The Khmer UHV game is likely to be one of the closest-run things you'll ever play in DoC. Most UHV games have a least one condition that can be met with some breathing room, but in the Khmer UHV game you'll probably make each condition only at the last moment. It's a good thing that it's a short, focused game, because you'll be stressing from turn to turn wondering if you're still on track to win or if you've already lost because you forgot to hire that one specialist two turns ago.
In other words, this is a game for micro-managers.
UHV Conditions
1. Build 4 Ashrams and 4 Sanghas and the Wat Preah Pisnoluk by Turn 60.
2. Have your cities be an average size of 12 by Turn 90.
3. Have 8000 culture by Turn 90.
Opening Moves
Found Angkor at your starting location, and Panduranga on the jungle tile south-east of the Dye. (There may be more optimal building sites, but if there are, the benefit is likely only marginal. There's very little room in Indochina.) Spread Hinduism to Angkor with one of your starting missionaries, and Buddhism to Panduranga with the other. This is so both cities can start work on monasteries simultaneously. Run Culture at 100%.
As you are settling in, change your Civics to Despotism and Vassalage. You will need to whip almost every building into existence, and Vassalage will give you a happiness cushion.
Move your Galley north to contact Japan and Korea, and trade with one of them to gain Politics. Then set Science to 100% and research Civil Service, which you need for the Wat.
Finally, move your Elephants north-west to conquer Pagan; then move east to conquer the barbarian city of Hanoi, which will spawn on Turn 28. You may lose one Elephant in the battles, but that's an acceptable loss. With those conquests, you will have the four cities you need to build the monasteries.
Learn to Love the Whip
The priority will be building Ashrams and Sanghas to meet the first condition, but in order to meet the others conditions every city will need a Granary, a Harbor and a Baray, and every one of these should be whipped into existence when you're not building a monastery or a missionary. Yes, whip everything. In addition, Angkor will need a Theater and a Weaver; it is also where you will build the Wat Preah Pisnoluk. One of your cities will also have to build another Workboat.
Luck will play a huge role in how quickly and widely Hinduism and Buddhism spread to the other cities, but you are bound to have to build two or three missionaries in order to fully spread both religions to all four cities. These you can refrain from whipping, as you'd hardly want to whip them into existence only to find they're not necessary. But don't let them build too long, and whip them if some of your cities are running out of time to build their monasteries.
Khmer cities grow fast enough to support constant whipping because they exist in a rich countryside. Use your Workers down south (where Angkor, which is building more items, needs more support) on the Sugar and Ivory and to mine every available hill, then move them north to develop the Bananas by Pagan and Hanoi and to build more mines. Don't bother with roads, and save the Dye and Spice luxuries (and the Banana west of Angkor) until after you have captured the first condition and have moved on to building up population.
Pagan
This is the one city that is an exception to the above. In Pagan, build only the monasteries, then churn out Workers. Then, as soon as Turn 60 is past and you have captured the first condition, give Pagan away. (China and Tibet are the likely takers, but sometimes you have to find another sucker.) Why get rid of it? Because you only need cities of average size 12, and getting rid of Pagan means you only have to build 3 cities toward that population level, and you can concentrate your Workers on improving the landscape around Angkor, Panduranga, and Hanoi so as to turbo-charge their growth.
More importantly, Pagan can screw up your Culture UHV condition if you let it. The Shwedagon Paya is located there, and that Wonder is going to try generate a Great Prophet, which is the last thing you want. To meet the Culture condition you will need to generate two Great Artists, and if Pagan generates a Great Prophet you will not be able to get the second Great Artist in time.
Also, as Pagan builds, DO NOT LET IT HIRE A PRIEST. That will only speed it along the path toward generating a Great Prophet.
Collecting Culture and Population
After the frenzy of building to meet the first deadline, the rest of the game is a tick-tock of hitting the "End Turn" button as you wait for your populations to rise and your culture to collect.
After researching Civil Service, switch off science and push your Culture slider up to a point where your deficit will run out your treasury on or shortly after Turn 90. And as soon as you have built the Wat, change civics to Monasticism in order to speed up your Great Artist generation.
After each city has its monasteries, its Granary, its Harbor, and its Baray (and Angkor has its Theater and Weaver), stop whipping. In fact, you can stop building, unless you see a chance to quickly complete a Culture-producing building, and set each city to producing Culture.
Building Culture directly, though, won't get you even remotely close to 8000. For that, you need two Great Artists (each worth 2400) as culture bombs. As soon as you have built a Theater in Angkor, hire an artist, and once you've built a Weaver, hire a second artist. With the boost from Monasticism you should be able to get the second Great Artist just before the Turn 90 deadline.
A note on generating Great People: The Wat will pollute the Great Person points pool even as it speeds up Great Person generation in Angkor, but the odds are that you'll produce Great Artists. If you don't, you have a choice. Either reload for a new die roll, or rejigger your specialists so that the Great Person generates on a later turn with a new chance of generating the Great Artist.
Yes, this is bending the rules. I haven't experimented with generating Great Artists by building the Theater/Weaver combo in other cities (personally, I find this UHV game to be too stressful to be fun), and that might work. But with Redistribution in effect, Angkor is able to grow very quickly even with two specialists, and I'm not certain that the other cities can manage the same feat.
You can also experiment with switching civics to Monarchy (from Despotism) and Merchant Trade (from Redistribution) once you have the two artist specialists hired. I think that will make the deadline even tighter, as you'll miss a turn of growth and Angkor's growth will slow, but you will generate more culture and the garrisons will provide slightly more happiness. But if happiness looks to be a problem in your cities, build Arenas. With the Culture slider at 60% to 70%, you will have something like a two-to-one happiness ratio in your cities.
