[R&F] Civ of the Week: Khmer

[Browd]

According to the xml, Khmer has a river start bias.

 

[Haig]

Khmer are underrated, they seem kinda.. boring on paper but are really fun for an aggressive religious play.

I build my own religion and when domreys pop in, I start conquering.

Has it really worked? No.
But it was fun!

 

[Disgustipated]

What is their start bias. I have tried some starts I have a hard time spotting a bias and if there is one I do not think it is rainforest.

Definitely a river start. I think I've played them 3 or 4 times, and never had a rainforest start (except when I played them on Asia TSL map). Always on a river though. And my game mentioned in post #5 is next to a desert, and I got Petra built.

A lot of criticism above about their mechanic of getting units killed, and I understand that. But I still like the "different" gameplay options this Civ presents. I'm glad they don't just get some flat bonus.

 

[liv]

Ahh River start bias. That makes sense but sometimes hard to distinguish from just a normal start since every civ seem to start on a river most of the time

I have played a bit of Khmer but cannot say I am liking them at all. I just do not see any viable strategy with them where another civ is just a better choice than they are.
Culture - relics - seems slow and sometimes virtually impossible on higher difficulty. Hard to plan for since it is based on what your neighbors will do.
Faith - without knowing that much about religious play I assume they can go this route but it does not seem that they really have an advantage for it

Love to see more detailed tips on how to play them using their advantages fully though since I am just dabbing in it so far.

 

[Mr. Shadows]

Domreys are fun to use, and they can certainly be effective if you get them early enough. They're great for putting a pesky neighbor in his or her place. They're slow, but being able to faith-buy them anywhere helps with that. The Khmer certainly do generate a lot of faith.
I admit that I dislike the Martyr promotion though. Deliberately suiciding apostles to get relics just feels like an exploit to me. I wish there were a better mechanic in place. I'm disappointed in the Prasat for that reason, but I have to say the Khmer have grown on me.
It is fun having multiple 10+ population cities. There's a point at which you're growing for the sake of growing but it is fun to do so for a change.

 

[KayAU]

I think there should be more benefits to big cities in general, that is one of my larger complaints about Civ 6. A single size 16 city requires more effort to create than 4 size 4s, and should provide greater benefits. The problem is that most of what you need comes from districts, and a district in a small city is worth just as much as in a larger one.

 

[acluewithout]

I think there should be more benefits to big cities in general, that is one of my larger complaints about Civ 6. A single size 16 city requires more effort to create than 4 size 4s, and should provide greater benefits. The problem is that most of what you need comes from districts, and a district in a small city is worth just as much as in a larger one.

Agreed. High Pop cities look cool but are actually terrible (unless they have great tiles). Just nuts. Some of the recent tweaks do help a little; eg governor %bonuses which of course can only apply to one city, and some policy cards. But we’re not quite there yet.

 

[Kmart_Elvis]

These guys can get some insane faith generation going, but it definitely takes a while. You have to wait for your return of investment on your missionaries after you kill them, and it takes a while for them to even get there. Take Reliquaries and hopefully Kandy is in your game.

 

[Kmart_Elvis]

I think there should be more benefits to big cities in general, that is one of my larger complaints about Civ 6. A single size 16 city requires more effort to create than 4 size 4s, and should provide greater benefits. The problem is that most of what you need comes from districts, and a district in a small city is worth just as much as in a larger one.

Doesn't make sense that a small town theatre district produces as much culture as one in a thriving metropolis. Or other districts for that matter. Maybe if districts got bonuses based on population that would help? +1 for every 3 citizens, or something. As of now it's too unbalanced in favor of going wide.

 

[acluewithout]

Doesn't make sense that a small town theatre district produces as much culture as one in a thriving metropolis.

But it doesn't - big cities do produce more culture (and science for that matter).

A city with a higher pop will produce more base culture from citizens, and can the produce even more by working productive tiles and running projects, and slotting specialists. There are then the pop 10 building bonus policy cards, and you can also put Pingala in your city. +% bonus from happiness can also play a role.

You can then also increase production for big cities through religion and the work ethic belief and other “per follower” beliefs.

You can also through in some wonders as well to skew things.

I think Civ does do an okay job of making high pop cities more powerful, but the balance is a little “off”. All the things I’ve mentioned above ultimately do feel a little marginal, particularly after Pop 10. There is then the added problem that production is low overall, so even a “high production” city just doesn’t have that much production.

There are some relatively minor things FXS could that would help high pop cities have more umph.

- Governors. More governors should have a +% yield bonus. You should also be able to pick each type of Governor more than once, maybe put to a max of three for each type. So, three “Pingalas” or three “Victors” etc.

- Water Mill. Make the Water Mill provide +0.5 production for each bonus food resource.

- Specialists. Make specialists count towards either adjacency or building yields for the purpose of multiplier cards.

