More elephants
We‘ve seen the Baray before on the map and the builder classification was hinted by the card, so no surprise.
Looking forward to playing the Khmer; builder to consolidate in the medieval era after expansionist earlier eras might be my cup of tea for more peaceful runs.
The culture card is very beautiful. It is very evocative of the grandeur and the bustle and the fervent building activity of the Khmer temple cities.
Builder affinity as expected. The Khmer are indeed the most fitting culture to be assigned the builder trait in the medieval era.
As for the unique unit, Gajah is the Sanskrit word for elephant. Though after AoE2, Civ6 and now Humankind, can we already move over the ballista elephant? It is developing into a stereotype now.
Very pleased with how the Khmer are represented here! Agrarian would have worked too, but I think the Builder classification fits their legacy far better!
My only complaint would be the visual design of the baray. Sukritact actually outlines his issues with it in this tweet, and I tend to agree with him.
I had seen the comments on Twitter and the discussion on our Discord, and I talked to the artists. As usual, there are many factors at play here:
The Baray is not a replica on any specific structure (like most of the Emblematic quarters, though some draw inspiration more directly than others depending on the availability of reliable sources). Our artists have used a variety of references, and Bayon was only one of many.
The focus of this Emblematic Quarter is definitely meant to be the basin, but at the same time we want to show some Khmer architecture and also avoid an flat, "empty" space. Thus there is a feature placed inside the basin (as for example the large West Baray contained the West Mébon ). However, space on a tile is at a premium, yet the structure needs to be large enough to be visible and have recognizable features, which puts bounds on the size of the structure. (Doubly so considering the scale of the people in the city needs to be taken into account as well.)
We are trying to show different aspects of Khmer architecture, not only the Wat style (which features more prominently in the city center). For example, one of the references the artists shared with me was of Prasat Kravan, which is older than the Wat style. But there were many other references involved in creating this model, for example the gates of Angkor Thom or the temple of Ta Som.
We are trying to show different aspects of Khmer architecture, not only the Wat style (which features more prominently in the city center). For example, one of the references the artists shared with me was of Prasat Kravan, which is older than the Wat style. But there were many other references involved in creating this model, for example the gates of Angkor Thom or the temple of Ta Som.
The issue here is that all four of those towers at Prasat Kravan were originally enclosed. With the roof intact, they do not really resemble the structure your artists have created for the baray. It also still lacks the symmetry found across Khmer architecture. If for example, the face was repeated on each side of the structure, reminiscent of the Bayon temple, it would be far more accurate.
Furthermore, as much as I'm all for representing different periods of Khmer history, we're talking about a baray here, not a temple. Surely if these features cannot be found in real-life barays, they should not be included?
Furthermore, as much as I'm all for representing different periods of Khmer history, we're talking about a baray here, not a temple. Surely if these features cannot be found in real-life barays, they should not be included?
But the structure in the middle of the Baray would be a temple anyway, no? A Baray itself doesn't necessarily need to have a structure in the middle of it, it's seems to have been rather uncommon. At least that's what can be gathered from the linked article. So if we talk about a Baray with a structure in the middle, we talk about a temple. It would be nice to use something like the West Mebón Shrine, but this would look rather unimpressive compared to what we‘ve seen of HK‘s EQ so far. Since the most impressive feature of a baray cannot be shown on the map, it‘s hard to do it justice anyway.
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