So I am playing through Kongo in the new dlc and a few years after unifying the Congo Basin I recieved the event to go Catholic? I know consensus said Catholic Kongo was more fun before Origins, but what are your experiences with each path now?
Kongo in Origins: Fetishist or Catholic?
- Thread starter Lord Hoosier
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Well this is my experience of Kongo. If you convert to Catholicism it will be painful and it will cost you. Immediately you'll lose - 4 Stability and some Prestige. However Europeans might like you better because you're Christian. After you finish converting some of your provinces to Catholicism you'll be able to finish your first religious mission which grants you +2 Stability. Also if you convert you might lose some alliances but again it might pay of. Also from there you can choose your next direction. Like you can convert to Protestant or Reformed or stay Catholic. It's really up to you in the end.
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Either is fine. Catholic got buffed, but humanist fetish can get alliances fine and will never have religion problems in any province anywhere.
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well in my current congo i went festishest and it has proven to be quite fun not just from the missions (which set you up to own the continent) but being the only strong fetishest is a challenge, like a ardabil->zoroastrian persia run. you can still make allies, its just harder and more rewarding once you do.
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Well, Catholic was buffed a lot, and you can get a cardinal now, making you actually in the running for being papal controller. So catholic is probably stronger if going for some kind of religious playthrough.
With Humanist, staying fetishist is probably stronger. In case of globetrotting, fetishists also received a huge buff in that they can use eastern monuments now, when using the buddharma (or what's it called?) cult, making an actual religious run with them probably feasible. I'm waiting to see a fetishist one faith because of it.
With Humanist, staying fetishist is probably stronger. In case of globetrotting, fetishists also received a huge buff in that they can use eastern monuments now, when using the buddharma (or what's it called?) cult, making an actual religious run with them probably feasible. I'm waiting to see a fetishist one faith because of it.
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As catholic Kongo, you get a cardinal/bishop (not available normally to non-European Catholics) through your missions . Through the cardinal, you get the latest institutions for free and pretty much immediately with the correct golden bull. It saves you more than a thousand monarch points per institution and Fetishist doesn't come close.
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As a player who plays Catholic Kongo I fully agree. I completed missions were I got Cardinal and the one Catholic fortress in Africa. It's much more beneficial for Kongo to convert to Catholicism than to remain Fetishist.
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If you can guarantee the institution spread bull, that is.
Fetish Kongo can usually pick up institutions through alliances or conquest after the first two, and I don't think you get Catholicism fast enough to use it to spread the first two? Or maybe you do with their setup now?
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Once an institution spawns, the next ai pope will always pick the institution spread bull. And since popes are quite old when elected anyways, one doesn't need to wait long for a new pope. As far as i know, feudalism comes from missions but for the next you need to wait a while.
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In addition to the mechanical benefits, going Catholic also explains why so many of your kings and princes choose Portuguese names, so a plus for immersion.
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Historically, the king of the Kongo did convert and he and his successors took Portuguese names, so that's why Kongo's namelist has names like Garcia and João...but it's mildly irritating if you go Fetishist.
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I did a Kongo run and I remained fetishist, but more or less because I had conquered the whole of Kongo and the Mutapa and 3 lake area. I mean it is pretty ok now and with Waka our Lord of minus 2 Unrest and the minus one unrest from the heir you get ok buffs. But I think Catholic would be stronger, as you can get Pus wich is always strong. In my Askum game I got the trastamara house through Portugal and got Aragon in a free Pu being the largest of that house.
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I think Catholic is stronger, but went for Fetishist in my run. Has been a really fun run so far. And I'll have my Religious Ideas finished soon, so I get a good CB against all the Muslims and the Colonisers.
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Islamic Kongo is the best. You can't ally Catholic powers because they are angry at you. But the Ottomans make excellent allies. Plus most of your expansion path is towards muslims. Finally Islamic is still the strongest religion group.
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I just finished a Kongo run going for Hoarder and African Power (and laughing stock), and thus I stayed fetishist. It's the only time I played a fetishist country for a longer run, and I'm not sure if I will do that again.
Is fetishist per se interesting? Rather not. I also had to release nations in west Africa to get all the cults, somehow the last one didn't want to unlock for me otherwise. It also didn't feel particularly strong, but I barely ever had any uprisings ever, which is comes in handy when walking troops around your empire takes so long. The religious CB is quite handy, as there won't be too many other fetishist nations after some time.
There was a point in the mid-game when I had trouble to find good allies, but with some good ideas later on, I could get several might christians to help me out. Being christian would have helped there, as would having cardinals for the institutions.
As it is so easy to convert to almost any religion as Kongo, I wonder if it is a good target for a jewish playthrough as well - you just need to be fast enough to the Ethiopian highlands.
Is fetishist per se interesting? Rather not. I also had to release nations in west Africa to get all the cults, somehow the last one didn't want to unlock for me otherwise. It also didn't feel particularly strong, but I barely ever had any uprisings ever, which is comes in handy when walking troops around your empire takes so long. The religious CB is quite handy, as there won't be too many other fetishist nations after some time.
There was a point in the mid-game when I had trouble to find good allies, but with some good ideas later on, I could get several might christians to help me out. Being christian would have helped there, as would having cardinals for the institutions.
As it is so easy to convert to almost any religion as Kongo, I wonder if it is a good target for a jewish playthrough as well - you just need to be fast enough to the Ethiopian highlands.
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Don't they convert that almost instantly? You might get lucky with Ottomans flipping some provinces though, since they won't convert them.
Islam is a reasonable choice too, though that might not be a very exciting choice either. But giving Dhimmi stuff out alongside humanist will trivialize unity/unrest just like with Fetish, and you get more benefits (potential for DotF, province war score cost from monument, big tech cost reduction, same access to admin efficiency monument as Catholic, etc).
Fetishist for the early game is powerful for kongo with the +4 tolerance of the true faith from the singular cult and -1 unrest from heirs cult so you never see rebels, even separatist ones without raising autonomy. Shia is powerful as one can use holy war cb against everyone along with the usual islam benefits however the free institutions in africa is too good to pass up in my opinion. Becoming shia depends on your luck, one of the african sunni provinces, say in kilwa, may randomly convert. If you become sunni, how are you going to conquer arabia and the middle-east, with claims?
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Cardinal spreading institution is definitely nice. Note that you can also steal or buy maps and vassal or ally someone small in Europe, however. At high opinion/trust they will share institution into your capital state. Tech ~7 and a province in West Africa will probably do the job for colonial range even if you don't have exploration.
You can cheese this distance quite a bit if you win a war vs Portugal or especially against Spain. They don't have forts on all the islands, so you can use ticking score to take Sardinia and have colonial range to all of the small Italians. As long as you've expanded enough, the smaller ones should be willing to ally and you'll then get favors pretty quickly due to size difference. Too slow for feudalism or renaissance, but possible for colonialism and definitely for printing press.
An ally like this will also give you late game institutions like enlightenment (don't need to keep it whole time, you can build trust very fast as it approaches), though usually by then you're so large that just spreading to cap region isn't sufficient on its own. Every bit helps, though. Usually between sharing and making subject out of conquered land with 200+ dev and putting a university in its cap 1-2 times you can annex enough land for such things.
You can use claims + rivalry + influence (reducing burden of unjustified demands), or eventually imperialism.