Khmer is OP.

[Pietato]

online speed

No.

 

[MarigoldRan]

Well for MP you don't have a choice. Khmer is now one of the best MP civs.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Khmer were already pretty strong, not surprised they are S tier now.

 

[Mahi]

Honestly most of the civ tweaks in the new patch is just a better version than the previous. Was there even one civ, who actually got nerfed instead of boosted?

 

[Linklite]

Honestly most of the civ tweaks in the new patch is just a better version than the previous. Was there even one civ, who actually got nerfed instead of boosted?

Russia, from what I remember.

 

[Siddharth Venkatesh]

Russia and Nubia were nerfed.

in other words, you got lucky getting a religion (or you sunk your early game to rush it), and the Khmer abilities are letting you win harder.

I like the changes, just pointing out that they are a bit inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

This is a strange statement. Khmer's changes have made a huge difference to their game. They now have massive bonuses towards tall play that all synergize extremely well together, and they can play both tall and wide at the same time since they just produce insane amounts of food and have a lot of bonus housing.

Getting a religion, even on deity, is fairly reliable if you open Pingala with Connoisseur into Grants, and Work Ethic means that your hammer investment into a Holy Site and Shrine are returned manyfold. You get massive Growth from your +3, +4 holy sites and strong production. If you have the correct terrain, you can even pick up adjacency bonus pantheons, or just go River Goddess for additional tall play. And then, Monumentality allows you to spread extremely easily.

Not going for a religion as Khmer would be incredibly silly, and their abilities are far from "win more" abilities. They've gone from a mediocre civ with a relic gimmick into one of the strongest faith civs in the game that also have one of the best tall games.

 

[Pietato]

Khmer were already pretty strong, not surprised they are S tier now.

They were extremely bad except for one horrible missionary sacrificing way. I rated them dead last before this patch.

 

[kb27787]

They were extremely bad except for one horrible missionary sacrificing way. I rated them dead last before this patch.

Same. They were F tier and nigh useless prior.
The aqueduct/prasat faith/culture and holy site food + housing basically completely rewrote the whole civ. Choral music is strong, but prasat is stronger...

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Through a few eras of so of my game and I agree with most here. Not only are they strong, but (more importantly) super fun. Everything works so well together.

I wonder if there are some lessons here beyond Khmer. Tall vs. wide argument is stale and not really the actual argument, but what if there were more +something per population for buildings in more generic districts? It could incentivize growing cities while still encouraging more cities as well. The food for farms next to aqueducts makes some sense as a general trait too to make it all work (or something like granary/mill rework).

 

[kb27787]

Through a few eras of so of my game and I agree with most here. Not only are they strong, but (more importantly) super fun. Everything works so well together.

I wonder if there are some lessons here beyond Khmer. Tall vs. wide argument is stale and not really the actual argument, but what if there were more +something per population for buildings in more generic districts? It could incentivize growing cities while still encouraging more cities as well. The food for farms next to aqueducts makes some sense as a general trait too to make it all work (or something like granary/mill rework).

They should just make it like BNW (i.e. library gives 0.5 science per pop, etc.) where certain buildings have fixed yields and certain others give % bonuses based on pop. Such that for smaller cities certain buildings are not worth their maintenance cost. You want to lose 2 gpt and a bunch of production for a measly 1 science per turn in that pop 2 coastal city, etc.?

The way GPP works is already changed to be in favor of wide in this game, so wide is plenty strong enough even if one were to slap a % culture/science research cost penalty per city (which is what I feel they should do).

Tall really doesn't work too well still on victory conditions which require great people points. Still, we don't need any great people if we have a ton of relics! With this change we just buy and suicide apostles straight up.

 

[Vargas1]

Through a few eras of so of my game and I agree with most here. Not only are they strong, but (more importantly) super fun. Everything works so well together.

I wonder if there are some lessons here beyond Khmer. Tall vs. wide argument is stale and not really the actual argument, but what if there were more +something per population for buildings in more generic districts? It could incentivize growing cities while still encouraging more cities as well. The food for farms next to aqueducts makes some sense as a general trait too to make it all work (or something like granary/mill rework).

