shout out to Squarespace for sponsoring this video hey guys Spirit of the law here in this
civ overview we're going to be revisiting and taking an updated look at the Khmer
Khmer are a very outside the box Siege and elephant civilization performing
about average on both open and close maps according to the stats though this civ is
anything but typical given their bonuses are so unique it's maybe not surprising
to learn they tend to perform significantly better in the hands of higher rated players
which I think comes down to two factors if you've previously felt like you're maybe
not getting the most out of them hopefully this overview will leave you with a bit clearer game
plan and a better feeling of how to fully utilize their bonuses let's check them out
starting with their team bonus their whole team scorpions have plus one range meaning they go from
7 to 8 in Castle Ag and up to N9 in the late game with Siege engineers in Castle age this is a big
deal going from equal to now out ranging crossbows Elite skirmishers and mangonel who all have seven
range and in Imperial have one more range than onagers without Siege Engineers scorpions are
undeniably less popular than mangonel and Rams despite being quite a bit cheaper but can be
quite strong against archers or infantry in the mid game especially to defend against crossbow
raids more commonly though it's in the late game you see large numbers of scorpions as a counter
to halberdiers or even high Pierce armor targets and choke points being a team bonus the effect is
quite nice for a Roman or Celt Ally for example as well who might be making some scorpions in a
support role for their infantry moving on to their civ bonuses the first is khmer remove any building
requirements to advance to the next age or unlock other buildings which includes everything from the
barracks to unlock the stable and archery range down to lesser knowns like the blacksmith to
unlock the siege workshop and the mill to unlock the market this is quite a good bonus and right
away in the dark age you can save the wood from a barracks and go straight into an Archer range or
stable bringing up the equivalent cost of three Farms right there though against enemy Scouts
skipping the barracks can sometimes backfire so you want to wall in Expos villagers or have a
house nearby if you suspect enemy Scouts are about maybe even more impactful is how much this can
improve a fast Castle on a closed map skipping the usual blacksmith and Market on the way up saving
you over 300 wood and letting you get away with some incredibly fast 22 or 23 villager fast Castle
builds the idea is you click up straight after hitting feudal reaching Castle AG at potentially
around 13 minutes and have Knights on the field not too long after alternately going up a bit
later with 24 or 25 villagers in Dark Age can also be effective and lead into spamming Knights
or booming as the situation calls for at the same time many players especially at lower levels will
often forget this bonus entirely and make those prerequisite buildings out of habit unfortunately
missing out on the full potential of what khmer can do even going to Imperial age though you avoid
the awkward moment where you realize you need to build another prerequisite building as sometimes
happens altogether I would point to this bonus as one of the two main reasons that c perform better
at higher ELO as it has the potential to open up alternate build orders and save a lot of resources
whether you're rushing or booming but you have to remember it and also break your usual habits
their next civ bonus is really your main eco bonus and it's that farmers don't require Mills
or town centers giving you a constant trickle of food in early feudal this is essentially
giving you wheelbarrow for free with about a 15% collection rate boost compared to a generic
civilization maybe unexpectedly then despite your Farmers having no carry capacity wheelbarrow then
boost C Farmers by about another 9% even hand cart gives an additional 5% boost with the point being
that khmer farmers are always going to be ahead of other generic civilizations keep in mind you also
save on the cost of mills as well as save time and attention when placing farms while also being able
to just pull a villager off any resource and plop down a farm in place or even better surround your
Castles while not having to worry about perfect placement of course there's also a benefit to
receiving your food income in real time and even if you only collected at the generic rate you'd
still be spending your food a bit earlier than is usually possible all this ties in especially well
with khmer as a Cavalry civilization making Scouts Knights Elephants or even hussar all of which are
food intensive units and greatly benefit from your above average collection rate and always
perfect efficiency speaking of Cavalry though their next civ bonus is their battle elephants
move 10% faster meaning after husbandry they're even faster than archers altogether khmer have
probably the most well-rounded battle elephants and they're a nice population efficient choice
in the late game on closed Maps like Amazon tunnel or michi though on open maps generally
the mobility of the Knight is preferred with the battle elephant being a secondary option that's
slower but better against buildings and finally their last bonus is you can garrison up to five
villagers in each house this can save the odd villager during raids though it can also be a
tricky bonus to remember In the heat of the moment there's certainly no harm in having a house near
an exposed wood line berries or gold just in case and it also lets them jump through walls without a
gate or even skip between locations in relative safety as villagers don't seem to be possessive
