Khmer Tradition "Kambu-Mera": Why so strong?

[Suisight]

So this Khmer tradition "Kambu-Mera" SAYS it gives "+100% to food and happiness maintenance to specialists" which, in the CIV7-weird way of phrasing it, means that specialists should not cost any food and happiness. Which is like their whole thing, that you trade science and culture (and other adjacencies) against food and happiness.

Now, that SOUNDS insanely strong, I would say compared to other policies (like from the Majapahit) giving just 33% food maintenance decrease an outright killing argument. For any specialist-build, this seems a hard requirement. But DOES it indeed do what it says on the label?

Attached two screenshots of a Khmer Capital at the start of Exploration with and without the tradition.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3442201002
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3442200839


So yes, it does what it says! Would you agree that this is way too strong or do you think the opportunity costs of picking Khmer outweigh this gain?

###Edit: it DOES NOT what it says. Happiness is only reduced by 50%.###

Also: Any reason to put other policies in there that reduce the maintenance - for negative maintenance? *evil grin* Or does that not work?

[Rhapsody]

Originally posted by Suisight:

Would you agree that this is way too strong or do you think the opportunity costs of picking Khmer outweigh this gain?

Without this tradition, the Khmer don't seem worth playing to me, and even then the tradition doesn't really come online until the next age. So for antiquity you get... flood immunity for infrastructure and for the unique units? Such balance. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong there, though...

[Suisight]

Khmer also have early access to Angkor Wat (whic hactuallyis useful because the wonder is late in the cultural tree). Plus the ability to keep tile yield on rivers when placing districts increases growth in antiquity. For me, the Khmer are an extremely strong specialist build starter.

But indeed, one would have to weigh the opportunity costs of NOT picking another civ.

Oh but update: The tradition actually reduces the happiness cost of specialists just by 50% (food by 100%!) - I was mistaken before because it is damn hard to find out how many specialists there are in a city...

Possible that the devs also thought this to be too strong and reduced the happiness bonus - but forgot to tell the UI-people :).

[Central]

it might actually be a nice combo with pachacuti, as his specialists pay no happiness when next to mountains.
combine that with the tradition you spoke of that reduces food upkeep by 100% and you have free specialists.

[Judicant]

It’s worded in an unintuitive way, but I’ve been reading buffs like this as ‘X is +Y% more effective at Z’. Weird way to phase resources that satisfy a ‘cost’, they could alternatively say ‘Z requires Y% less X’, but I didn’t write the things.

[Limz]

Originally posted by Suisight:

Khmer also have early access to Angkor Wat (whic hactuallyis useful because the wonder is late in the cultural tree). Plus the ability to keep tile yield on rivers when placing districts increases growth in antiquity. For me, the Khmer are an extremely strong specialist build starter.

But indeed, one would have to weigh the opportunity costs of NOT picking another civ.

Oh but update: The tradition actually reduces the happiness cost of specialists just by 50% (food by 100%!) - I was mistaken before because it is damn hard to find out how many specialists there are in a city...

Possible that the devs also thought this to be too strong and reduced the happiness bonus - but forgot to tell the UI-people :).

It's all multiplicative not additive. There are other policy slots in later ages that give 100%.

Also, Maya + anyone else is probably just as strong if not stronger, and Han -> Ming great wall spam will mean that next age you'll be better off than the specialists and you should pull way ahead by the time modern rolls around.

[Suisight]

Originally posted by Central:

it might actually be a nice combo with pachacuti, as his specialists pay no happiness when next to mountains.
combine that with the tradition you spoke of that reduces food upkeep by 100% and you have free specialists.

Yeah, but this is very situational. I also don't consider the food cost as too relevant. Because one can easily get to + several hundred per turn in Antiquity. 20 more or less don't play a role. Happiness is the real bottleneck, I believe.

Originally posted by Judicant:

It’s worded in an unintuitive way, but I’ve been reading buffs like this as ‘X is +Y% more effective at Z’. Weird way to phase resources that satisfy a ‘cost’, they could alternatively say ‘Z requires Y% less X’, but I didn’t write the things.

Yeah, the wording is one thing. The other is: It is just a plain wrong description of what it does. Also true for the "+50% influence" ins ome policies or attributes. But that's another topic.