I agree with all of this. The interaction of the different bonuses is what makes it so fun - abilities that help you grow big (and quickly), then added faith and culture for that growth beyond the usual benefits of production and Pingala.

 

[Datian]

This rewrite of Khmer made me think of something.

Agreed, the synergy is strong in itself : everything concurs to give you food and faith, and to manage bigger cities with housing and amenities. But it's not the only civ with a good synergy.

What's peculiar however, is that most of them which came in GS or NFP have a drawback :
- Mali based on a synergy of gold and faith, the unique district gains adjacency with the HS but not with the harbor (not a big cost but it's still something)
- Maya's observatory gains science from plantations and synergies with the plantation ressources bias, but loses adjacency from reefs, mountains, geothermal vents (the district is cheap but you can have a stronger campus if you look for it)
- Gauls oppidum comes early and gains major adjacency from strategic ressources and quarries, but loses the benefits of other districts, especially aquaducts and dams (again, it's cheap and early, but you lose a lot of adjacency power)

Khmer's holy site (not a unique per se but the only difference with a unique district is the cost) is only benefits, no drawbacks.
If it had a strong restriction, like "can only be built next to a river", I don't think players would mind : that would be in the spirit of recent updates.

 

[Abaxial]

Whenever anyone says "<civ> is OP", I read it as "<civ> is fun to play". I never played Khmer before, so I gave them a try, and yes, it was fun (with Voidsingers, too). Shame about the leader - shades of the old joke, "I have the body of a GOD! - Unfortunately it's Buddha". (Yes, I know Buddha is not a god).

 

[Dantesedge]

Whenever anyone says "<civ> is OP", I read it as "<civ> is fun to play". I never played Khmer before, so I gave them a try, and yes, it was fun (with Voidsingers, too). Shame about the leader - shades of the old joke, "I have the body of a GOD! - Unfortunately it's Buddha". (Yes, I know Buddha is not a god).

I’m kind of the opposite. I find S-Tier Civs make the game too easy. Once they start to snowball past Classical it’s just not that fun for me since the challenge is ultimately diminished. Can you still lose? Yes, but the super strong ones make that pretty unlikely. A few of the buffs from this patch went overboard for me a bit, Khmer especially (Canada’s +2 food instead of +1 as well). While I like the direction they took with the Khmer, I was ahead in Science without building a single Campus. That’s just ridiculously strong IMO and I got bored. I prefer the slight buffs (Netherlands, etc.), nerfs (Russia, etc.) or redesigns that make them more complex but leave in some of their old weaknesses (Spain, Mapuche, etc.) than bringing a Civ to S+++Tier. Just my opinion.

The challenge is what draws we toward the “weaker” Civs as long as they at least have some complexity to them and a slight boost towards a victory type to make it fun. Is it hard? Oh yeah. Going for a Science victory with Georgia or a Domination victory with Poland makes you want to rip your hair out sometimes, but I enjoy it and finding winning strategies with their abilities more than breezing through the game. Khmer was just build a few things and win.

Like I said, just my opinion.

 

[UWHabs]

I’m kind of the opposite. I find S-Tier Civs make the game too easy. Once they start to snowball past Classical it’s just not that fun for me since the challenge is ultimately diminished. Can you still lose? Yes, but the super strong ones make that pretty unlikely. A few of the buffs from this patch went overboard for me a bit, Khmer especially (Canada’s +2 food instead of +1 as well). While I like the direction they took with the Khmer, I was ahead in Science without building a single Campus. That’s just ridiculously strong IMO and I got bored. I prefer the slight buffs (Netherlands, etc.), nerfs (Russia, etc.) or redesigns that make them more complex but leave in some of their old weaknesses (Spain, Mapuche, etc.) than bringing a Civ to S+++Tier. Just my opinion.