about which house is theirs it's obviously not ideal to idle your villagers in a house during
a raid but it is better than losing them and it turns out they even work with a town bell which
I think is pretty clever so that's the khmer's bonuses between skipping buildings Farms you
can place anywhere garrisoning and houses plus bonuses for two fairly uncommon units they're
clearly a very unique civilization that said forgetting to skip building prerequisites or
alternately trying for incredibly fast up times that stifle your economy can hold them back at
lower levels and there's a balancing act there between skipping unnecessary buildings versus
hitting castle age and actually being able to do something with it I think a second issue for khmer
is their Specialties can be a trap in the mid game trying to go for battle elephants scorpions or
your unique unit before your economy can handle it can lead to underwhelming results and just a
slow and small army remember you have a top tier farming economy to power conventional strategies
like Scouts into Knights or crossbows and there's no rule you have to use elephants or scorpions
just for the sake of it now let's move on though and take a look at their Castle starting with
their unique unit the ballista elephant there's a lot going on here and I recently did a deep
dive of this unit specifically but put simply they're combination of a battle elephant and a
scorpion immediately suggesting this is more of a late game unit they have a very high ceiling wind
Mast but are expensive and difficult to get going especially in open maps and can also be vulnerable
to a halberdier and onager combo compared to Elephant archers or even crossbows and arbalesters
they're fairly hard-hitting with the unique trait of having pass through damage assuming the target
isn't directly adjacent to them in which case their shots tend to just drop straight down
those pass through attacks give them a bit of a scorpion quality though they don't have the range
or high attack of the Scorpion meaning they're best suited against light infantry or archers and
less so heavy Cavalry Eagles ghulam huskarls Etc basically anything with high Pierce armor is going
to give them some trouble a few hidden things about the unit are first it deals bonus damage
against buildings punching through walls and Gates especially a bit faster than you'd expect while
they themselves take lots of bonus damage from anything anti-cavalry elephant or anti- Siege with
that said once you reach a critical mass it can be quite difficult for melee units to get close
enough to use those bonuses so a few are more counters on paper or in low numbers whereas in
practice it's not so clearcut especially against halberdiers speaking of clearcut they of course
are also a bit unusual for being able to carve a path through trees giving another reason they're
well suited for closed forested maps as you might expect they're upgraded like a mix of Cavalry and
Siege though note they aren't considered to be archers in any way with players picking up Archer
armor for them being a common mistake a couple of situations they thrive in are against skirmishers
or archers as a damaged sponge and a large group can be good against halberdiers or even like
Cavalry especially if you can get a lot of that pass through damage and fully upgrade them which
is naturally relatively expensive on the flip side they don't have the range of the Scorpion so
are quite vulnerable to Siege especially onagers and Rams which deal a lot of bonus damage to them
and also have good Pierce armor one very natural pairing then is hussar as balista elephants can
deal with clumps of halberdiers while hussar can deal with any Siege generally they aren't combined
with battle Elephants or scorpions as that ends up being a lot of very expensive upgrades so
supporting a ballista elephant Mass with trash units is much more common also at the castle are
of course your unique techs which both again help your late game Army the first is your Castle age
unique Tech Tusk swords we already saw it that khmer battle elephants are extra fast but with
this Tech they also have the most attack and actually beat all other battle elephants with
equal numbers in Imperial age of course it adds to how expensive they are to Tech into but 21 attack
and Imperial is no joke and this also increases the amount of trample damage battle elephants
do to adjacent units as that's calculated as a quarter of their attack their other unique Tech
this time in Imperial is double crossbow this gives a weaker second projectile for ballista
elephants and scorpions for ballista elephants it's actually not that impressive having just
six attack or seven after chemistry usually that ends up doing just one or two damage after enemy
armor comes into play but is still worth picking up if ballista elephants are your death ball unit
of choice the effect for scorpions on the other hand is to give them a 12 attack secondary bolt
so they're helped out a bit more usually you'd only make one of scorpions or ballista elephants
in the very late game but this tech makes sure you're benefiting either way I should note that
getting both unique techs is a little unusual as the most natural feeling late game compositions
tend to feature just one of those units affected unless you're just drowning in resources so that's
their Castle which really beefs up your late game ceiling for a few powerful gold intensive units if
anything the castle emphasizes what you're more likely to use on a closed map like black forest
or Arena rather than an open map like Arabia where I think it's much easier to play using
more conventional units to explore how flexible they are though let's take a look now at their
