Khmer Overview AoE2

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Hey. Guys spirit, of the law here this video is about probably, the most unorthodox, civilization. In Age, of Empires to, the, kamae, or if you prefer the American pronunciation the. Khmer. They're. Built around really three, units, they rarely use scorpions, the new battle elephants, and their biological offspring, the, ballista, elephant, as we'll, see the Camaro's bonuses really push players to think in creative, ways which. Is basically, a nice way of saying you really need a solid, game plan as always, I'll be going through their bonuses, unique, unit and text as well, as their tech tree let's check them out. The. Team bonus is that their Scorpions have +1 range which, is like the old Korean siege Audigier, range bonus in age of conquerors which was of course taken out in the expansions, if you, ignore the siege tower which you generally should the, Scorpion is the least used siege workshop, unit because of the large number of them you need in order to make them effective I rag, on scorpions sometimes in videos but they are more useful than auditors, in some, battles, because they never hurt your own units, with a friendly fire something, that should perhaps we call the elven Archer effect, now, thinking about the civilizations. That benefit the most from the extra range Celts, and Mongols both have great scorpions already thanks to some bonuses and texts the Chinese also come to mind with their Scorpions already having extra attack and the, Slavs also, have cheaper siege making, scorpions, more appealing just, to put it in context, let's consider how an extra 1 range affects scorpions interactions. With, a variety of units first, they're a good counter to archers thanks to their high pierce armor they don't even need to be masked up in order to do this normally, though they don't out range archers, or skirmishers. They're, extra range now brings them up to one more than their archer counterparts. Which helps get more units firing in large engagements. It also makes them better against, melee units of course scorpions, crumble, to melee units up close where, they essentially, rely on being able to stop the melee units before they can close the distance for. Example it allows them to get three shots on an approaching, champion instead, of the usual two, it's, the same thing with elephants, where they can get an extra shot in before they reach them now this is looking at very specific examples, of course but this sort of thing is definitely, happening all over the battlefield in real games as well the, last unit it really helps against is their nemesis, the Audigier, now, at first glance you might think so what it just puts them at the same range as the Audigier. And they're terrible against them either way fair, enough, consider though that a Khmer scorpion, out ranges, and Audigier, without siege engineers, and takes, it out in only four shots another. Important, point is people get greedy and don't always fire on edges at the closest, target but, actually aim for the middle of, to try to get one of those intro, worthy shots which, in turn gives khmer scorpions, even more opportunity. To bring them down as you, can see one extra range can make all the difference now I could talk about scorpions, for an entire video and in fact I already have so in the interest of not repeating myself let's move on and look at their civil, assists their, first bonus is that no buildings, are required to advance to the next age or unlock, others, like, a mill before farms, and the market a blacksmith, before the siege workshop, and a, barracks before the archery range and stable, now when it comes to being able to skip buildings the big one in the Dark Age is the barracks, which, khmer no longer need when going for archers Scouts nights or battle elephants, the 175.

