Suryavarman II or however you spell it :p

[futurehermit]

I'm really liking playing as Suryavarman II right now. I basically play a rexing style with him, blocking off the AIs as is popular right now. Creative helps a lot with that. Then I go vertical with expansive, barays, and hereditary rule. Starts with the capital primarily for early bureaucracy, but then the other cities start to grow as well. The UU is hit or miss, usually miss, but in the game I show below ivory is available and the UU will come into play shortly (it is a fairly poor UU overall, but war elephants in general are great so it is ok).

I really, really like starting with hunting (scouts) and creative as a combo. It just makes for a really great knowledge of the lay of the land and rexing. The best game I ever had was with Kublai (hunting + creative).

Anyways, I was really enjoying this game (big&small, normal, standard, monarch) and thought I would post some screens and the save. I get the sense he isn't the most popular leader around here so maybe some folks will find this interesting. Unfortunately I don't have the 4000BC save as I restart a lot so don't save at 4000BC usually.

Ok, here's the lay of the land.

Boudica is boxed in thanks to my first two northern city placements (the 1st city has 3 gold pits--but not much else--so that helped the tech pace a fair bit early as the capital is nothing to write home about--though it is ok). I had thought the Mayans would expand to their W and S-SW, but apparently he got boxed in by Mehmed. So two civs are hemmed in here. Mehmed and Toku are out to the W somewhere and are fairly backwards. I'm thinking this game should be smooth sailing domination-wise.

Here's the capital just after 1AD normal speed:

Yep, I am quite pleased with the HR-UB-Exp combo for city growth. Combine that with early bureaucracy and you have a very nice situation:

Pretty sure Boudica declared on me at the time of this save, which is fine her attack is feeble, but if not she declares moments after. The plan is to easily repel her and then wipe her and the Mayans out with catas + UUs. The two eastern cities will have to be razed and relocated because her city placement was...yeah...

I've posted the save in case anyone is interested in taking a look. Feel free to erase my chicken scratch as I like to mark up the map when I'm planning a game.

Any thoughts appreciated.

EDIT: Yeah, Boudica must've already declared because I see in the screenshots that I've whipped some spears in the northern cities in response to her chariot+cata invasion. Also, I just realized that I don't have an academy in my capital which was definitely an oversight on my part!

 

[InFlux5]

I agree, the Khmer are underrated. They're not top-tier, but they can be quite powerful.

Creative is a great trait that gets a bad rap. As you point out, boxing in the AI is very effective, especially on higher levels. The initial land grab is possibly the most important phase of the game; with Creative the land grab is decidedly faster. (Much faster than Stonehenge.) What's more, Creative is not that bad for cultural victories as is always claimed.

Expansive is so-so, but not to be sneezed at. Cheap granaries and workers help with early expansion. Once in HR, the extra health effectively raises the cap on your cities. So does the Baray. There's a lot of symmetry here.

The UU is one of the worst, but this is made up for by the above.

So it's just as you say: very fast early expansion, then with the power of HR you can have some of the biggest cities around. The Khmer are a great civ, if somewhat bland, for domination or cultural wins.

 

[Gooblah]

The Hunting-Creative combo is extremely effective if used right...
For example, you can REX like crazy by Scouting in "rings" around the capital. Establish a radius then scout the area, then go 6 tiles farther, do the same thing, etc. Another Scout or Warrior going in tangents will find other Civs. Chop/Whip a couple Settlers and you have a budding empire.

 

[Powerslave]

It sounds like what you really want is Zara Yaqob, not Suryavarman II.

Creative is arguably better than Protective and Imperialistic, but generating culture is amazingly easy. Financial, Charismatic, and Spiritual are all much better, because they give you something more tangible than a pittance of culture. Hell, I can force an artist (thanks to Caste System) and get culture, if I need it. Or, I can build Culture. Creative is almost -- but not quite -- useless. Luckily, it does give you a slight benefit in the early game, with double speed libraries and early access to the second border expansion.

Given a choice, I'll take Financial any day. It's so overpowered, it's ridiculous. Same with Charismatic, really.

 

[stoots]

I think thats selling creative a bit short.
Try not to think of it as just 2 culture, but as 10-15 turns saved on every new city at the start of the game allowing for more workers/settlers and military giving a fantastic platform for the rest of the game. Then there is of course the ability to place your cities where you want with little regard to AI cities as you easily push their borders back.

It may not be a Financial or Philosophical or even a Charismatic but its still a very nice trait.

 

[oyzar]

creative is great in the phase before you get to caste/music... Once you get there it is arguably somewhat unnecessary but it speeds up early city placement allot by popping borders much earlier. You don't have caste/music by the time the continent is settled anyways on most difficulties so saying you can just assign an artist or build culture is quite silly... Of course once you can build culture / assign artist it loses some of it's value but it is still useful as it allow you it allow you to not actually do this stuff. On top of this you get cheap libraries which is pretty huge... I liked expansive in warlords, with the nerf speed workers it is somewhat worse though still ok if used right.

 

[Roxlimn]

The main interaction with the Khmer that makes them so incredible at rexxing is not apparent. I had to play a game with them twice to notice why it was that I grew so freaking fast.

First factor is Creative. This trait means that you don't have to build a Monument or take Stonehenge to push your borders. Great for blocking territory, but also great for saving up on that production time.

