I think it’s kind of a joke that the Khmer were considered bad. Okay, they sucked in 1v1 arabia, so what of it? They not a rush civ, they are a heavy boomer civ.
In the very late game, they are neon unstoppable with trade in a 4v4 black forest map. Their battle elephants used to be even stronger as well before the DE nerfs. They are a civ that are meant to boom hard, then unleash a deadly force of battle elephants, scorpions, and ballista elephants. They rip nearly anything apart with such a force. Okay, it’s costly, but they meant to boom to unleash this monster force.
Persians somehow sucked as well. Even if they are nearly unstoppable when fully boomed with never-ending War Elephant spam to roll over puny civs in a team game. Again, they are meant to boom hard, and then unleash a monster force.
Granted the buffs are nice. But I wonder how much stronger now they are in these slow booming games of 4v4 black forest? Granted, the game is mostly focused 1v1 balance. Team games are impossible to balance with things like trade.
Khmer did not have farming bonus before DE. Did it even have a econ bonus before DE? I remember Khmer being a very meme civ like Tier F while everyone else being Tier D or above. UU are strong but they die to siege onagers in boomer games anyway.
Persians got hit hard with the removal of their dark age TC speed buff. I wonder if it would be possible to give them just faster TC in dark age, and keep the dock buff start from Feudal. I think that ~1 villager advantage from the 5% TC speed would make the civ more competitive
Well that’s certainly possible as it was precisely like this when de came out. People cried persians were op for hybrid maps so they moved the bonuses back to feudal age (as was pre de). Then someone noticed that the faster dark age dock was false implemented and it didn’t even worked faster 11
And yeah I agree, give that back the faster tc in dark age. If they removed the extra starting wood imo they could also make their docks faster in dark age. Would be more consistent this way.
Persians are just… so generic. They have nothing really outstanding imo.
Trashbows are nice, but you can use them to only one single thing: countering halbs. Nothing else.
So persians don’t have anything outstanding but also not the best eco and they are very restricted in their gamplay, too.
I don’t think persians are really bad, but they just don’t have anything to be excited about.
Except their war eles, but that’s very situational.
It wasn’t a joke. Khmer were one of the worst civs in the game, from release until the patch which granted them their farming bonus. It was near a tie between Khmer, Vietnamese and Koreans.
Leaving that aside, in those times the main argument of people against buffing the Khmer was that they were a strong Arena civ (and they weren’t that good in Arena, it’s just that it was their only “good” map). But Arena is and always has been a niche map with a niche meta. Yes, it is quite popular, but the rules and game guidelines that apply to Arena do not sit well with most of the maps, specially the open ones, and viceversa. Black Forest is further to the extreme in niche tactics, and playerbase. And every civ has their dream unstoppable composition, which will work in specific maps on specific conditions, but that doesn’t make it any stronger than half of the other civs.
Before DE ofc both civs were pretty medocre in most settings , Persians for example lack Bracer and Arbalest, which means they lacked a strong option to defend their cavalry vs halbs, and at the same time the War elephnat was more expensive in food, plus one of the worst UTs ever made (Boiling Oil…).
Same story with Khmer, before DE they weren’t strong in either early and late game (Also trash in trash wars), but somewhat better at TGs as pocket. their Battle elephants, however, were the very best with 23 attack alone and 25% more speed.
But both civs are quite good examples of why you can’t blindly buff civs because they are too bad, until April of 2020, Persians were the very very best civilization in Arabia (They were even better than Franks at that point), utterly oppressive at Nomad (extra villager in dark age, followed by a snowball economy that only grew even more over time, and a good example of why winrates aren’t always accurate, they showed up a 49%-50%WR for all ELO but a wtf 57% at +1650 ELO, not good balance) and booming monsters at Arena, BF… plus Kamandaran at some point was wayy too cheap and Xbows only costed 50W, endend up being from one of the worst in trash wars to the very best one (and they still are, Hussar and kamandabows army is quite powerful today), balance? not at all.
And Khmer, oh man, I wish Kellar (2k player) was here to explain why the Khmer were soo strong… with the farming bonus and the BE TT buff received at the same time, Khmer skyrocketed at the top Arabia/Arena civ, no, in all other maps they were close to unstoppable, their Farming bonus was soo good and even better than the Slavs at some points, their Battle elephants were still the very best in the game with the 50% trample damage, and they also had Bombard Cannon, so their omega army in Arena (Hussars, Scorpions and BBC) and other closed map, with great eco, was just unstoppable, plus obscene timings at advancing ages that only 2k players knew, oh and their Battle elephants were able to outrun foot archers as soon as they were out, they lost BBC and their farmers worked slower at one patch, and even if you ask why BEs were nerfed at later patches, Khmer was the sole reason of that , but still they were soo OP at TGs with almsot every 2k picking up to double Khmer here, balance, not at all…
But with the direct nerfs in Novemeber of 2020, Khmer reign ended, Khmer aren’t anymore an instapick in TGs but the nerfs barely impacted their 1v1, they currently are great in both settings (imo still S tier at TG Arena and booming), they are just fine, same with Persians.
Now will link the posts of the 2K that I talked about:
Khmer were more balanced back then, despite not having early eco bonuses, they had good water options, bbc, the best battle ele, they weren’t bad they were just ok, the viper was killing back then 2.4k players with only scorps like if it was a joke to him, at development i think the extra range on scorps was to push a different army composition and until that point it was fair enough considering the power spike of the civ.
Persians have always been a top civ on mixed maps, one of the strongest civs as pocket, one of the strongest civs at pure boom and their weakness were solid considering their OPness in late games, the buff on fires, kamandarian and faster tc/dock in dark age turn them into top 1 civ at release, the civ was pretty decent overall.
The mentality of change civs according to arabia has affected negatively the balance as we have seen during this 2 years.
I think that the only way to make the faster TCs ondark age work is reducing or removing the extra starting res (since Persians in one point were S tier on arabia from what I remember)
Wasn’t Viper dominant af at that time anyway? I remember Viper destroyed Black in KOTD1/2 RO32 with Khmer but only win because of hussar (he went UU and got nearly destroyed, then went full trash and won by infinite hussar raid). I don’t think anyone else picked Khmer at all at tournaments.
Highly doubt that. Essentially had 5% faster vils production and a bit cheaper trashbows. I mean that’s a noticable difference but the fact they were so popular imo stems mostly from the circumstances that people played a lot of mixed maps and less arabia when de came out.