Would Saved is roughly uneven, ground with some of these strongest, Dark Age wood bonuses, though, skipping, a barracks leaves you extra vulnerable to Scouts as you can't quickly make spearmen, still, I consider it a net positive for futile aggression, it's maybe more powerful, though for its fast castle, potential, normally, you have at least a 50 second delay in feudal age while you put down two buildings, whereas, the Khmer could theoretically hit, feudal age and immediately. Click up to castle provided, that you have the food and gold needed to do so that means some very fast castle, times are possible, while also saving a lot of wood in the process, on, the other hand the situation, I actually find it most convenient, for is the, Imperial, aged advance every other civilization, has, to build at least two of the four castle age buildings, it's, pretty easy though to find yourself in a situation where you've made just one of those buildings and need, to go out of your way to make the second, as camara, it's pretty nice to just not have to worry about that a map I'd consider this bonus especially, strong on is arena. Being able to skip so many buildings means it's much easier, to head straight for monks and siege or a fast, Imperial, into gunpowder, units which can there have on nomads as well starts can often be very non-standard and, you won't always need a lumber camp mining, camp or mill depending. On what's around your town center being able to place down farms right away or not have, to think about putting extra lumber camps you don't need could, easily save a lot of wood one, word of caution though is if you think your opponent might be going four Scouts don't feel like you have to skip your barracks just because you can the, bonus should be increasing, your flexibility, not reducing. It by making you feel that you're restricted, from making your usual buildings if you want them the second bonus is that their battle elephants, are 15%, faster, basically. It's the Persians, unique tech but worse and for free now one way to look at this is that 15%, faster. Than very slow is generally, also still, pretty slow and it only puts them roughly on the same level as pikemen or throwing ax men but on the other hand it's significant, because it helps negate the battle elephants, biggest weakness, which is their inability to force, engagements. Of all the battle elephants civilizations, in rise of the Rajas I think this makes Khmer, is the best since, it makes them less exploitable. By hit-and-run, and conversions. Welcome, back to their battle elephants, a bit later as well when we talk about the unique tech their, third bonus is that their villagers can garrison, in houses, apparently. They're the only civilization that, doesn't, regularly, lock themselves out of their own homes of course, the big utility, here is the ability to save villagers, during raids at, the first sign of trouble you can simply put your Lumberjacks, or miners, into houses, while you send your army to help that, might be frustrating, for an opponent looking for some early economy, harassment, but I wouldn't go as far as to say your economy, is impervious. To raids you're, still losing out on resources, and collection, time while your units are garrisoned, so try not to overuse. It but I think we can all agree it's better to garrison five villagers, than, to lose five villagers, I would, actually consider this to be their biggest economy. Bonus and it basically helps to the extent that it, saves you from a loss villager, here there in, case you were wondering it also works with the town Bell like any other garrison, building and even, has the go back to work feature another. Nifty use for their houses is as a gate this, only works for villagers but being able to move them in and out while being completely protected, is surprisingly.

Useful It, means you can fully wall in your lumberjacks for example, and easily. Send villagers in and out without exposing, them to raids so. Believe it or not that's all of their bonuses, if you're thinking to yourself wow there wasn't really a great economy, or military, bonus in there I'm inclined, to agree their, bonuses don't jump, out at you on paper and need some pre-planning or quick thinking, to turn into some sort of advantage, they. Also continued, the trend of being a bit unorthodox with, their cavalry seeds unique unit the ballista, elephant, in terms, of its stats it's somewhat comparable to a battle, elephant, with basically, identical, HP, and similar, armor the main difference is the battle elephants, high melee attack is offset, by the ballista, elephants, range and Pierce damage the price is pretty comparable as well costing, a bit less food and ten more gold per unit now the two shouldn't necessarily be, thought of as mutually, exclusive, choices, you could theoretically go, for both at the same time given. They fill pretty different roles I think, of the ballista elephant, a bit more like the elephant, archer giving, range support, like an archer but with a lot of extra HP, making, them resistant, to skirmishers, and even, melee attacks to an extent in fact, looking at the two units side-by-side, they have the same cost but, the indian elephant archers, seem to have slightly better stats, across, the board the elephant archer is of course not generally, considered a very powerful unit, to begin with the, obvious question, then is why make the ballista elephant, a slightly, weaker version, it turns out there are two hidden differences, between them the first is that the ballista elephant is partly a siege unit, and the, elephant, Archer is well. Sort of a cavalry Archer which, comes with a lot of bonus damage implications. The, ballista, elephant in contrast, takes, no bonus damage from anti Archer units and in, fact even does a bit of bonus damage against, buildings which is typical, of siege you, do of course want to watch out for anti siege units like manga die Meg Gurkhas ARS and funny, enough rams they.

