Zigzagzigal's Guides - Khmer (GS)

The Khmer have the means to grow enormous cities, and will be rewarded with extra culture, faith and tourism. Here, I detail Khmer strategies and counter-strategies.

Introduction

Following this guide requires the Gathering Storm expansion.

It also assumes you have all other Civ 6 content, listed below, though it is not necessary to have these to utilise the key strategies of each civ.

• Pre-Rise and Fall content packs
  
  • Vikings, Poland, Australia, Persia/Macedon, Nubia, Khmer/Indonesia
• Rise and Fall Expansion
  
• New Frontier content packs
  
  • Maya/Grand Colombia, Ethiopia, Byzantium/Gauls, Babylon, Vietnam/Kublai Khan, Portugal

These content packs include exclusive civs, city-states, districts, buildings, wonders, natural wonders, resources, and a disaster, but not core game mechanics - all you need is the base game and the Gathering Storm expansion for those.

Ready the Ballista Elephants! We have an empire to build. Yet restraint is a virtue; our growing nation's strengths at infrastructure shall make our new cities large and pious, and through our faith we shall inspire the world rather than burn it. For the burden of a king is not to lead the land, but to lead the people.

How to use this guide

This guide is divided into multiple sections explaining how best to use and play against this specific civ.

• The Outline details the mechanics of how the civilization's unique features work and what their start bias is if they have one.
  
• The Victory Skew section describes to what extent the civ (and its individual leaders where applicable) is inclined towards particular victory routes. This is not a rating of its power, but an indicator of the most appropriate route to victory.
  
• Multiple sections for Uniques explain in detail how to use each special bonus of the civilization.
  
• Administration describes some of the most synergistic governments, government buildings, policy cards, age bonuses, pantheons, religious beliefs, wonders, city-states and Great People for the civ. Only the ones with the most synergy with the civ's uniques are mentioned - these are not necessarily the "best" choices when playing as the civ for a given victory route.
  
• Finally, the Counter-Strategies discusses how best to play against the civ, including a consideration of leader agendas if the civ is controlled by a computer.

Note that all costs (production, science, etc.) mentioned within the guide assume a game played on the normal speed settings. To modify these values for other game speeds:

• Online: Divide by 2
  
• Quick: Divide by 1.5
  
• Epic: Multiply by 1.5
  
• Marathon: Multiply by 3

Glossary

Terminology used in this guide and not in-game is explained here.

AoE (Area of Effect) - Bonuses or penalties that affect multiple tiles in a set radius. Positive examples include Factories (which offer production to cities within a 6 tile radius unless they're within range of another building of the same type) and a negative example is nuclear weapons, which cause devastation over a wide radius.

Beelining - Obtaining a technology or civic quickly by only researching it and its prerequisites. Some deviation is allowed in the event that taking a technology or civic off the main track provides some kind of advantage that makes up for that (either a source of extra science/culture or access to something necessary for a eureka or inspiration boost)

CA (Civ Ability) - The unique ability of a civilization, shared by all its leaders.

Compact empires - Civs with cities close together (typically 3-4 tile gaps between city centres). This is useful if you want to make use of districts that gain adjacency bonuses from other districts, or to maximise the potential of area-of-effect bonuses later in the game.

Dispersed empires - Civs with cities that are spread out (typically 5-6 tile gaps between city centres). Civs with unique tile improvements generally favour a more dispersed empire in order to make use of them, as do civs focused on wonder construction.

GPP - Short for Great Person Points. Districts, buildings and wonders generate these points and with enough you can claim a Great Person of the corresponding type.

GWAM - Collective name for Great Writers, Artists and Musicians. All of them can produce Great Works that offer tourism and culture, making them important to anyone seeking a cultural victory.

LA (Leader Ability) - The unique ability of a specific leader. Usually but not always, they tend to be more specific in scope than civ abilities. Some leader abilities come with an associated unique unit or infrastucture.

Prebuilding - Training a unit with the intention of upgrading it to a desired unit later. An example is building Slingers and upgrading them once Archery is unlocked.

Sniping - Targeting a specific city for capture directly, ignoring other enemy cities along the way. Typically used in the context of "capital sniping" - taking a civ's original capital as quickly as possible to contribute towards domination victory without leading to a drawn-out war.

