Civ Discussion - Khmer

[bengalryan9]

I debated about starting one of these threads since it's patch day and I wanted to see if anything was changed. Khmer *did* get a bit of a stealth buff as Kambu-Mera is now the strongest card of it's type in the game, but I don't think it drastically changes how they play so I'm going to go ahead and make the post.

The next civ on our list as we march through the antiquity age is the Khmer. The Khmer are a Scientific and Expansionist civilization with a Tropical and Floodplain starting bias, and their associated wonder is Angkor Wat. They unlock the Chola and Majapahit in the Exploration age, and Siam in the Modern Age.

Their unique ability is Ksekam Chamnon, which makes it so that districts on rivers do not remove the natural yield of the tile they are placed on.
Their unique military unit is the Yuthahathi, a chariot replacement with 5 extra CS and immunity to flood damage at the expense of slower movement.
Their unique civilian unit is the Vaishya, a trader that is immune to flood damage and that ignores movement penalties from wet terrain.
Their unique infrastructure is the Baray, which gives +3 food in general, +1 food on all floodplain tiles in the settlement, and protects the settlement from flood damage. You can only build one per settlement and it must be on flat terrain.

Their unique civics:
Mousong – unlocks the Baray and the Pithi Chrat tradition.
Amnach – unlocks Angkor Wat, the Varna tradition, and gives Yuthahathi +1 movement
Chakravarti – gives +50% growth in the capital but -5 happiness in all other cities, plus the Kambu-Mera tradition. At mastery it gives +3 codex slots in the palace.

Their unique traditions:
Pithi Chrat - +4 combat strength for units on floodplains
Varna - +1 gold from specialists
Kambu-Mera - +100% food and happiness towards maintaining specialists

What do we think about the Khmer? Likes? Dislikes? Experiences you’ve had with them? Leaders you recommend? Who do you look to transition to in future ages? Let’s discuss!

 

[bengalryan9]

The Khmer seem to be a bit of a punching bag around here and a lot of their kit is pretty underwhelming, but I dunno, I enjoyed my game as them and thought they brought some good stuff to the table. They are obviously designed as the "tall" civ, and if you get the right map I think they can play into that pretty well.

First of all, they are the first civ that we've discussed that really benefits from their associated wonder being unlocked early. Angkor Wat is very good and typically comes very late in the age... as the Khmer, it's almost a guaranteed wonder for you if you want it (and why wouldn't you?). That is a really strong part of their kit in and of itself IMO... one extra specialist all game long is nothing to sneeze at, and the Khmer should have the food and population growth to really take advantage of it, especially in their capital.

I like the Baray, especially now that they buffed it last patch to keep its effect throughout the whole game. Yuthahathi seem kind of meh... extra CS on mounted units is nice, and you can get around their slower movement with a commander, but they also essentially sacrifice one of your civics because Amnach's only non-wonder effect is to buff their movement so that they're comparable to other mounted units. Vaishya are pretty much nothing... I've never lost a single trader to floods and the extra movement is going to be all that impactful. I would say that two of their three traditions cards aren't great (CS on floodplains is going to be situational, and +1 gold on specialists doesn't feel all that impactful to me).

So they have a bunch of weak spots, but I also think they play better than they look because of the few strengths they do have. I expect others will disagree though.

I believe when I played as them I used Ahsoka, World Renouncer, and I think that plays to their strengths pretty well. I actually don't remember who I chose in the Exploration Age but I know that I went Siam in the modern and that's a great fit.

 

[Lord Lakely]

The specialist tradition is very neat, I'll give it that. It's a good set-up for the rest of the game. Specialists are the most reliable source of Science, and that yield is harder to mass than Culture is.

Unfortunately, I can't really comment much else. I only played Khmer once, in my first viceroy game, I cannot really gauge how good they are actually, since Viceroy is very easy. The bonuses read weak, but a compatible leader could leverage that into playability (and I'm specifically thinking Pachacuti, who wants to have both Specialists and Food).

 

[Navelgazer]

I recently played through another Khmer game (pre-patch, though) - I've tried them out a lot just to figure out if I'm missing something about them. And, if so, I haven't found it yet, at least not specifically. I'll say that I played them into Majapahit, though, and they set that up beautifully (as I imagine is at least somewhat intended.) I was playing them with Confucius, who might be the best pairing for such a specialist-focused civ, though even there, you're more likely to want to pair him with Han.

Their design is just odd to me, in that everything about it feels like it came to us pre-nerfed. Varna is alright, but nothing to write home about (and won't do all that much for you in Antiquity, when even with Khmer, you're not going to have a zillion specialists online yet.) The Baray is a non-spammable Unique Improvement, which grants food (synergistic with Khmer, and stronger than it used to be, but not an exciting yield for a Unique, and mitigates the hassle of settling on a bunch of floodplains like the civ wants you to. Ksekam Chamnon is alright, but it's the sort of UA that makes you expect that there will be goodies in the civics tree to boost those minor river yields and... there aren't. Pithi Chrat is situational, and can help a bit on defense. The Vaishya's bonuses are utterly unimpactful, etc.

And then we get the Yuthahathi - yay, a strong Cavalry unit, but wait, it's gotta be hampered by lower movement, and Chakravarti, which can really mess you up if you get the Happiness Crisis.

I suspect that Khmer was broken-good and easily exploitable in the playtesting period, and got significantly busted down before launch. And yeah, it can still set up a ncie specialist-focused game. Kambu-Mera is good. But it's literally the only good thing they've got that doesn't come with reservations, and that's just weird to me.

 

[bengalryan9]

I recently played through another Khmer game (pre-patch, though) - I've tried them out a lot just to figure out if I'm missing something about them. And, if so, I haven't found it yet, at least not specifically. I'll say that I played them into Majapahit, though, and they set that up beautifully (as I imagine is at least somewhat intended.) I was playing them with Confucius, who might be the best pairing for such a specialist-focused civ, though even there, you're more likely to want to pair him with Han.