- Policy cards. Make the science building multiplier cards give an addition +1% boost per pop above 10. Also, maybe have an industrial era card the gives farms and neighbourhoods +1 production.

- Monarchy. Make Monarchy’s walls housing bonus a Military Card. Instead, make Monarchy give bonus production for population similar to communism, plus maybe increase food yields from camps and bonus food tiles.

 

[liv]

tried two games. Finished one. Religious victory but I was not playing it right from the start. Decided to try again and be more focussed on religion but got bored and built some troops.
They are subpar civ
I will likely not play them again.

 

[MarigoldRan]

Better than England.

 

[Disgustipated]

And Norway, and many other civs. They are great at culture victory as I mentioned above, if you can get a religion. Not so great at other victory types.

 

[liv]

Better than England.

You got me there! They are also better than Georgia. A civ like England who has abilities that you cannot use.

And Norway, and many other civs. They are great at culture victory as I mentioned above, if you can get a religion. Not so great at other victory types.

Not sure I would put them above Norway. Norway has an insane chopping ability with boats so if you can find coast you got it made. But it is down to "abilities that can only be used in certain circumstances" so they are close to each other for sure. I agree some other civs fall in this category as well

I don't believe Khmer is good culture winner on higher levels unless you get very lucky. I had missionaries walking around for decades without getting killed. On higher levels you will likely see civs go for culture wins early and horde great writers and you will have a hard time catching up with relics. So the good culture winners become those who have advantages for theatre squares or wonders maybe.

 

[Disgustipated]

speaking of Georgia, they are next. Sigh. I'll try to make them work. And I'll grant you at higher difficulty levels Khmer will be much more challenging. Even getting a religion will be challenging. My last Japan game I couldn't even get a religion, and that was on King. Sometimes it just doesn't happen. Although I would think at higher difficulty levels getting your missionaries killed would be easier. It's at the lower levels the AI may be slow at killing your missionaries. All I'll say is I had no trouble getting 14 relics on King, and I could have got more had I built more holy sites to put more relics in. I also got lucky with my opponents. While Greece was in the game, they didn't expand very large for some reason, usually they do. Rome kind of hemmed them in one one side, but they didn't expand North either. That was the only other cultural civ in my game who could pose any kind of obstacle for my cultural victory.

 

[acluewithout]

You got me there! They are also better than Georgia. A civ like England who has abilities that you cannot use.

I’m not sure England makes a great reference point for being “rubbish” in terms of pure power. They probably do still have some power - a cheap district, a very strong (late game) building, a strong (late game, can’t pre-build) melee unit, and free stuff (free melee units).

England’s big problem is just that they are boring. They have a very narrow strategic focus. Lack flexibility. Powers don’t really synergise much. They are probably weak overall compared to other good mid tier or “c” grade Civ. They were a solid C, like say Norway. In terms of power level, after RnF and patches they are now probably a sub-par C Civ, I guess a C-.

But the real crime is just that they are the mayor of lame town, which has been voted the most lame town in the world for 5 years running, and has just built a museum of lameness. They are really boring and narrow. Which is crushing, because they were A tier for Fun Factor and Roleplaying.

Turning back to Khmer, I’m sorry these guys are a bit lame. There are some good ideas with their Holy Sites and Aqueducts, units and building. As I’ve said above, they probably need some production boost; eg Fearsun has a mid which gives them production boosts for districts and wonders if they have an aqueduct, although that seems a little strong to me.

There real problem is that population is not that powerful, and their Matyr ability - although actually probably quite strong in single player - plays a bit silly. But that’s more because the whole Matyr thing itself is a bit of a weird / silly / gamey Mechanic to start of with.

I’ll post Georgia later today. But in summary, it’s a bit sad they are so lame. It would have been fun to have a really solid medieval Civ with walls and medieval melee and knights and faith.

 

[Naktis]

I actually started to hate this civ...simply coz they appear in almost every game I play...even if I leave only one spot for random , ofc they will take it. So leader agenda END OF SUFFERING cleary works against me! and against him , each time he is in , each time I go to war and make sure he is OUT. FAST.

Other then that , its just another religios civ that doesnt bring anything big to the game, also they like people who has lots of holy sites and high pop..well playing Tall is for Civ5

 

[Disgustipated]

ven if I leave only one spot for random , ofc they will take it. So leader agenda END OF SUFFERING cleary works against me

I actually managed to satisfy his agenda in my Georgia game I played yesterday as he was in the game too. Of course the only way you are going to satisfy that agenda is if you go for religious victory. If religion wasn't so weak in this game we might actually have more reason to build more holy sites.

 

[AmazonQueen]

I quite like trying to play Khmer but rarely seem to do so very effectively.
Their abilities would be very strong if tall cities had more oomf. Also seem quite map dependent.

 

[agonistes]

The Khmer are up there with Russia for explosive growth and expansion. They are extremely versatile, and I regard them as a top tier civ.

The downside is they don't have Russia's potential for gpp.