[GS] A general strategy for Khmer

[megabearsfan]

While I get familiar with the new GS civs, I still want to write some strategy guides for legacy Civ VI civs in the interim. Last week, I put up a guide for Jayavarman VII of the Khmer. The full guide is at:
http://www.megabearsfan.net/post/20...-VI-strategy-Jayavarman-VII-of-the-Khmer.aspx
Feel free to check it out! I always welcome any feedback. This is one of the longer guides, as I actually found a lot to talk about with the Khmer.

In summary, the Khmer (under the rule of Jayavarman VII) can grow massive cities due to a combination of food, amenity, and housing bonuses. Holy Sites adjacent to rivers provide +2 food and a housing, Aqueducts provide an Amenity and +2 food to each adjacent farm. Governor promotions, policies, and other bonuses that apply per population (or to large cities) will be more potent with the Khmer and viable much earlier. You can also use your food bonuses to recoup your population after spamming settlers and building a sprawling empire.

On the surface, Khmer seems to be a powerful religious civ. Their Prasat unique building grants the Martyr promotion to newly-trained Missionaries (not to Apostles!), which is one of the best promotions a religious unit can get. This promotion grants a free relic if the Missionary is killed in theological combat (but not if the unit is condemned by a military unit!). The Prasat also has an extra relic slot in order to support these extra relics.

You can go for a Religious Victory (and the linked guide offers two suggestions for how to do so), but doing so might be hard since you'll want to suicide your Missionaries against rival Apostles and Inquisitors for the free relics. This means you'll have one less charge for conversions on every Missionary, and you'll be losing pressure every time you suicide a Missionary.

Khmer seem like a really great religious civ, but they are actually better as a Culture Victory contender. If you fail at your religious victory attempt, you'll still have received a ton of free relics, which will be providing you with faith and tourism, and giving you a massive head start in tourism generation. The Khmer are in a relatively unique position in which failing to achieve one victory type actually provides you with a massive boost in another victory type!

The linked guide also has some suggestions for playing against the Khmer, so I recommend checking it out for that as well.

Again, I welcome any feedback. What are your strategies for playing as (or against) the Khmer? Any good ideas that I missed? I don't play much multiplayer, so I'm always interested in hearing if there's any strategies unique to MP.

 

[MarigoldRan]

If only Domrey could be classified as cavalry instead of seige.

 

[megabearsfan]

If only Domrey could be classified as cavalry instead of seige.

I know! They are soooo expensive! Worth it though.
I'm honestly kind of surprised that there is no policy that grants a discount on siege units. But that's a topic for another day...

 

[m_mus]

I'd love the Khmer to be viable in MP - but they are not, to my experience, if you are only playing with human players. No one will dare to kill your religious units in theological combat and thus your strongest advantage and key for a religious or cultural victory goes away.

 

[Jaaboo]

One typo/copy-paste error, you have their start bias listed as tundra. I'm guessing that's a c/p artifact from the Canada guide.

Edit: I don't want to sound critical! I really enjoy your guides and love love love the Khmer so thank you!

 

[megabearsfan]

One typo/copy-paste error, you have their start bias listed as tundra. I'm guessing that's a c/p artifact from the Canada guide.

Thanks for catching that! I've corrected the start bias to "river". You hit the nail on the head. That was a copy-paste error from the Canada guide.

I'd love the Khmer to be viable in MP - but they are not, to my experience, if you are only playing with human players. No one will dare to kill your religious units in theological combat and thus your strongest advantage and key for a religious or cultural victory goes away.

Since I don't play much MP, I'm curious: how would you recommend dealing with Khmer's Missionary spam? You would just let them convert your cities? Declare war and condemn their units? I know religion is generally considered weak in MP, so very few players even bother building Holy Sites due to the opportunity cost of doing so. You wouldn't have much capacity for generating faith or spamming missionaries / inquisitors of your own, so converting cities back after Khmer has converted them doesn't seem like it would be easy to do. You'd be handing them a religious victory if you don't do something about their missionaries.

If condemning is the best course of action, then I guess a good strategy for Khmer in MP would be to declare a war on the target civ and try to make peace. In the meantime, buy a bunch of Missionaries and/or Apostles. Once peace is made, take advantage of the 10 turns of forced peace to run you Missionaries in and convert their cities. If they don't accept peace to begin with, then escort your missionaries with military units to stop them from being condemned.

 

[m_mus]

Since I don't play much MP, I'm curious: how would you recommend dealing with Khmer's Missionary spam? You would just let them convert your cities? Declare war and condemn their units? I know religion is generally considered weak in MP, so very few players even bother building Holy Sites due to the opportunity cost of doing so. You wouldn't have much capacity for generating faith or spamming missionaries / inquisitors of your own, so converting cities back after Khmer has converted them doesn't seem like it would be easy to do. You'd be handing them a religious victory if you don't do something about their missionaries.