The plague is bound to hit at some point. There's no percentage in it for you, but if you see a chance to use the whip while a city is dying, use it. There's no point in letting citizens die uselessly if they're going to die anyway.
In other words, this is a game for micro-managers.
UHV Conditions
1. Build 4 Ashrams and 4 Sanghas and the Wat Preah Pisnoluk by Turn 60.
2. Have your cities be an average size of 12 by Turn 90.
3. Have 8000 culture by Turn 90.
Opening Moves
Found Angkor at your starting location, and Panduranga on the jungle tile south-east of the Dye. (There may be more optimal building sites, but if there are, the benefit is likely only marginal. There's very little room in Indochina.) Spread Hinduism to Angkor with one of your starting missionaries, and Buddhism to Panduranga with the other. This is so both cities can start work on monasteries simultaneously. Run Culture at 100%.
As you are settling in, change your Civics to Despotism and Vassalage. You will need to whip almost every building into existence, and Vassalage will give you a happiness cushion.
Move your Galley north to contact Japan and Korea, and trade with one of them to gain Politics. Then set Science to 100% and research Civil Service, which you need for the Wat.
Finally, move your Elephants north-west to conquer Pagan; then move east to conquer the barbarian city of Hanoi, which will spawn on Turn 28. You may lose one Elephant in the battles, but that's an acceptable loss. With those conquests, you will have the four cities you need to build the monasteries.
Learn to Love the Whip
The priority will be building Ashrams and Sanghas to meet the first condition, but in order to meet the others conditions every city will need a Granary, a Harbor and a Baray, and every one of these should be whipped into existence when you're not building a monastery or a missionary. Yes, whip everything. In addition, Angkor will need a Theater and a Weaver; it is also where you will build the Wat Preah Pisnoluk. One of your cities will also have to build another Workboat.
Luck will play a huge role in how quickly and widely Hinduism and Buddhism spread to the other cities, but you are bound to have to build two or three missionaries in order to fully spread both religions to all four cities. These you can refrain from whipping, as you'd hardly want to whip them into existence only to find they're not necessary. But don't let them build too long, and whip them if some of your cities are running out of time to build their monasteries.
Khmer cities grow fast enough to support constant whipping because they exist in a rich countryside. Use your Workers down south (where Angkor, which is building more items, needs more support) on the Sugar and Ivory and to mine every available hill, then move them north to develop the Bananas by Pagan and Hanoi and to build more mines. Don't bother with roads, and save the Dye and Spice luxuries (and the Banana west of Angkor) until after you have captured the first condition and have moved on to building up population.
Pagan
This is the one city that is an exception to the above. In Pagan, build only the monasteries, then churn out Workers. Then, as soon as Turn 60 is past and you have captured the first condition, give Pagan away. (China and Tibet are the likely takers, but sometimes you have to find another sucker.) Why get rid of it? Because you only need cities of average size 12, and getting rid of Pagan means you only have to build 3 cities toward that population level, and you can concentrate your Workers on improving the landscape around Angkor, Panduranga, and Hanoi so as to turbo-charge their growth.
More importantly, Pagan can screw up your Culture UHV condition if you let it. The Shwedagon Paya is located there, and that Wonder is going to try generate a Great Prophet, which is the last thing you want. To meet the Culture condition you will need to generate two Great Artists, and if Pagan generates a Great Prophet you will not be able to get the second Great Artist in time.
Also, as Pagan builds, DO NOT LET IT HIRE A PRIEST. That will only speed it along the path toward generating a Great Prophet.
Collecting Culture and Population
After the frenzy of building to meet the first deadline, the rest of the game is a tick-tock of hitting the "End Turn" button as you wait for your populations to rise and your culture to collect.
After researching Civil Service, switch off science and push your Culture slider up to a point where your deficit will run out your treasury on or shortly after Turn 90. And as soon as you have built the Wat, change civics to Monasticism in order to speed up your Great Artist generation.
After each city has its monasteries, its Granary, its Harbor, and its Baray (and Angkor has its Theater and Weaver), stop whipping. In fact, you can stop building, unless you see a chance to quickly complete a Culture-producing building, and set each city to producing Culture.
Building Culture directly, though, won't get you even remotely close to 8000. For that, you need two Great Artists (each worth 2400) as culture bombs. As soon as you have built a Theater in Angkor, hire an artist, and once you've built a Weaver, hire a second artist. With the boost from Monasticism you should be able to get the second Great Artist just before the Turn 90 deadline.
A note on generating Great People: The Wat will pollute the Great Person points pool even as it speeds up Great Person generation in Angkor, but the odds are that you'll produce Great Artists. If you don't, you have a choice. Either reload for a new die roll, or rejigger your specialists so that the Great Person generates on a later turn with a new chance of generating the Great Artist.
Yes, this is bending the rules. I haven't experimented with generating Great Artists by building the Theater/Weaver combo in other cities (personally, I find this UHV game to be too stressful to be fun), and that might work. But with Redistribution in effect, Angkor is able to grow very quickly even with two specialists, and I'm not certain that the other cities can manage the same feat.
You can also experiment with switching civics to Monarchy (from Despotism) and Merchant Trade (from Redistribution) once you have the two artist specialists hired. I think that will make the deadline even tighter, as you'll miss a turn of growth and Angkor's growth will slow, but you will generate more culture and the garrisons will provide slightly more happiness. But if happiness looks to be a problem in your cities, build Arenas. With the Culture slider at 60% to 70%, you will have something like a two-to-one happiness ratio in your cities.
The plague is bound to hit at some point. There's no percentage in it for you, but if you see a chance to use the whip while a city is dying, use it. There's no point in letting citizens die uselessly if they're going to die anyway.
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