Of Course still take anti cavalry, and anti, elephant, bonus damage from, things like halberdiers, and camels as well likewise. Their upgrades are cavalry, armor from the blacksmith, bloodlines. And husbandry, from the stable and siege, engineers, from the university, which is important, for the +1 range it's, important to remember that they are not affected, by any Archer technologies. The second big advantage for the ballista elephant over the elephant, Archer is that, the projectiles, work like scorpions, with the bolt firing, through groups of units with, scorpions, it calculates, their attack after armor, and does, full damage to whatever unit they're targeting, and half, damage to any others in front of it or behind it, that happened, to be hit as well the, bolt itself travels about 10 tiles potentially. Damaging, a lot of units in between it's, a slightly different calculation. For the ballista, elephant, though they, target a particular unit, and do full damage to all of the units in front as well, as one or two behind, though, the distance, the bolt goes depends, on how far away you're targeting, essentially. That means you'll end up doing more damage overall, by attacking, units further back than, you would by targeting, ones up close definitely. Something to keep in mind now, the battle elephants full damage to every unit is pretty much balanced, out by the scorpions, nearly, double, attack, so in the end they actually come out being roughly equivalent the, scorpions main advantage, is its extra range with, the ballista elephant, offsetting, that with, six times the HP, and no minimum, range you, can think of them as the tougher, close-range, version of the scorpion, but, still ideal in that support, of artillery rule against units with low pierce armor one, other cool thing about them is that they can cut down trees one at a time like trebuchet, in the expansions on udders also cut trees and are the main go-to but, ballista, elephants can do this starting in the castle, age before auditors, and Tricia's are available, just, to look quickly at their elite upgrade they have a fairly expensive upgrade, cost which, only gives an extra 40 HP and one attack, considering. The high cost of a single battle elephant though the upgrade is definitely, worth picking up with even a modest, group of them and only cost the same as roughly eight units, now, all of this so far has been looking at them without their unique tech double, crossbow, that's been intentional, because it's a fairly expensive upgrade, and I think it's good to know where the unit stands before pick, it.

Says It allows scorpions, and ballista elephants to fire two projectiles. So, does that mean it doubles, their attack because, that sounds pretty crazy the, answer is no definitely, not if you look at their damage output before double, crossbow, you can see the patterns I've already mentioned after. Researching the unique tech we can see that for the Scorpion the second bolt ends up only doing half of what the normal one does and even has a bit of extra inaccuracy, in this example it ended up doing only 22% more damage overall far, short I've doubled, the attack for, the ballista elephant it seems to add two or three damage across the board though with the second, bolt having a longer range like, a scorpion, in this case that gave it 40% more damage overall which, is of course going to vary quite a bit in practice the. Big takeaway is it's not doubling, your damage output it's, giving you a roughly. Half strength extra projectile, on a slightly different trajectory, than the main one factoring. In armor I repeated the test and found it only gave about a 10% damage boost to the scorpions and about, a 35% boost, to the ballista, elephants, which really tightly packed units it's probably giving you a bit more than that but, I hope that at least gives you an idea of the scale it's working, on and personally, I was surprised by how small of an advantage it ended up being the, second unique tech that the Khmer have is a pretty. Straightforward one, that gives +3 attack to battle elephants, it's, actually quite cheap and nicely complements, their speed bonus, bear, in mind this doesn't apply to ballista. Elephants, this is only for the battle elephant, at the stable, an extra, 3 attack is great in the castle age and it's, very reasonably, priced so it's definitely worth picking up whether you're doing a battle elephant, rush or even, just plan on using them in general as a meat shield also, keep in mind that battle elephants deal half their attack to all units immediately, around them as Splash. Damage which, their unique tech also contributes, to in, another video I did on battle elephants, they're extra 3 attack on top of their speed boost and all, the upgrades made them the most effective battle elephants, of all the new civilizations. So, that's their unique unit and techs they're all very focused on the theme of elephants. And scorpions, which, are both fairly uncommon, units, and it, feels like their bonuses synergize really well with those ones in particular next. Up let's see what other options they have by taking a look at their tech tree starting, with the archers now, at first glance it really doesn't look to you bad they have the potential to skip the barracks early on and save some wood when going for archers or crossbows. But in castle age you'll find your missing thumb ring and that strategy ultimately, hits a dead end with no our blast the, elite skirmisher, and hand cannon ear are both there which are nice as counter, units the cavalry archers might be tempting as an anti pike unit to protect your elephants, especially, with party and tactics, giving, them an extra +4, attack but, without thumb ring it's really hard to justify cavalry. Archers, I found, before that it increases their damage output by, almost 60% so. Personally, I tend to stay away from them without it there's, some potential there for creative, ideas but I really wouldn't say that they're above average, overall. I'd say it's a middle-of-the-road, C+, for the archery range next. Up is infantry, they're missing champion, Squires, and the, last armor tech you, do at least have the halberd ear but overall they're again average, or below average for the whole game I even, count their building bonus against, their infantry, considering, that when you decide to mix in a few Spears, you might suddenly remember, you skip your barracks in dark age I'd, say it's a c4 infantry, now things do get a bit better for the cavalry, they have bloodlines all of the blacksmith, techs and of course they're faster battle elephants, with a potential, for an extra 3 attack I really, like the idea of a fast castle, skipping the blacksmith, and mark it on the way up and then going straight into an elephant rush I think, they were actually designed, with that idea in mind likewise.