Start bias - The kind of terrain, terrain feature or resource a civilization is more likely to start near. This is typically used for civilizations that have early bonuses dependent on a particular terrain type. There are five tiers of start bias; civs with a tier 1 start bias are placed before civs of tier 2 and so on, increasing their odds of receiving a favourable starting location.

Super-uniques - Unique units that do not replace any others. Examples include India's Varu and Mongolia's Keshigs.

Tall empires - Empires that emphasise city development over expansion, usually resulting in fewer, but bigger, cities.

Uniques - Collective name for civ abilities, leader abilities, unique units, unique buildings, unique districts and unique improvements.

UA (Unique Ability) - A collective name for leader abilities and civ abilities.

UB (Unique Building) - A special building which may only be constructed in the cities of a single civilization, which replaces a normal building and offers a special advantage on top.

UD (Unique District) - A special district which may only be constructed in the cities of a single civilization, which replaces a normal district, costs half as much to build and offers some unique advantages on top.

UI (Unique Improvement) - A special improvement that can only be built by the Builders of a single civilization. "UI" always refers to unique improvements in my guides and not to "user interface" or "unique infrastructure".

UU (Unique Unit) - A special unit that may only be trained by a single civilization, and in some cases only when that civilization is led by a specific leader.

Wide empires - Empires that emphasise expansion over city development, usually resulting in more, but smaller, cities.

Outline

Start Bias

The Khmer have a tier 3 river start bias. This makes it easier to make use of both the Khmer civ ability and Jayavarman VII's leader ability.

Civilization Ability: Grand Barays

• Cities with an Aqueduct gain +1 amenity, and +1 faith per point of population.
  
• Farms gain an additional +2 food if adjacent to an Aqueduct, and +1 faith if adjacent to a Holy Site
  
  • These bonuses do not stack for multiple Aqueducts and Holy Sites, though a farm may gain the benefit of both an Aqueduct and a Holy Site.

Jayavarman VII's Leader Ability: Monasteries of the King

• Constructing a Holy Site district causes a culture bomb, granting you all surrounding tiles.
  
  • Only tiles that are within the workable range of the tile's city will be granted (in other words, they must be within a 3-tile radius from the city centre).
    
  • This includes tiles from other civs, but will incur a diplomatic penalty if you steal tiles off them this way. Taking land from city-states has no penalty.
    
  • Tiles stolen containing non-unique tile improvements will retain them.
    
  • Tiles containing completed districts, wonders or national parks will not be stolen, but incomplete ones will be, destroying them.
• Holy Sites gain a +2 faith adjacency bonus if next to a river.
  
• Holy Sites adjacent to rivers provide +2 housing, even when pillaged.
  
• All Holy Sites generate food equal to their adjacency bonus.

Unique Unit: Domrey

A medieval-era siege unit which replaces the Trebuchet.

Research	Obsoletion	Upgrades from	Upgrades to	Cost	Resource	Maintenance
Military Engineering Technology Medieval era	Metal Casting Technology Renaissance era	Catapult (170 )	Bombard (170 20 )	200 or 800 or 400 *	None	3

*Purchasing units with faith requires the Grand Master's Chapel government building, which requires either the medieval-era Divine Right or renaissance-era Exploration civics.

**If you have insufficient nitre, you may continue to train Domreys even beyond researching Metal Casting.

Strength	Ranged Strength	Moves	Range	Sight	Negative Attributes	Positive Attributes
40	50	2	2	2	-17 when attacking land units	Deals full damage against city walls and urban defences

Positive Changes

• 40 strength, up from 35
  
• 50 bombard strength, up from 45
  
• Imposes zone of control
  
• May attack after moving for just 1 movement point
  
  • This bonus functions identically to the Expert Crew promotion, making that promotion useless to Domreys.