[TheNightglow]

Originally posted by Judicant:

It’s worded in an unintuitive way, but I’ve been reading buffs like this as ‘X is +Y% more effective at Z’. Weird way to phase resources that satisfy a ‘cost’, they could alternatively say ‘Z requires Y% less X’, but I didn’t write the things.

this

essentially imagine it as you having an efficiency at doing something
at a 100% efficiency you pay the full bill
at a 200% efficiency you are twice as fast/ you pay half the bill
at a 300% efficiency you are three times as fast/ you pay a third of the bill
that seems to be what they always mean by the "Y% towards Z" phrasing (worst phrasing I have ever seen in any video game btw)

oh and in the exploration age everyone gains a "+100% to food and happiness maintenance to specialists" policy card by default somewhere in the civic or research tree
since you keep tradition cards from the previous civ, I guess if you played as khmer in the ancient, that would mean you can get +200% by slotting both of those cards in, which would mean you only have to pay a third of the maitnenance now^^

btw all the other civs kinda just have better traditions then the khmer, and better buildings
the main thing that makes the khmer good is that all their urban districts do not destroy the natural yield of rivers, meaning you can build bridges and baths over a river and still enjoy all the ever increasing food and production benefits from floods

[Suisight]

Originally posted by Limz:

It's all multiplicative not additive. There are other policy slots in later ages that give 100%.

Also, Maya + anyone else is probably just as strong if not stronger, and Han -> Ming great wall spam will mean that next age you'll be better off than the specialists and you should pull way ahead by the time modern rolls around.

What is so strong about Maja? And why is multiplicative/additive relevant when it says 100%?

I also think that the Ming stuff is way too strong. Not the traditions, but the wall. I actually just picked Ming over Majapahit because of this and I assume that will not change in the build im trying right now. But in Exploration age, there is not so much available to double-down on specialists (except Majapahit) so that's a free pick in this particular build.

[Suisight]

Originally posted by TheNightglow:

essentially imagine it as you having an efficiency at doing something
at a 100% efficiency you pay the full bill
at a 200% efficiency you are twice as fast/ you pay half the bill
at a 300% efficiency you are three times as fast/ you pay a third of the bill
that seems to be what they always mean by the "Y% towards Z" phrasing (worst phrasing I have ever seen in any video game btw)

I also thought this might be the case but the tradition actually decreases the food consumption of specialists by 100%. See screenshot in OP - there are 6 specialists in the city (please don't ask me about the weird 0.5 food missing in the equation :)).

[TheNightglow]

Originally posted by Suisight:

Originally posted by Limz:

It's all multiplicative not additive. There are other policy slots in later ages that give 100%.

Also, Maya + anyone else is probably just as strong if not stronger, and Han -> Ming great wall spam will mean that next age you'll be better off than the specialists and you should pull way ahead by the time modern rolls around.

What is so strong about Maja? And why is multiplicative/additive relevant when it says 100%?

I also think that the Ming stuff is way too strong. Not the traditions, but the wall. I actually just picked Ming over Majapahit because of this and I assume that will not change in the build im trying right now. But in Exploration age, there is not so much available to double-down on specialists (except Majapahit) so that's a free pick in this particular build.

maya in a nutshell:
- 10% of your science is added as culture
- 10% of your culture is added as science
- 15% of your total empire wide science is added as production to every single city you own if you have build your unique district (so if your empire has 100 science per turn, every single city gains an average of 15 production per turn)
and best of all, all of the buffs above are hidden from the other player, so the others can not even see in the overview how broken your set up is

instead of actually getting all the culture science and production paid out every turn, it sums up and is paid out at once whenever you finish a tech, meaning all of your production tends to auto complete on every research allowing you to build wonders in a single turn and finish the final space mission in the mondern age in a single turn as you keep this overpowered boni even when you are no longer the maya

also the maya have an additional ageless science building

[TheNightglow]

Originally posted by Suisight:

Originally posted by TheNightglow:

essentially imagine it as you having an efficiency at doing something
at a 100% efficiency you pay the full bill
at a 200% efficiency you are twice as fast/ you pay half the bill
at a 300% efficiency you are three times as fast/ you pay a third of the bill
that seems to be what they always mean by the "Y% towards Z" phrasing (worst phrasing I have ever seen in any video game btw)

I also thought this might be the case but the tradition actually decreases the food consumption of specialists by 100%. See screenshot in OP - there are 6 specialists in the city (please don't ask me about the weird 0.5 food missing in the equation :)).

actually I cant quite tell where food etc is coming from or going to in those screenshots, are you sure you didnt happen to get more food from another source at the same time?
i wish I could see the grow-city screen, where you see how much your specialists actually cost, but you sadly can not open this screen yourself, gotta wait until the city actually grows

[Aluminum Elite Master]

Originally posted by Rhapsody:

Originally posted by Suisight:

Would you agree that this is way too strong or do you think the opportunity costs of picking Khmer outweigh this gain?

