What does everyone think of the Khmer?

[wertyu70]

In my current game (Fractal Epic Monarch as Asoka) I'm sharing a medium size island with Khmers (I think 12 cities can be settled here if I wipe trhem out).
Incas are on another island near me. I Don't know about others so far.
They have copper (I haven't), I have Horses (They haven't), no ivory near us, I don't know about iron.
It's early game, I'm researching Pottery.
I'm wondering whether it's better to kill them as soon as I can or use them as a trade partner till Middle Age.

[Brael]

If you want their land, kill them.
If you want their resources, kill them.
If you want some unit exp, kill them.
If you want a domination/conquest win, kill them.
If you want a diplomatic win, kill them and gift others their cities or kill them and vote yourself winner.
If you want a space win, kill them and make their cities research.

In all seriousness, it depends on how much territory you have. If you're gaining enough to offset the loss of trade routes and beakers in tech trades it's worth it. With as early as you're saying it is though, let them live for awhile, you can't afford to conquer them so soon so all you would do is add to the area barbarians can spawn.

[rah]

You have to be careful if they have metal and you don't.

The other nice thing about them is that they start with hunting and mining so you get the scout and can choose to research either BW or AH first depending on your land. Claiming and hooking up strategic resources early can sometime make your game.

[wertyu70]

I went on with my game, and things are not going very well.

After dotmapping, I reliazed I could set up 5 cities on my side of the island.
I needed their land.
As a first move, I used my starting warrior to steal a worker,
then I parked the warrior on a forested hill in the BFC of their capitol.
With a second warrior I managed to keep their archer busy, while I was setting up my cities,
and I was building some chariots to kill their archer.
Now I have 5 cities up and running, they have 2 cities with undevelop land.

By the way, I don't think I'm going to conquer one of their 2 cities easily,
they have 6 archers inside, with hill defense, and with 20 or 40 culture defense.
Probably I need catapults to kill them.

The main problem is that Incas are researching really fast (at least 6 techs ahead),
I'm still in the middle of Alphabet.

[rah]

Heck 5 good cities is all you need till you've built up your infrastructure and economy to handle a good sized empire through conquering. (if it's really early 5 is too many) Any more cities earlier and the incas will get a bigger tech lead. SO just keep choking the khmer and eventually you'll roll all over them

[wertyu70]

Things are going better:
it's 1 AD, I'm about at tech parity with other players.
I recovered as soon as I got Currency and Code of Laws,
with some good tech trading:
I discoverd that Incas were not on an island but on the main continent,
where they lived with Wang, William, Qin and Isabel.
Soon a religious war will happen, because they have 3 different religions.
I'm going to kill Khmer soon, to get their land.
I also have some place to expand in 2 islands (place for 3-4 cities),
they are a bit far away but with valuable happiness resources.
I'm thinking to try a feature I have never tried before: colonies.
Do you know if a colony can become independent?

[Ming]

A colony can not become independent... they will remain your vassal until you are dead.

[wertyu70]

Just to let you know I won the game in 1665, I destroyed khmer as soon as I had catapults,
then I settled my islands (12 cities), beeline to Steel and I started conquering the main continent.
The war was too easy, everyone capituleted to me after I conquered 2 of their core cities,
first Incas, then William, Qin, Isabel and finally Wang.

[Ming]

Pretty much anything is cool when they get upgraded to Mech Infantry

[rah]

Especially Oromo warriors.

[Theben]

I didn't know bots edited their posts.

[rah]

Good Catch

[Robert]

talking about bots without reporting them

[Kaosium]

I have come to absolutely *despise* the Kmer as a civilization in this game. For one thing they seem to always be in games I play lately, and are an ever-present choice when I try to 'random.' 'Random' has become Hobson's choice of the Kmer or the Maya too often as of late. It seems that for some reason playing a game without the Kmer, the Maya, the HRE or Byzantium is virtually impossible with BTS. Is this coded in there somehow?

As for the position in the game, they do not interest me. One is that they are Creative, which lessens the overall gaming experience in my mind. I know it's a great trait, I can think of all the wonderful applications it has, cheap libraries meaning sooner great scientists and academies as well as that unearned culture bloviating forth every single turn crowding everyone else out...well, the possibilities are endless. However one of the most interesting facets of the game to me is how to generate the culture to expand your borders and peacefully keep your borders intact and access exterior resources, and Creative just takes that element out of the game and hands it to you on a silver platter. Along with cheap libraries. No one play-testing noticed just how unbalancing that was?

The other is the UU which strikes me as rather a curse than a blessing. I suppose everyone dreams of their Formation WEs nailing his shock WEs instead of pikeman, but I imagine it would work more along the lines of my Shock War Elephants hitting his damn chariots instead of the spearmen I need degraded so my Horse Archers can flank his catapults with more success.

I actually like the idea behind the unique building, there are starts where that extra one food means the difference in being able to run one more specialist, which might be a big help someday generating Great People.

I don't like Expansive either, even though I realize its potential. It seems to direct you towards one great early game option that doesn't appeal to me all the time. Yes, you get big fast in the beginning by settling near a forested hill on the plains with a big food bonus nearby and churning out worker after worker and then chopping out settlers and a granary then slaving incessantly, but it gets old.

I seem to always play against them though, they've been in three out of my last five games, most with just six others beside myself. More than five of my last ten games too. I hate their theme music and seeing that decrepit old fart, I just want to kill him every time I see them, and eliminating civs is not my preferred way of playing.

[wodan11]

It seems that for some reason playing a game without the Kmer, the Maya, the HRE or Byzantium is virtually impossible with BTS. Is this coded in there somehow?

Using rough statistics.

There are 34 civs. That means the AI has 33 to choose from. That's about 3% odds each, for each of 4. That comes to 12.41% to have NONE of the 4 chosen for each AI civ. This % diminishes each additional civ is added to the game, but if you play with 15 civs in the game the % chance of having at least one of the four approaches unity (100%).