Unique Building: Prasat

A classical-era Holy Site building which replaces the Temple

Research	Prerequisites	Required to build	Cost	Maintenance	Base Pillage Yield
Theology Civic Classical era	Holy Site Shrine	Worship Buildings	120 or 480	2	25

Fixed yields	Other yields	Citizen slots	Great Person points	Miscellaneous effects
6	0.5 per population in this city With the modern-era Flight technology: 10 if this city has 10+ population 10 additionally if this city has 20+ population	1 Priest (2 if filled)	1	1

Positive changes

• Provides 6 faith, up from 4
  
• Produces +0.5 culture per point of population in the city
  
• With the modern-era Flight technology, produces 10 tourism per turn if the city has 10+ population, and 10 additional tourism per turn if the city has 20+ population for a total of 20 tourism per turn.

Victory Skew

In this section, the civ is subjectively graded based on how much it leans towards a specific victory type - not how powerful it is. Scores of 3 or more mean the civ has at least a minor advantage towards the victory route.

Leader	Culture	Diplomacy	Domination	Religion	Science
Jayavarman VII	10/10 (Ideal)	4/10 (Acceptable)	7/10 (Good)	10/10 (Ideal)	6/10 (Decent)

The Khmer perform exceptionally at cultural victories. The Prasat UB can offer a massive 20 tourism to cities of at least size 20, and the large housing, amenity and food bonuses the civ offers makes getting there much easier. Large cities are also ideal for wonder construction.

Diplomacy is the weakest path for the Khmer. Domreys may have limited use in early emergencies and larger cities can more easily build diplomatic wonders, but you're better-off going for something else.

Domination is a fine choice as well. Domreys are devastatingly effective against cities; bring along some Coursers or Knights and you can get some good conquests going. An extra amenity from Aqueducts helps you in supporting those captured cities.

Religion is the Khmer's other strong route. +2 faith adjacency from rivers can make some amazing Holy Site yields, +1 faith from Holy Site-adjacent farms is a reasonable boost, and +1 faith per population in cities with Aqueducts can make some enormous faith bonuses later on.

Science is a fair path for the Khmer. Every point of population is worth 0.5 science, and the Khmer's excellent ability to grow cities can really add up. With both the Cross-Cultural Dialogue and Work Ethic beliefs in their religion, they can gain excellent science and production yields.

Jayavarman VII's Leader Ability: Monasteries of the King

The production bonus is from the Work Ethic follower belief.

Pushing for an early religion usually has the problem that it comes at the cost of early city development. Jayavarman, however, makes Holy Sites a core piece of city development in their own right, allowing you to build up some impressive cities!

Starting Out

The Khmer excel at building and benefitting from large cities, but remember that multiple large cities are better than just a couple - in other words, it's good to balance expansion with city development early on. Research Astrology and get a Settler trained as soon as possible, and you'll be able to get a couple of powerful Holy Sites early on!

For your first few cities, it's a good idea to always settle them on a river. You'll also want at least one tile next to them where an Aqueduct can go (Aqueducts must be adjacent to both a city centre and a river, lake, oasis, mountain, volcano or natural wonder which offers fresh water), and at least one other riverside tile to place a Holy Site. If possible, try to position a Holy Site so it isn't adjacent to an intended Aqueduct spot so you can make use of more boosted farms later.

When it comes time to pick a pantheon, take River Goddess. It adds a massive +2 housing and +2 amenity bonus to all riverside Holy Sites, on top of all the bonuses Jayavarman already offers. This makes it even easier to grow cities early on, at a time where housing is often scarce for many civs. The amenities can allow you to neglect Entertainment Complexes and Water Parks until much later in the game, and thankfully by that time their buildings will start providing some very helpful extra tourism.

Optimising City Placement

The city location

Usually, you'll want a city located on a river. Alternatively, a city on a lake with a river close by can do, so long as you're willing to spare some gold to buy a few tiles.


The best city locations have both a river and mountains or a natural wonder. You'll most commonly find this in a river's source. To find a river's source, look at which direction the river's flowing in and follow the river in the opposite direction.

Look at the first ring

Aqueducts may only be placed adjacent to a city centre, and must also be adjacent to a source of fresh water, a mountain or volcano. Look at the six tiles surrounding your city centre, and consider which tiles meet those criteria. Now, look at those potential Aqueduct spots and the tiles adjacent to them. Potential Aqueduct spots with lots of farm resources or flat grassland or plains will be the best. It might be worthwhile placing a map pin down on those spots to remind yourself to build an Aqueduct there later.