Instead of building Monuments, you build your Expansive half-priced Granaries! Since you don't build Monuments, you can get started on this earlier, and half price makes them come online super-fast.

Finally, the final piece of the trifecta - cheap workers. Population is nothing without tiles to work. Being able to produce workers quickly means that your tile improvement can keep up with your population booming. HR is vital for completely busting open the pop cap on every city. For my part, I would also rate Open Borders with everyone and trading extremely important. Getting those Happy Resources early is usually superfluous, but not with the Khmer!

 

[futurehermit]

Creative really shines in the opening phase of the game as has been mentioned. I will repeat it for emphasis: Not having to tie up production on stonehenge/monuments and not having to wait to have access to the best tiles in your BFC is huge early on. The earliest turns count the most with turns counting less and less as you go forward so the earlier you get something the more impact it has. That is why creative is valuable, not to mention cheap libraries (huge), theatres + coliseums (good for warfare and extra for growing big cities)

 

[Jet]

Yeah, I "hate" him and am interested in tips.

With wine I can see why you went Monarchy in that game, but you implied that you've played multiple games. Have you tried Drama "instead"?

 

[futurehermit]

Yeah, I was thinking that drama would probably be the better option for him. But that involves dropping the science slider which usually entails a SE. That's fine of course, but is situational depending on what you're trying to achieve and what your capital looks like.

 

[futurehermit]

Update on the game. I just wanted to say that I played this particular game on a bit further. The war with Boudica took longer than expected due to terrain (the body of water separating her empire in two) and tech (she managed to hit feudalism/longbows right before I was hitting her capital) and not being able to start the war on my terms (she attacked first putting me on the defensive and she came with more heat than I expected and managed to temporarily take one of my cities).

I wiped her out ca. 1000AD. That allowed me to turn my sights Westward, but at this point I felt I would prefer to push for a tech edge since I was first in gnp by a fair margin and my opponents had longbows. I also got an academy in my capital right away when I started playing again to correct that error.

At this point I gave up on the game figuring it was a win that I didn't care to play out. There was no legitimate tech competitor with the Mayans (financial) hemmed in and Mehmed and Toku no threat later in the game. The remaining 2 civs were isolated to themselves with no tech trading so they would be backwards. I figure the game would involve me beelining to cav wiping out as much of my continent as I could (maybe the whole thing) and then moving on to tanks if necessary to complete the domination win (probably wouldn't have to invade the other continent, but if necessary shouldn't be a problem).

 

[martin026]

My biggest problem with the Kmer is the UU. Not that is is bad, but there are too many games where there is no Ivory. I know that it is not a game breaker, but I like to try to leverage all the leaders traits when I play.

After reading this, I fired up a game. I was enthused by all the jungle around me, guessing I would find some ivory. No luck.

 

[futurehermit]

Yeah, ivory is really hit or miss and I dislike the Khmer UU in general, but I try to look past that to the other advantages they have and just see the UU as a bonus if it is available.

 

[Shagrat44]

After reading this thread yesterday I started a game last night using the Khmer, it was quite interesting. I think it was probably the first time I played as them in a game and I must say it is a different sort of game. I was able to use the creative bonuses to block the AI from some key resources.

Thanks for the ideas. Always nice to come across different ways to play this game.

 

[futurehermit]

No problem, that's what it's all about imo

 

[Silence101]

I have to preface my comments with the fact that I've never played as the Khmer, but I'm surprised to hear that the Khmer UU isn't very good. There's definately a drawback in it requiring ivory - that's understandable. Still, when you've got a SoD complete with seige weapons hungry to take down some cities, the largest threat to your siege weapons is going to be mounted units. The Khmer UU prioritizes mounted units first and receives an attack bonus. Intuitively, it seems that they would be an awesome complement to your traditional SoD simply from helping to perserve your seige units. Is that not the case?

 

[martin026]

I have to preface my comments with the fact that I've never played as the Khmer, but I'm surprised to hear that the Khmer UU isn't very good. There's definately a drawback in it requiring ivory - that's understandable. Still, when you've got a SoD complete with seige weapons hungry to take down some cities, the largest threat to your siege weapons is going to be mounted units. The Khmer UU prioritizes mounted units first and receives an attack bonus. Intuitively, it seems that they would be an awesome complement to your traditional SoD simply from helping to perserve your seige units. Is that not the case?

Yes, this is true. At least when fighting outside of cities. I am not sure though if this works when defending? The pedia is not too clear. The elephant is one of my favorite units, so I would build them regardless.

It seems like they would also be good for defense in border cities, as anti pillagers. If a stack of HA with spears or pikes comes to pillage, you can move the ballista out to attack the mounteds, then move a unit out to protect the ballista.

 

[Roxlimn]

The Ballista Elephant is actually a pretty darned good unit. Elephants in general are pretty good units. The thing is, a lot of players get bummed when they can't build their Civ's unique unit, so they don't appreciate the Ballista Elephant. I don't get fazed if I don't get to make the UU, so it doesn't bother me.

 

[futurehermit]

The elephants are ok but their unique effect is only useful in rare circumstances and ivory is only available in rare circumstances. Therefore, overall, it is not the best unit because it won't factor in many of your games.

 

[Roxlimn]

Not that rare. As long as you have it, it's great in stack to stack combat. Granted, once you whip the opposing stacks, it's just a vanilla Elephant, but that's what it does anyway. It's almost the same deal with the Landsknecht.