tech tree starting with the archers the fact you can jump straight into your archery range
in feudal without a barracks means archers are a very smooth opening or a good follow-up to Scouts
if your opponent goes heavily into Spears and their arbalesters are nearly fully upgraded just
missing thumb ring making for a very natural compliment with hussar the Cavalry Archer is
also viable especially with the heavy Cavalry Archer upgrade now increasing their accuracy
to 80% without thumb ring and you even get hand Canonneer overall even without a direct bonus here
and lacking thumb ring i' still give the archery range a B+ for some really underrated flexibility
next up for infantry they're missing quite a few things here including some armor and have a very
weak militia line the spear line does work still as a counter unit or a throwaway meat shield and
that's usually about it I'd say it's a C for their infantry and considering you can skip the barracks
to go for an Archer range or stable directly it's not uncommon to see khmer not even make a Barracks
at all moving on to their Cavalry this is really their strength they have a great Scout opening
again skipping the barracks and the tech Tree is open all the way up to fully upgraded hussar and
Cavalier the battle elephant can also be a solid choice in team games when you need some population
efficiency and a damaged sponge in front of ranged units I personally consider khmer a borderline
top 10 Cavalry civilization based on their good farming alone and Scouts into two stable Knights
is probably their safest default game plan I'll give them an A- for Cavalry just held back by
not having Paladin or a direct Cavalry bonus but in Castle age they can keep up with pretty much
anyone stable next up for Siege they have a really solid Tech Tree and their scorpions have plus one
range of course making them among the most viable in the game not needing a blacksmith to create a
Siege Workshop also opens some interesting Arena Siege push potential in this particular case
just given how dangerous onagers to Elephants or scorpions it's it's really too bad you don't have
bombard Cannon but that was removed a few years ago specifically to make onagers a greater threat
overall though I still think it's enough for a B+ moving on to the Navy a lot of your bonuses don't
really land on water maps or even hybrid maps all that well as you might expect then a lot of their
worst matchups online are actually on maps that include water late game you have a decent number
of options so they're certainly passable but just go out to a very generic start and hybrid
or especially full water Maps can can be quite snowball if you fall behind early I'd say they're
a C+ civilization on water early ending up with a B in the late game for a B- overall taking a quick
look at the monks unfortunately they're missing block printing to help against onagers though
the other important monk techs are here a monk play is pretty reasonable as khmer but keep in
mind they're one of the only good monk civs that lack atonement meaning someone else with that Tech
could convert your monks without a way for you to get them back they're okay but not great and in
this case it's enough for a B next up for defenses it's a pretty good University overall adding to
their defensive play style as well is the house bonus which can save you from early raids and even
scorpions with extra range can be nice to hold against midgame crossbow pressure the ability to
place Farms anywhere can also make you harder to raid and to me they feel like a B+ for defenses
ending now with their trash units that is units that don't cost gold on paper they don't have any
direct bonuses here but having arguably the best late game farmers means their Hazard spam is top
tier anyway Elite skirmishers have the basics and the halberdier can still function as anti-cavalry
well enough and altogether I'd say it's a B+ for trash with an a-level hussar spam so to give some
final thoughts there's no question C are a little tricky to pick up but have a lot of potential for
a creative player as I said the safest default option I think is Scouts into Knights skipping
the barracks entirely to get a cleaner start archers into a crossbow is also completely
viable though and even even if it's just to add in skirmishers with knights a relatively early Archer
range can often be useful in contrast I'd argue their elephant and Scorpion Specialties can be a
trap in the mid game if you over invest in them Beyond maybe a couple of defensive scorpions or
as a pairing with an army of mostly knights in terms of late game compositions hussar paired
with arbalester or scorpion is always a classic as they protect each other's weaknesses though khmer
have several good combinations depending on what you're up against in Black Forest or Amazon tunnel
especially is when the population efficient units like battle or ballista elephants can shine and
a critical mass of them mixed with hazards can be almost impossible to stop easily my favorite part
of khmer though is the very satisfying moment of clicking straight up from feudal to Castle
age without building a blacksmith and Market in fact I've been saving so much of my own time not
queuing up feudal buildings with ch that I've been able to put that time into pursuing my
dream of opening an Age of Empire's resort Spirit of the Lake it even has a great website thanks to
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to try with a very fun but quirky civilization Squarespace have generously sponsored several
upcoming videos which is a great opportunity for me to go back and revisit some of these
more outdated overviews over the next few months which I'm looking forward to that'll
do it for this one though thanks for watch watching guys and I'll see you next time