. I also really like the idea of a backwater Shaman nation sailing across the waves and potentially founding a hugelly successful and powerful nation. Plus, it'd be a sense of pride to be the first and probably only African coloniser of the new world, spreading a religion other than Catholicism or Protestantism, and I'd like to see if the nation would get a unique name or anything, though I doubt it would. (http://postimg.org/image/mh0m14itn/)

Any ideas would be appreciated!

 

[Mikalos]

Go south and up.

Also convert to Catholic

 

[AurochsAway]

If you create a CN, they get your tech group. Making a CN before westernising and it will simply be eaten by Europeans.

 

[generalolaf]

Your first priority should be going north. There's more land and Kongo has a unique event to convert to Catholicism, so actually, you probably want to border Portugal.

 

[bbqftw]

you'll probably have an easier time if you take over sunni-land and convert to sunni to be honest.

That -2% missionary strength is pretty rough otherwise.

 

[Schiltrus]

take over south africa, sao tome and saint helene before the grubby portuguese do.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

you'll probably have an easier time if you take over sunni-land and convert to sunni to be honest.

That -2% missionary strength is pretty rough otherwise.

Yeah. I went Catholic way back when I did the achievement but back then counter-ref still counted towards heathen and all of sub-Saharan was 1 culture group. At this point the event flipping monarch + Christianity isn't as useful anymore, because if you do that you'll be stuck being unable to convert anything unless you take religious, but you want exploration first and even if you DO get the Catholic event fast enough, you're still talking holding onto massed Sunni conquest while westernizing before taking religious 2nd, which IMO isn't optimal compared to economic or expansion (I usually pick economic in Africa and gank the guys with gold). Economic gives you the ability to reform the government anyway, but if you want expansion then you're again stuck religiously.

Things are a lot smoother when you can easily sit on 100% unity without idea investment, and the most reliable way to pull that off is to just go Sunni.

 

[Mgoblue201]

What's the best strategy for beginning colonization? Should I get a colony near the other western African nations? Go south to the Cape? Colonize Fernando Po, since it doesn't have any terrain-related penalties? Or maybe colonize the farthest possible province, which is Karou? That last one seems impractical, because from what I've noticed it's no longer possible to start a colony right next to Portugal or Castile north of Mali. I was leaning toward colonizing Fernando Po and then fabricating a claim of Benin.

 

[Squirrelloid]

I day-0 no-CB declared on Benin, pushed my soldiers over my forcelimit after saving a little cash (vassals won't follow you into unsettled territory, even if you click 'attach to unit'), and bludgeoned my way through the very nasty unsettled land. Benin wastes its manpower trying to go through the unsettled area to get to you, so you can fully siege them and make them your vassal pretty easily. The only hard part is getting to them.

 

[Aries666]

I went north, took exploration then religious. I annexed all the animists and vassalised 5 of the nearest sunnis then westernised. Whilst preparing/doing westernisation I went south. There is an element of luck/timing to a Kongo game you need to get sufficiently large quick so Portugal doesn't gank you but not so large and multi ethnic/religious that westernising becomes a pain.