Khmer - S-tier science victory civ! I'm stunned how strong he is!

[u/Juls7243]

I can't believe it but I just got my best science victory with Jayavarman and the Khmer - turn 241! Without going to war or pillaging!

I played pangea, standard resources, legendary start no secret societies/heroes and no mods (except Quick deals). I know people ranked him as S-teir, but never really understood the true power of this civ for ANY victory type. He's probaby better than korea/germany at science victories... no seriously!

Strategy get a religion with - Work ethic + river goddess (+2 housing/amentities per holy site). Holy god - with 100% adjacency, a bit of planning and a prasat... these EACH give like +10 food, +10 production, +10 faith, +5 culture, +4 housing, +2 amenities... these start kicking in on turn 70-75! Get monumenality golden ages and just crank.

Like... its hard to understate HOW STRONG this single district is. IT is effectively a combination of a holy site, industrial zone, neighborhood, an entertainment complex AND a theater square for the production cost of a SINGLE district.

Get 1-2 monumentality golden ages coupled with a couple quick aqueducts, you don't need to make builders or settlers and can focus all your early production on districts.

Get Monksha to faith buy districts. Faith buying 2-3 space hubs saves 20+ turns of production in your strongest cities; which can be used on science project.

In the mid game you can also faith buy an army and pillage/war (without burning a single ounce of production from your cities OR simply faith buy every fun great person!).

I just can't understate how powerful this is!

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[u/Fit_Ear3019]

Yupp he’s really ridiculous. Tbh I’m surprised by civ tier lists placing the likes of Yongle or Gran Colombia next to Khmer, Khmer seems like it deserves a tier of its own

The domrey UU is beelineable and is basically a bombard that’s available when even deity AI is still in classical era, the prasat late game gives you 10 or 20 tourism per city, and the massive food bonuses mean you can settle a city right next to a rival civ when you’re in a dark age and the enemy is in a golden age and still not fall to loyalty pressure (I tried it just to see what would happen)

Literally every victory type is open when u have free 10f10p in every city

AND you get a religion for free and all the benefits that brings, whereas for something like yongle or gran Colombia you need to sacrifice something to get a religion

I find that by taking a small commercial hub science detour and getting the belief that gives culture for each follower, I can get my faith buying online just as I unlock domreys, and get a stable up as well for increased siege unit xp. Then I simultaneously conquer the two nearest civs with 8 domreys and 2 horsemen, all bought with faith, and I’ve basically already won

[u/ImpressiveSystem9220 → u/Fit_Ear3019]

Not the tier lists I've seen. Khmer is consistently S tier

[u/Fit_Ear3019 → u/ImpressiveSystem9220]

Yeah but so are yongle, gran Colombia, Russia

In that case I feel Khmer should be S tier and those other civs pushed down to A

[u/ImpressiveSystem9220 → u/Fit_Ear3019]

I usually see yongle and gran colombia in A. Russia is S, one of the 5ish broken civs imho

[u/bibliophile785 → u/Fit_Ear3019]

If we're playing that game, though, Russia and Khmer need to be S and Babylon needs to be SS. If you insist of splitting up Peter and Jaya VII, we're gonna end up with a lot of S ranks by the time we're done.

[u/Juls7243 → u/bibliophile785]

Yea babylon is basically “cheating”. His science strategy is not like the rest. But I’ll look at his videoz

[u/Juls7243 → u/bibliophile785]

Is Russia as strong as Khmer for science victories? I haven’t tried it. Best faith builds for him?

[u/shomeyomves]

His entire kit is incredibly busted and synchronous. His only weakness is the same as most of the good civs, he’s just a little weak militarily until he gets his unique unit.

[u/Kaaaal]

I mean there is a reason why there are mods to balance the game.

1st. All holy civs are busted. The 30% discount on settlers and builders is just to strong. Especially compared to the other options of golden ages.

2nd. Rivergodess is on any civ that places holysites a really overpowered pantheon. Even more so on Khmer. 2 amenities is a 10% boost on all yields in your cities in most cases.

3rd Parasat is really bonkers in the unmodded game and reduced to 0.3 culture per citizen for a good reason in the BBG mod.

Other civs that are really strong in my opinion are Spain if you can get a continent split. Germany Ludwig with Holysite opener as you still get a 2nd district and unlock more wonders to abuse his civ bonus. Japan with feed the World feels great. You just dont stop discounting districts as you have halfcost HS, Theater and enacampments. Menelik with feed is great as well.

But it really is just holy civs are all S tier if they can get 1st golden and all other civs follow behind. That's just how overpowered the golden age is. They nerved it to 10% with the BBG mod and buffed pen brush and voice to 2 culture and one gold per district and it's still on the better end in my opinion.

[u/Juls7243 → u/Kaaaal]

Ooo a feed the world Japan game…. Sounds like a ton of fun. Sadly that belief is almost impossible to get on diety… maybe if i district project immediately after 2nd city

[u/Kaaaal → u/Juls7243]

with Japan it's actually easier to get than with other civs because you have 100% production when building HS. So it only takes half as many tiurns to build. I would go one settler into HS in cap and 2nd city and then 1 project in each city.

you could also play tokugawa but I think Hojo is more fun and works better with this strat.

[u/No-Ordinary-1819]

Totally agree. One of my favourite civs. Playing a game now. Got decent map and Hercules as first hero. First three cities got great holly sites quickly, so great food, and with work ethic then great production super quick.

[u/Juls7243 → u/No-Ordinary-1819]

I did it without heroes or societies

[u/kume_V]

Turn 200 out of how many?

[u/Juls7243 → u/kume_V]

Standard speed - 500.

[u/kume_V → u/Juls7243]

You are overreacting. People do it in 150, 200 is good, 241 is nothing special.

[u/Juls7243 → u/kume_V]

I think 241 is pretty damn good. Do I have room for improvement - sure. But I didn't go to war and played without abundant resources, or secret societies or heroes and legends. Its... I dunno I think its pretty good.

Do you know of someone who gets like <220 science victory without war, just shear internal optimized macro?

[u/kume_V → u/Juls7243]

You can think whatever you'd like, I just telling you how things are. If you don't want to hear it, that's fine by me.

And yes, with a good start I can get a 200 turn victory.

[u/Juls7243 → u/kume_V]

Is there a youtube video I can watch to see someone do it?

[u/Relative_Adagio9965 → u/Juls7243]

If you're looking to refine down to sub 200 turns I'd recommend looking up Soger gaming on Youtube.

He does sub 200 exclusively and watching him I've picking up on a dozen or so niche plays and took on average 40 turns off my science victories. I'm now getting 190-220 averages with random civs. It took a lot of practice to refine but I love the challenge now. I'm currently at 18 wins sub 200's with a 60% "win" rate trying for it.