Their design is just odd to me, in that everything about it feels like it came to us pre-nerfed. Varna is alright, but nothing to write home about (and won't do all that much for you in Antiquity, when even with Khmer, you're not going to have a zillion specialists online yet.) The Baray is a non-spammable Unique Improvement, which grants food (synergistic with Khmer, and stronger than it used to be, but not an exciting yield for a Unique, and mitigates the hassle of settling on a bunch of floodplains like the civ wants you to. Ksekam Chamnon is alright, but it's the sort of UA that makes you expect that there will be goodies in the civics tree to boost those minor river yields and... there aren't. Pithi Chrat is situational, and can help a bit on defense. The Vaishya's bonuses are utterly unimpactful, etc.

And then we get the Yuthahathi - yay, a strong Cavalry unit, but wait, it's gotta be hampered by lower movement, and Chakravarti, which can really mess you up if you get the Happiness Crisis.

I suspect that Khmer was broken-good and easily exploitable in the playtesting period, and got significantly busted down before launch. And yeah, it can still set up a ncie specialist-focused game. Kambu-Mera is good. But it's literally the only good thing they've got that doesn't come with reservations, and that's just weird to me.

I don't really disagree with any of this, but I do think people tend to look past one of their biggest strengths - Angkor Wat. That's a good bonus that you'll benefit from all game long.

 

[disjointaccount]

Khmer have definitely become the shorthand for "bad civ" in these threads and I don't necessarily disagree. I think they're just extremely pigeonholed, which means they don't compare very favourably to more versatile civs (which is pretty much every other civ in the game).

If you want to play super tall and have one mega city then Khmer are great (probably even better now, with the urban centre rework). If you want to do literally anything else, there's gonna be another civ that's better suited to you.

The good:
- Science and expansionist trees are good ones to get points in early.
- Tropical bias sets you up for Mundo Perdido, which fits nicely into the one city build.
- Chola, Majapahit, and Siam are all solid unlocks.
- Angkor Wat is a good wonder to be guaranteed
- The Yuthahathi is, in my opinion, the best antiquity UU in the game. Cavalry is the strongest class and cavalry with extra CS is even better. Slower movement is almost a non-factor for me since commanders exist
- Ksekam Chamnon drops off hard but I do find it works pretty nicely for some very early snowball-y yields
- Kambu-Mera is one of the best antiquity traditions in the game.
- Chakravarti offers a massive growth boost, and makes great library possible for one-city-ing.

The fine:
- Vaishya isn't actively bad it's just a very uninteresting civilian UU
- Varna is a solid tradition to take forward, but for me, unlike Kambu-Mera, its future benefit isn't strong enough to make up for being pretty insignificant in antiquity. Civ is a game where good now is often superior to better later, so for me to value something that comes under "better later" it has to offer much more than "good now"

The bad:
Very little of Khmer's kit is actually outright bad, honestly
- The Baray is probably the worst unique infrastructure in antiquity, unless there's something I'm forgetting
- Pithi Chrat is too niche for me to care about it
- Civics tree offers very little outside of traditions and the growth boost. In a world where Calendar Round exists I feel like there could be some nicer buffs in there

So on paper, a lot of Khmer's assets are pretty good. The problem is that they're pretty good at doing one thing and one thing only. If you want to play with anything other than one city supported by towns, Khmer isn't the civ for you. Going back through the "good" list, evaluating each thing from a more generalist, objective stance rather than considering its best case scenario:
- Attribute points are objectively good, but a good pair of attributes is not unique to Khmer (even if that specific combo is in antiquity)
- Unlocks are objectively good, though Majapahit is the only one I'd say is particularly hard to unlock "normally"
- Angkor Wat does literally nothing outside of the city it's built in
- Yuthahathi is Khmer's best asset by far, imo
- Ksekam Chamnon is fine
- Kambu Mera really favours tall, specialist-heavy play, and probably requires the Angkor Wat to even really see benefits from it in antiquity
- Chakravarti isn't bad, but definitely gives bigger returns the more tall you play

They're just a one-trick pony, for me. Their playstyle also doesn't really start to pay dividends until later ages, since specialist spam relies on picking up the buffs to specialists late in the science and culture trees, and eventually with an ideology. Even with something like Khmer/Confucious, it can be hard to really get a lot out of specialists in antiquity.

Furthermore, since tall play tends to need some kind of specific strategy to supplement its tree yields, I tend to feel quite limited leaders-wise when playing Khmer (again, urban centre rework might have helped this. I'm probably going to try something like Khmer/Patchacuti in my next game to test it out). Confucious is the obvious choice. Ben, Hatshepsut, or either Himiko could definitely work. It's not as narrow as it could be, but it's also not like most other civs where I can see ways to make most leaders work to some extent. If you don't pick someone who can supplement your lack of culture or science, you're going to have a hard time.

This isn't to say tall, one-city games aren't viable or fun. It's a strong strategy, and one I enjoy. It's just that it's all Khmer can do, and generally I like civs I can take in a couple of different directions so my games with them don't all feel the same.

 

[Leucarum]

As people have said, their traditions and UU are their big draws. Otherwise, they're a bit of a nothingburger of a civ. The elephant really is quite nasty, if you're gonna go after Khmer, it's best to do it before they get Cav. I think their best use is probably all-out aggression, before an exploration age specialist pivot. Charlemagne might be the leader I'd reccomend if you want to squeeze rmthe most out of them.

I have to credit them for having a way less irritating musical theme this time around. It's still not a good theme IMO, but in Civ6 I put them on my civ blacklist just for their music alone.