Khmer - A true Elephant and Siege Civ design

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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Khmer as a civ has gone though its paces. From an underperformer with quirky bonuses and strong elephants, it has become a knight spam civ with probably the best farming bonus for early game beating even the slavs. Though these changes have made the civilization versatile. The last patch benefitting scorpions with ballistics has pushed it to an extreme. Added to that the buffs to elephants have given the civ an even better DPS option than knights and cavalier. I believe its time the civ shed some of the extra fat, it has gained overtime and made into a leaner tech tree focussing on Elephants and Siege.

First change:
Battle Elephants move 10% faster  ->  Battle Elephants move 20% faster.
Remove - 'Husbandry' from tech tree

Tusk Swords: Battle Elephants +3 attack -> Battle Elephants +5 melee attack and +2 attack bonus for buildings 
Remove - 'Blast Furnace' from tech tree
Remove - 'Arson' from tech tree

This first change is to make the best elephant civ actually make elephants in place of heavy cavalry by making the unit more scaleable throughout castle age despite the cost. Battle elephant can also work like a siege elephant with the bonus against buildings.

Second change - Team Bonus 
Scorpions have +1 range -> Elephant units have +2 LOS

The LOS will be double of knights making them as good as ranged units vision wise to patrol the map.

Last change

Change - Remove the 5% slower workrate of farms.
Remove - 'Bloodlines' from tech tree

The 5% slower farms is meant to disrupt scout rush potential. Removing Bloodlines will do exactly the same. Battle Elephants gain just 8% HP boost from bloodlines. Their stats are not going to be affected much by losing ‘bloodlines’. With farm nerf gone, Khmer can easily tech into elephant in castle age despite the food cost being higher.

Optional change:
Remove - ‘Cavlary archer’ from tech tree
Add - ‘Elephant archers’ with elite upgrade to tech tree with the movement speed bonus being shared with them.
Though I admit, ‘Elephant archers’ are still not a properly designed unit. Khmer can definitely make them work in castle age.

4 Likes
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I think you’re digging a little too into this theme to the detriment of every other unit

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I agree with the premise – I think it’s kind of a shame that Khmer play as a cavalry spam civ, given that historically the Khmer don’t seem to have used cavalry.

Assuming you want to keep Battle Elephants at the same speed they have now, wouldn’t they have to move 20% faster? (Or maybe even 21%, depending how the current bonus interacts with husbandry.)

1 Like
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Sorry. My bad. The speed bonus should be 20%. I just reverted the numbers to 15% which was the original. 20% should be a good speed boost without making it opressive.

Khmer food bonus makes the CIV ideal for elephants. But they are played as a cavalry spam like most European civs. They should be similar to Indian civs with elephants having a death all kind of gameplay role. However they should be viable midgame as well as a cavalry replacement. I wouldn’t remove Knights or cavalier though. The benefits of elephants should automatically make them a better choice than knight line.

I believe they are currently too OP on the siege and cavalry front. Khmer already have a full siege tech tree minus siege onager. But including siege engineers. They don’t need easy buffs on scorpions anymore. Maybe nerf ballista elephant’s range by 1 and add it as part of ‘double crossbow’. This way the team bonus will not become a balance nightmare for team games.

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Out all of these just remove blast furnace and buff Tusks Swords from +3 to +5 attack.

Done, Khmer won’t be motivated to use Cavaliers and spam Hussars anymore, Khmer infantry will be worse but was already among the worst (No Champion, No Supplies, No Gambesons, No Squires, No Plate Mail Armor), missing blast furnace just pushes it a bit more. Khmer then will have true reasons to tech into Battle elephants in Imperial as their main shock Cavalry.

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Removing Husbandry and buff elephant speed is my proposal for a long time. But other than that, I think you are going too far. Maybe they can get Armored Elephant line with extra movement speed replacing the ram line.

1 Like