The Prasat is so underrated

[DogeEnricoDandolo]

I just had probably one of my best cultural game ever with the Khmer. I spawned next to the Yosemite, between the coast and Tundra so all of my land had really high Appeal, and I was lucky enough to have Earth Goddess pantheon, so I started generating Faith really early on. (The land was so nice I ended up founding a total of 9 National Parks between only 4 cities, even before I got my Eiffel Tower up!) I pick Reliquaries for my Follower Belief, so each relic generate 24 Tourism and 12 Faith each (for some reasons all of my relics provide 32 Tourism each, no idea why). In the city with St. Basil Cathedral, each relic provides 40 Tourism each (so this city alone + Prasat provide 200 Tourism). I reached 600 Tourism in Industrial, while other typical cultural civs, if I am lucky I will have around 100. The World congress proposal for double Tourism output for Relics is helpful as well. I got around 2000 Tourism and won the game in 1800 AD, without research Computers, Environmentalism or Social Media, and I got it slower than expected because I could not build Cristo Redento in time.

Khmer is still not that strong but this building alone saves the civ I think.

 

[bbbt]

Yeah the reliquary tourist victory is fun with Khmer (by design) but pretty niche. I think in general anything that's dependent on getting a religion - and especially getting a specific belief - tends not be highly rated as doing so becomes more of a challenge/setback on higher levels.

 

[DogeEnricoDandolo]

Oh I just figured out the math behind the tourism provided by Relics
1 normal Relic: 8 Tourism + 4 Faith
Relic + Reliquaries: 24 Tourism + 12 Faith
100% Tourism from a great work type: additional 8 Tourism per relic = 32 Tourism
St. Basil Cathedral: 100% religious tourism pressure: additional 8 per relic = 40 Tourism in this city.

Yeah the reliquary tourist victory is fun with Khmer (by design) but pretty niche. I think in general anything that's dependent on getting a religion - and especially getting a specific belief - tends not be highly rated as doing so becomes more of a challenge/setback on higher levels.

Yeah I got lucky with my land start, but I played on Immortal, which is my favorite difficulty setting. Pretty happy with the game, never seen more contiguous National Parks before.

 

[Kmart_Elvis]

Khmer is one of the few civs where things don't usually go in my favor, but I have a lot of fun playing them, and keep coming back.

Love making farms around aqueducts. Getting easy relics from Missionaries and not having to use apostles and St. Michel. Growing so tall. Bonus for settling on rivers where I like to settle anyways. They're a ton of fun, even if they're far from the best.

 

[Victoria]

The Prasat is handy for double relics, this is its main benefit. the martyr promo save you having to use other tricks to get it.
The main issue is ensuring you get reliquaries.
One you have that the doubles relics to a degree counters the 50% other religions and enlightenment.
The main issue has always benn killing off your apostles early enough.
But yes the Prasat is what Khmer is good at an so still not the greatest. The elephant nerf from prev release is distressing, a -5 ranged elephant would have been great.

 

[DogeEnricoDandolo]

Yeah, the Enlightenment is a problem, that is why I tried to rush for Cristo but I couldn't build it in time. The Prasat gives the promotion to Missionaries instead of Apostles, because Missionaries are weak so letting them die is not a big problem for me.

Let me brag one more time about my 9 National Parks in only 4 cities

 

[Victoria]

The Prasat gives the promotion to Missionaries i

You can read a thing 20 times and get it wrong... omg... may have to try them, the key is wide not tall with them then.

 

[DogeEnricoDandolo]

You can read a thing 20 times and get it wrong... omg... may have to try them, the key is wide not tall with them then.

Yes And because they are Missionaries so they are super duper cheap, I always open my religion with Reliquaries and Holy Order (30% cheaper for Missionaries and Apostles) and you're good to go. Mont St. Michel is redundant cuz you never buy Apostles anyway, it only helps with the 2 Relic slots. If you build St. Basil + win the Congress vote for 100% extra relic tourism, the city with Basil + its own Prasat will have 5 Relic slots with each Relic provides 40 Tourism in Renaissance.

The bonuses for them to go tall is barely noticeable, I never build Holy Sites on river just for the bonus, I build them where the best adjacency bonus is.