The challenge is what draws we toward the “weaker” Civs as long as they at least have some complexity to them and a slight boost towards a victory type to make it fun. Is it hard? Oh yeah. Going for a Science victory with Georgia or a Domination victory with Poland makes you want to rip your hair out sometimes, but I enjoy it and finding winning strategies with their abilities more than breezing through the game. Khmer was just build a few things and win.

Like I said, just my opinion.

Yeah, I think they made them a little too strong, which makes them a little less fun. At least for the Khmer, they're not like dominant from turn 1, so there is some risk there. But once they get rolling, they just pull in so much faith.

I didn't run the math, but I do think the +1 faith per pop from aqueducts probably threw them over the top. Even if that was dropped to +1 faith per 2 pop, that would at least be a hare more balanced. I think the fact that they can grow huge cities, and then build Prasats to gain a large amount of culture too, does make it just too much. Like, you grab river goddess, and with a holy site+aqueduct, your cities are already up to like 10-12 housing, enough amenities to cover that, plus a bunch of food and other bonuses too so that there's nothing stopping those cities from growing. My whole game, I literally could not keep up with building districts, or in the end, I simply didn't build districts, since I was running out of tiles. And then when your farms are gaining those bonuses, basically every farm turns into like a 5f+ tile.

 

[Kotofei]

Yeah, I think they made them a little too strong, which makes them a little less fun. At least for the Khmer, they're not like dominant from turn 1, so there is some risk there. But once they get rolling, they just pull in so much faith.

I came to say this. Starting in the medieval age you can faith buy anything you like. I was going for SV and bought 3 great engineers in a row because Korolev was taking too long to show up. And the large cities exert surprisingly large loyalty pressure, just to add icing to a cake that already had too much.

And yeah, by the mid-game my cities had all the districts they needed and most were just running projects.

 

[The Highwayman]

I've played two games with Khmer and they are indeed powerful. The first game resulted in my second fastest culture win followed by my fastest post GS science win. The ROI on river holy sites is just amazing - big faith gen, food, housing, amenities, production (from work ethic). Expansion is a breeze, infrastructure gets online faster due to high pop and high production. It's a beautiful thing. They out-Germany Germany with their holy sites providing a great production boost at a lower opportunity cost since there's no need for IZs and Comm Hubs and Dams and all that. Better returns from the aqueducts with the amenity and mass faith. And their ability to quickly get to the next district threshold is a better version of Free Imperial Cities. Engineers can be easily bought with faith.

Khmer are a fun option when I want to play a powerful Civ. I think Firaxis should let it ride....Jay-V deserves to have his moment in the sun after years of being bottom tier. There are plenty of mediocre Civs to choose when one wishes to have a more challenging game.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I've played two games with Khmer and they are indeed powerful. The first game resulted in my second fastest culture win followed by my fastest post GS science win. The ROI on river holy sites is just amazing - big faith gen, food, housing, amenities, production (from work ethic). Expansion is a breeze, infrastructure gets online faster due to high pop and high production. It's a beautiful thing. They out-Germany Germany with their holy sites providing a great production boost at a lower opportunity cost since there's no need for IZs and Comm Hubs and Dams and all that. Better returns from the aqueducts with the amenity and mass faith. And their ability to quickly get to the next district threshold is a better version of Free Imperial Cities. Engineers can be easily bought with faith.

Khmer are a fun option when I want to play a powerful Civ. I think Firaxis should let it ride....Jay-V deserves to have his moment in the sun after years of being bottom tier. There are plenty of mediocre Civs to choose when one wishes to have a more challenging game.

I think that if they think they're too powerful, the answer is to boost the generic growth rates as a better way to go. Building more districts is fun; and gives a bigger choice between growth and expansion, and might make amenities more competitive

 

[Linklite]

I think that if they think they're too powerful, the answer is to boost the generic growth rates is a better way to go. Building more districts is fun; and gives a bigger choice between growth and expansion, and might make amenities more competitive

And make Wonders more deliberate. I often end up with cities with nothing to do, so I end up getting them to build Wonders just to keep them busy.

 

[PSG]

Khmer is the best tundra civ now (if you get dance of the aurora)