Rhye's and Fall of Civilization - Khmer strategy

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Emperor strategy for Khmer

by Pacifist

Start with Bang Makok and Hanoi. (Bang Makok on the coast is actually better than Angkor since it encompasses more resources.) Independent Pagan to the west is now NOT optional to conquer with your elephants because you need the Shwedagon Paya for free religion (in emperor it'll take you forever to get liberalism and you do not have time). Venture into India and conquer Patna which is a horrible city to work with, but because it is the holy city for both Hinduism and Buddhism you need the shrines (which are already built) for the money. Your third settler you send to Jakarta (called Jayakarta) (use your free galley) because there is more land that it can access immediately: this city will be your great artist/scientist farm. Raid your Independent neighbors immediately for workers (in fact I never trained any workers because they are so plentiful in my independent neighbors). If you get Guangzhou China will declare war on you, but if you do it does grow big rather quickly, and Hangzhou may join you later.

Slavery and organized religion (after you use your free Buddhist missionary on Angkor and convert) are essential. (Hereditary rule is important when your cities get big and you need to hurry up production but not in the beginning when unhappiness from the whip is not a problem yet). Castes are useful for hurrying up your great artists, but do it only later after you've completed your important buildings (especially in Jayakarta which has little production and therefore slavery is essential)

Research: sailing, calendar (to get all those resources up and running), civil service, currency, engineering, compass, optics. Thereafter it's up to you but emphasize astronomy (see below). You do NOT need aesthetics/drama as castes will allow you unlimited artists!

You must get 3 great artists. As soon as Jayakarta gets big enough and has good infrastructure (harbor is essential), switch to castes and pacifism and assign 7-8 artists in Jayakarta (both to avoid growth which causes unhappiness and for the artists). If you forget this step you will never get enough culture (4000 + 4000 plus whatever city culture (usually no more than 1000/city even with the culture slider turned all the way up with no science). None of the wonders will be achieved in Emperor due to your disadvantage, unless you happen to pop a great engineer (which will be very unlikely).

After you get your artists you may want to pop some great scientists and merchants and settle all in your capital (build an academy first). As soon as you get civil service switch (maybe together back to slavery or switch to free religion) and your capital will produce a lot of science.

Beware of plague: if it's close to 1400 you may need to reload...

The 12000 culture and 10+ cities are easy goals. After 1450 you should expand rapidly into Australia (3-4 cities), eastern India (2 cities), and maybe even the west coast of America and southern Africa and South America. The usual settler party should include a galleon with its 3 cargo spaces, a missionary, a defender (longbowman or musketman) and your settler. Emphasize South America which will shorten your Buddhist excursions to Europe a lot (in fact start this as soon as you get Astronomy)

Mongolia and/or China will declare war on you sooner or later; don't worry, just turtle in Hanoi (or Guiyang after it flips to you with 2 great art works in Hanoi) with 5-6 war elephants and make peace ASAP (give them back Guiyang). China and India will both spawn soon due to your unstable/collapsing economy, and be peaceful with them. By now you should have free religion. Whenever you meet a civilization, give them something (map or money) and open borders ASAP (you may not be able to do this later). Give in to whatever demands (copper, money, whatever) because you'll not be militarily strong enough to resist, and you do not want your galleons/caravels to be sunk midway to Europe.

Khmer is actually mistakenly counted as a "colonial" power because you get free adventurers in America when you encounter Aztecs or Incans. In fact if you reach either of these before the Europeans (which will be unlikely in Monarch mode) you may want to convert them and have them switch their state religion. Who knows, if you play in viceroy, one of them may even be a willing vassal if you fight those dog soldiers off with your adventurers.

Corms notes and edits: Its very possible to beat the Euros to the Americas and I would say almost essential to Caravels early and send them to the Americas with Missionaries. If you get the conquerors event its a bonus and these can be gifted away or used for exploration native killing or some plundering after spreading your religion. Never had them want to be my vassal though.

The tough part is to get enough missionaries to the Christian Europe and open borders with the Vikings, Netherlands, France, Portugal and England. You should get to free religion as quickly as possible to open borders with them (unlike Arabia, you do not need Theocracy because you're far enough that no non-Buddhist religion can spread to you realistically). Japan, Arabia and Russia will usually refuse you open borders no matter how nice you play. The only exception is when you are at war with a 3rd party at the same time (like with Japan who declared war on Mongolia). India will spawn in the mid 1500's if you haven't conquered western India and they will usually open borders. Usually by this time if you convert a 12pop city Buddhism will go up by about 1%, so you need to convert at least the big ones (Rome, Lisbon, Paris, Bordeaux, Rennes, London, Plymouth, Dublin). In fact do NOT go for the smaller ones (Mali for example) which will be a waste of your time...eventually the European ones will grow much bigger.