Without this tradition, the Khmer don't seem worth playing to me, and even then the tradition doesn't really come online until the next age. So for antiquity you get... flood immunity for infrastructure and for the unique units? Such balance. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong there, though...

The quote is where I am at.

The thing is, how are you going to get a lot of specialists in antiquity? There's a fairly hefty trade-off being made, because as Khmer you could have had something better in antiquity and didn't, and now you get a decent-ish buff a while later.

With the state of balance right now, Khmer feels incredibly underpowered compared to Egypt (maintenance free infantry alone is very useful) or Mississippians (gold adjacency on resources, burning archers).

Could just be me, but the Khmer are below-average right now for power.

[Rhapsody]

Originally posted by Aluminum Elite Master:

The thing is, how are you going to get a lot of specialists in antiquity?

Well, they do have that wonder of theirs as early unlock.

Also, Baray is just a better farm, as far as I can tell, and their unique cavalry is strong. It's just kinda difficult to make use of this strange marriage of flood damage preventation, growth, and war elephants. It also shows with their three civ unlocks.

They have pretty good shot at growing the biggest cities of antiquity, and I guess you're kinda supposed to take them whichever direction you want from there, but that's simply not very focused theme to build a civ around.

You probably want a specific leader to capitalize on that. Trung Trac, Confucius, Himiko...

[Suisight]

Originally posted by TheNightglow:

instead of actually getting all the culture science and production paid out every turn, it sums up and is paid out at once whenever you finish a tech, meaning all of your production tends to auto complete on every research allowing you to build wonders in a single turn and finish the final space mission in the mondern age in a single turn as you keep this overpowered boni even when you are no longer the maya

But what you mention are boni, not traditions. Those should not carry over. Do they and if so, why?
Edit: Okay, you mean the unique quarter. But that only applies to the city with the quarter- or is this bugged right now and applies to all cities?

Originally posted by Rhapsody:

You probably want a specific leader to capitalize on that. Trung Trac, Confucius, Himiko...

Yeah, Confucius for the growth and extra science. The point is also not how powerful you can be in Antiquity, but the ageless-boni you can carry over. Specialists are one, the tradition is one, big cities is another. All this combined - at least that's my shot at this build, sets a track for modern age where the ideologies improve specialists even further.

Might be that other builds are better, sure.

Originally posted by TheNightglow:

Originally posted by Suisight:

I also thought this might be the case but the tradition actually decreases the food consumption of specialists by 100%. See screenshot in OP - there are 6 specialists in the city (please don't ask me about the weird 0.5 food missing in the equation :)).

actually I cant quite tell where food etc is coming from or going to in those screenshots, are you sure you didnt happen to get more food from another source at the same time?
i wish I could see the grow-city screen, where you see how much your specialists actually cost, but you sadly can not open this screen yourself, gotta wait until the city actually grows

This is in the same turn, just before and after I inserted the tradition. But you are right: when adding a civ, there is still food and happiness-cost shown - if one can trust the UI, which is a big IF these days. But with 6 specialists and 12 food difference, this is also quite straightforward.

[TheNightglow]

Originally posted by Suisight:

Originally posted by TheNightglow:

instead of actually getting all the culture science and production paid out every turn, it sums up and is paid out at once whenever you finish a tech, meaning all of your production tends to auto complete on every research allowing you to build wonders in a single turn and finish the final space mission in the mondern age in a single turn as you keep this overpowered boni even when you are no longer the maya

But what you mention are boni, not traditions. Those should not carry over. Do they and if so, why?
Edit: Okay, you mean the unique quarter. But that only applies to the city with the quarter- or is this bugged right now and applies to all cities?
[...]

every city can have the quarter
and it is quite easy to buy or build the district in all your cities very early on
after all in every city with it you essentially autocomplete one or two things in its production queque whenever you research something, which means you quite easily have the eco/ production to have 8-10 cities in the ancient as your first cities with the district can instantly build settlers and markets for gold and more towns
and each of your 8-10 cities can be given your unique quarter which means you will have 8-10 cities in the exploration and modern age that can just autocomplete production on each research finished

also considering almost all victory conditions in the modern age are production based, even just having a single city that autocompletes production on tech research qurantees you the win (as again, you can finish the final space project, operation ivy or the culture wonder in a single turn)

and since the maya are the only ancient civ with a unique science building, they are also quaranteed to produce the most science per turn (as every other civ can only have 2 science buildings per city, the maya can have 3)
also the maya traditions are to add +2 science +2 culture to every happiness building and the maya have a unique ageless happiness building aswell...