If condemning is the best course of action, then I guess a good strategy for Khmer in MP would be to declare a war on the target civ and try to make peace. In the meantime, buy a bunch of Missionaries and/or Apostles. Once peace is made, take advantage of the 10 turns of forced peace to run you Missionaries in and convert their cities. If they don't accept peace to begin with, then escort your missionaries with military units to stop them from being condemned.

Well, I can only resort to one recent MP-experience, where I played the Maori and Mali attempted a swift religious victory. It is a rather casual game with friends and we all are trying to learn the ropes of playing multiplayer. Therefore, nobody really saw the danger of allying Mali all at the same time. Thus opponed a window of opportunity of ca. 30 turns, in which Malis missionaries and apostles swarmed across the map. Two of my fellow friends directly succumbed to 'Islam' - since they had not bothered going for any religion. I recruited some missionaries to counter his proselytizing, but he had buffed them via wonders and beliefs, which meant more charges, stronger in theological combat. Against these units and his outpout of faith, we stood no chance and could only hope to slow down his advance in direction of a RV, so that we'd survive the 30-turn-span, during which killing his units with military was no option. In the end, his RV was short of 2 cities still to be converted in my realm. At this point, all his alliances ended roughly at once, and everyone of us declared war on him. Not in order to conquer him, but in order to be able to kill his super-missionaries / apostles with military units. And this proved to be the way to go. Not only did his units die instantly, for the cost of having recruited 1-2 scouts per city, but they did not provide him any relics plus the influence of his religion sank in those cities nearby the killing-spot. Thus my capital reconverted to my religion without me actively re-prozelytizing it. It took me (and another friend) about ten turns to re-establish the status quo ante.
So. Transferring this to the Khmer.
If I'd play against the Khmer, I'd never ever enter an alliance with them in MP. If I would see their religious units approaching my realm, I'd declare war instantly. The only case I could imagine, where this option would come with its risks, is, when Khmer has a strong military by itself. But I find this rather unlikely, because if they would prepare a faith-economy in order to pump out enough missionaries / apostles, they would not be able to focus as much on military as would be necessary, in order to be able to pose a serious threat against a well-prepared defensive player. And if securing a RV means that one has to accompany one's religious units with military, one could directly go for a DV.
As is the case with the general prospect of a RV in MP, I find it unlikely to ever happen against an experienced player.
The only case I can imagine would be if your cities grow such an enormous religious pressure, that you slowly convert your opponents cities by that strategy. But that takes a long time. And yet, going down that road could prove to be effective at least in that sense, that you force your opponent to invest into counter-measures, like building some holy-places in order to generate enough faith so he can counter-convert his lost cities. Yet this strategy still makes no use at all of the Khmer's perk in regards to relics.
Thus, I am quite at a loss, how to pull of a RV as Khmer, or any victory at all, since your strongest advantage - better relics - will never be allowed to be made use of. Even worse, as a Khmer who has build some religious economy, no other reasonable player will ever enter an alliance with you, outcasting you from the beginning into isolation.

 

[megabearsfan]

If I'd play against the Khmer, I'd never ever enter an alliance with them in MP. If I would see their religious units approaching my realm, I'd declare war instantly.

More great MP feedback! Thanks! I've added notes to the guide about Khmer using alliances to prevent condemnation of their religious units.

 

[Bradypus]

I have had a single Khmer game in which I tried to utilize the missionary martyrdom. But I found it totally lackluster. It required me to not expend my last faith spread, to buy missionaries instead of apostles and to send my missionaries far away from cities that had my religion to die. Because when your missionaries die in theological combat, your religion can take a hit.

I think that it would be in its place for the Khmer to receive a relic also when missionaries are expended by using all their spreads.

 

[megabearsfan]

I have had a single Khmer game in which I tried to utilize the missionary martyrdom. But I found it totally lackluster. It required me to not expend my last faith spread, to buy missionaries instead of apostles and to send my missionaries far away from cities that had my religion to die. Because when your missionaries die in theological combat, your religion can take a hit.

Which is why I propose that it might be better for Khmer to go for culture victory instead of religious. Just accept that you're going to lose the theology battles and collect those sweet, sweet relics for their tourism.
However, you could use the Monastic Isolation enhancer belief to prevent loss of pressure from dying in theological combat.

I think that it would be in its place for the Khmer to receive a relic also when missionaries are expended by using all their spreads.

That might be a bit much. But then again, the number of relics that you can have is capped by the number of cities with Prasat buildings, so maybe it wouldn't be too OP. I could see Khmer using this ability to create a crazy relic economy. Just sell your relics when you get fill up all the slots, before you get the next one.