The problem with Theocracy (which the AI prefers a lot) is that you cannot do your converting directly. The trick is to save your game and give them your missionary. Usually the next move the AI will use the missionary to convert a city to Buddhism; if it didn't happen, reload and use your missionary for some exploration and then give it to the AI next turn. In Emperor the AI is actually quite smart (it will actively prevent conversion in a city without religion and send the missionary to a city that already has its own religion like Christianity). China actually sent me a Confucian missionary and converted half my Bangkok (17 pop!) to Confucianism; too bad I can't resist since they have 10 troops sitting in my borders as a threat. :[

If you don't get 30% by 1900 it will be too late as most of the civs will build spaceships (Germany launched in 1912). After 1900 the older techs become much cheaper (1 bulb per turn) so you should be able to catch up quickly in score.

The main tricky thing after 1450's golden age is maintaining stability. There's a hidden agricultural penalty which is the reason why your economy will never be above 3 stars (the code counts your population as being more than it truly is, and unfortunately I don't think using commonwealth will help for this). Thankfully, for patches after 1.183, you can build intelligence agencies and security bureaus in addition to jails and courthouses for more stability. Commonwealth is not a bad idea, but just don't switch when you're unstable. Saving a couple great people to start a golden age right after civic change is a good idea.

For Viceroy only: another venue is conquest. China is wide open (especially when it hasn't respawned) and about half the cities in the north do not have Buddhism. Mongolia is a tough fight but if you have superior technology you should prevail. When the Japanese crumble, go for their 4-5 cities which can grow large. Beware of the expansion instability; Occupation will be essential until you have pacified your conquests. Then there's the ultimate sacrifice: instead of growing cities, why not bomb the enemy with a few ICBMs?:]

Fast Victory (on Monarch)

by TriMiro

Start with Bang Makok and Hanoi, then quickly conquer Pagan, Patna and Delhi (destroy the third Indian city since it is at a bad spot). Also found a city on the island to the east with the gold and copper (try to catch the banana as well). Initially run HR + Slavery and whip initial buildings. Khmer's main problem is low production and eventually you will have to switch to Caste System for artists, so whip Forges, Libraries and Buddhist Monasteries in Bang Makok and Hanoi. Before you move to Caste System make sure Pagan and the city next to the gold have Harbors.

The rest is straight forward, grow the cities with Patna and Delhi easily reaching size 12. With Harbor, Pagan can reach 9 - 10 easily. Around 1000AD, switch to Caste System and run MANY artists. You can either generate 3 GA or 2 GA plus moving the culture slider. Either way you should have little difficulty. Keep an eye on Patna, because of the holy shrines, it constantly tries to spawn prophets. Use other cities to generate the artists. Culture bomb Hanoi to get the bronze and the hills without jungle from either China or the Independents.

Research priorities: Calendar (for resources) then Optics for Caravels.

Here is the tricky part. You need to convert 30% of the world to Buddhism. Japan may or may not open borders, China would be Conf. or Tao., sometimes Mongols open borders and convert to Buddhism. The largest cities, however, are in Europe, and there are many of them. Also Europeans start to spawn colonies all over the world and that makes things hard. First you need to be the first to go around the world (really helps). You may also want to convert the Inca and Aztecs, but it is not necessary (Aztecs declared war on me in my game, but I converted the Inca). Second you need to get the Europeans to open borders with you. Not having state religion helps (in my game I never selected state religion). The third thing that you need to do is get enough missionaries to Europe. Note: if they are running Theocracy, gift the missionaries, they would use them to convert their own cities.

A caravel with a missionary takes anywhere from 8 to 10 turns to reach Europe and that is slow. During the 1500 - 1800 Europeans spawn colonies much faster than what you can convert, so here is the trick. Build about 10 caravels, lets label them A, B, C ... Caravel A starts at Pagan, you load a missionary in it and move it toward Europe. Put caravel B, right on the spot where caravel A runs out of movement points. Then move the missionary form caravel A into caravel B. The move caravel B towards Europe. Put caravel C right on the spot where caravel B runs out of movement points. And keep going, with that strategy you can get a missionary from Pagan to Europe in a single turn. You need one turn for all caravels to return to starting positions. Effectively you can get a missionary to Europe every other turn (just make sure Hanoi and Bang Makok keep pumping those out). With that strategy I got the 30% goal in the early 1700 before America spawned.

A possible drawback of the above strategy is that the caravels would be sitting in the open ocean vulnerable to enemy attacks. Try to keep everybody as your friend and in my game I was only once attacked by a Barbarian Pirate (from the Caribbean), but had not used the free barb battles yet.