 

[Starwars]

I'm so torn about the Khmer. On one hand I love it when they design civs that are different in how they work. But at the same time, the whole "send missionaries to their death to get relics" strategy just feels so off to me. It just feels like a backwards way of playing the game. Not sure if I'm a fan or not, haha.

One thing though... I hate having the Khmer as neighbours. It seems like they *always* turn out to be an annoying idiot to deal with.

 

[Brutus2]

Thanks for sharing, it sounds like a fun game although with all the ways to spend faith now, I think earth goddess was the real key to victory

 

[kb27787]

You can read a thing 20 times and get it wrong... omg... may have to try them, the key is wide not tall with them then.

Actually this is the worst part... I would've preferred the Prasat boosted apostles. I know for a fact playing relic Kongo so often...

AI sometimes ignores your missionaries and just runs their apostles somewhere (if they have a city they want to convert far away, they will ignore you completely).... As mere missionaries, you have no way to actually suicide them.

Sure they are cheaper, but after a while even missionaries get expensive. 2 missionaries per city will get expensive quite fast once you've filled only ~5 cities.

Also, some AI even on deity late to get temple civic but they will send 8 missionaries your way for example. Kongo can just ram their apostles at those missionaries. Khmer cannot.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I should play Khmer again. I played them just after the DLC was released and got really close to an early no-Theater Squares Cultural Victory but every civ hit Enlightenment and it eluded me until I got Computers.

 

[RealHuhn]

Khmer is also amazing at faithbuying units and districts. They got buffed quite a lot with the new Moksha.

 

[DogeEnricoDandolo]

AI sometimes ignores your missionaries and just runs their apostles somewhere (if they have a city they want to convert far away, they will ignore you completely).... As mere missionaries, you have no way to actually suicide them.

Well, it is true that you cannot suicide as Missionaries, but if you send them to civs that established a religion of their own, there is no way they let you convert their cities without fighting back. Just use all convert charges except for one, so they will be mad you convert their cities and they will kill your Missionaries.

Sure they are cheaper, but after a while even missionaries get expensive

Even when Missionaries get expensive, they are still always 3 times cheaper than an Apostle after the same time period, so Missionaries are always better, especially when the main purpose of them in this context is to die, not to successfully convert.

 

[megabearsfan]

Well, it is true that you cannot suicide as Missionaries, but if you send them to civs that established a religion of their own, there is no way they let you convert their cities without fighting back. Just use all convert charges except for one, so they will be mad you convert their cities and they will kill your Missionaries.

Even when Missionaries get expensive, they are still always 3 times cheaper than an Apostle after the same time period, so Missionaries are always better, especially when the main purpose of them in this context is to die, not to successfully convert.

This is what I do. Get them down to 1 charge, then just park them in the middle of the territory of a civ with a rival religion. Eventually, they'll send an Apostle or Inquisitor over to take my missionary out. It would be really nice if the UI would show the dang promotion on the missionaries (is there a mod that does this?). I always have at least a couple pre-Prasat missionaries still alive when I start producing the martyr ones from the Prasat, and it can be hard to keep track of which is which -- especially after reloading the game.

Out of curiosity: the Martyr promotion doesn't work when your unit is condemned by a military unit, right?

 

[kb27787]

Well, it is true that you cannot suicide as Missionaries, but if you send them to civs that established a religion of their own, there is no way they let you convert their cities without fighting back. Just use all convert charges except for one, so they will be mad you convert their cities and they will kill your Missionaries.

Even when Missionaries get expensive, they are still always 3 times cheaper than an Apostle after the same time period, so Missionaries are always better, especially when the main purpose of them in this context is to die, not to successfully convert.

I have seen AI completely ignore my religious units even after I converted their holy city...

Sometimes though they will respond with buying an apostle but often they just ask me to stop without taking any real action.

In hindsight this might have something to do with the civ in question being in a golden age where their algorithm tells them to buy civilian units instead.

Worst part is two charges on your missionary won't likely do anything in terms of conversion. Often I have to use a proselytiser to force AIs hand.

There will easily come a point where your nth missionary will be more expensive than your first apostle though. The point is to get those relics ASAP so you can get triple faith to generate even more relics... Missionaries are too slow in my experience.

 

[DogeEnricoDandolo]

Out of curiosity: the Martyr promotion doesn't work when your unit is condemned by a military unit, right?

Yep, can confirm, you have to be killed in Theological combats.