If You want a bit more mobility, you could also go for Knights instead, there's, a bit of flexibility, there and you could even consider Scouts as well and again, skip the barracks before making your stable, the point is you have a lot of possibilities, to offset, that they're missing both Hazara and paladin, so your armies lack a lot of speed in a late-game, I'd say overall it's a be considering, their variety of early game options, but only having the one powerful late-game stable. Units. Moving. On to the CH they of course have their unique unit which functions, like a more durable short-range, scorpion, but they also have a pretty, solid siege workshop, C drom is there which is always a strong option and they also have bombard, cannons with siege engineers, to counter enemy auditors, of course they also have their scorpions with extra, range and at least a bit of extra damage from the second projectile, there's, a lot to like here and, I'd say it's an a-minus, for siege it's definitely, a strength of the civilization, next, up is the Navy of course, none of their bonuses, apply to water maps but that doesn't stop them from being at least okay, the, tech tree is almost completely, open, including, heated, shot initially. The lack of any economy, bonus is going to make it a bit harder to get established on, water so I'd say it's an underwhelming, C grade for the early game but in the late game shipwright, racer and fast fire ship are all going to start giving you advantages, over other civilizations. With fewer options considering. All the technologies, I'd say it's a B+, on the water in the late game or a pretty, average b-, overall, taking. A quick look now at their monks similar, to the persians it seems elephants, come hand-in-hand with, missing, heresy, and the, lack of faith also, means that your elephants, will always be weak to enemy monks actually, kind of like the idea of a fast castle, into a monk, rush again, because of the ability to skip several buildings, along the way they can achieve some very fast castle times which, is what makes that strategy viable. I'd say it's a B for the monastery but the monks certainly have potential, either combined, with siege in an aggressive castle age push or even, just as support, to heal your late-game expensive. Elephants, especially. If it's combined with a Byzantine, Ally to help your monk seal a bit quicker I could see them giving you a lot of value over, the long run we've, gone out to defenses, they're missing bombard towers and arrow slits but other than that you have everything, you could want the, ability to garrison the villagers and houses, is probably, their biggest defensive, advantage.

The Hard part is sometimes just remembering, to use it overall they work pretty well on the defensive, so I'm gonna say they're at B+ wrapping. Up the tech tree now with their economy, again they don't really have a consistent, eco bonus in the early game and even in the late game they're missing guilds and to Manso I think that leaves them with a below average economy. Which is compounded. By how expensive, their key units are I'm gonna give them a bit of credit for potentially, saving on buildings, early on and being, able to save a few villagers, here and there in some games those bonuses, might have a lot of impacts but they're not necessarily, consistent, so overall, to me it's an underwhelming, C or economy. So that's their tech tree you do have some different early game rush options, available but. I think you'll find your advantage, is relatively. Small and short-lived, compared, to a lot of other civilizations, again. The most interesting, early game strategies, for me are the, fast castle, into a battle, elephant rush or into, monks and siege it was really surprising to me that they were the most requested and, a recent Civ overview, poll it, really requires some forethought, and planning on, your part to make the most of now, you might say that's true of every civilization. But, contrast, them with a straightforward, civilization. Like the Britons with, faster, Shepherds and cheaper, Town Center's playing, them like normal you might just feel like you're having a really good game with, some extra resources piling, up they also have extra range on archers, which are already a popular unit to use in, contrast, with Khmer it would be easy to play your standard, build with, some of the most common, strategies, and not happen, to make use of any, of their bonuses, unintentionally. In terms of the late-game again the elephants, and scorpions, are both expensive, and slow though, they do excel, against opponents who rely on quantity. Over quality as. Long as you can maintain a supply of gold I really, like the synergy, of the Scorpion protecting, the battle elephant from pikemen and I would say their main strength is gonna be on maps like Black Forest or arena where, you have a bit of time to build the economy you need to put out their incredibly, population. Efficient. But, those are just my thoughts on the Khmer hopefully you have a few new ideas of how you want to play them thanks for watching guys and I'll see you next time.

2018-03-26

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