Consider what's left over

Once you know where your Aqueduct is going to go, now it's time to consider the Holy Site. You'll need to place it adjacent to a river for Jayavarman's leader ability to take full effect, but you'll also want to look for locations with plenty of adjacent woods, mountains or even a natural wonder. In rough priority order, a Holy Site next to a river is more important than one with a better adjacency bonus, and maximising adjacency bonuses for your Holy Site is more important than placing them somewhere you can build plenty of adjacent farms for the faith bonus.

Holy Site Culture Bomb

When placing a Holy Site, you will obtain all surrounding tiles that are within three tiles of the city centre, including those owned by other civs that don't have completed districts, wonders or National Parks present.

This is a hard bonus to use well against other players considering how difficult it can be already to position the ideal Holy Site spot, so just think of it as a few bonus tiles when you're starting out. Given Holy Site-adjacent farms generate faith for the Khmer, being able to access that bonus sooner is very helpful.

The most likely time you can use the ability to take tiles off other civs is when you've captured the city and it doesn't already have a Holy Site.

Onwards

With a good number of well-settled cities with Holy Sites, the Khmer will be off to a good start. Holy Sites generate Great Prophet Points, and soon enough you'll be able to found a religion of your own.

For a follower belief, try to pick up Work Ethic. It makes your Holy Sites add their faith yield to production, allowing a single district to produce faith, food and production alike! Once you have the Theology civic, you can use the Scripture economic policy card to double all three of these yields.

For a founder belief, Cross-Cultural Dialogue and World Church are great options. They add science and culture respectively based on the number of followers of your religion; growing large cities will make this an excellent way to maximise those yields. Between the two, generally Cross-Cultural Dialogue is the stronger option due to the way the Prasat UB works - science is important for getting to the Flight technology as soon as possible for the tourism boost, and the Prasat offers a good culture yield anyway.

Just like how those two founder beliefs can scale well to your cities' population, so can Governor Pingala (the Educator). His Researcher promotion adds +1 science per point of population to his city, while his Connoisseur promotion adds +1 culture per point of population. His base promotion also offers +15% to both yields in the city, so it goes even further! This helps make up for if you've been neglecting Campuses and Monuments/Theatre Squares early in the game.

Finally, don't neglect your defences. It's easy to focus too heavily on early expansion and development and lose track of Barbarians or warmongering civs. Archers are great defensive units, and after Engineering you could even train some Catapults ready for upgrading to Domreys later.

Summary

• Don't neglect expansion and defence early on - having more cities will pay off later with extra faith, culture and tourism alike.
  
• Always settle cities in range of a river, and with at least one valid Aqueduct tile and one free riverside tile you can place a Holy Site in.
  
• Riverside Holy Sites take priority over those with bigger adjacency bonuses, which take priority over those which can boost the faith yields of more adjacent farms.
  
• Take the River Goddess Pantheon and the Work Ethic and Cross-Cultural Dialogue beliefs for a strong start.

Civilization Ability: Grand Barays

The Khmer civ ability complements Jayavarman's leader ability with even more food and a powerful faith bonus for large cities.

Faith for Holy Site-adjacent farms

Any Khmer farm next to a Holy Site gets +1 faith, in addition to its usual food and housing. Given farms are something you'll want your cities to work anyway, this can be a nice little complement to the more powerful other sources of faith.

This bonus is most powerful when an Aqueduct and Holy Site are two tiles apart from each other, with two valid farm tiles between them.

Ultimately, this is a nice bonus to have, but not something that you need to optimise. A Holy Site with a stronger adjacency bonus means both more faith and food without the need to spare citizens, compared to a Holy Site with weaker adjacency bonuses optimised for farms.

The rest of the Khmer civ ability relies on Aqueducts, so let's look into them!

Aqueduct Bonuses

Getting to Aqueducts

Aqueducts arrive at the Engineering technology. Here's what you'll need:

• Mining
  
• Wheel - To boost, you need to mine a resource, such as copper. This isn't always possible in your first city, so don't be afraid to research something else while you wait for the boost.
  
• Engineering - To boost, you need Ancient Walls in at least one city. These are affordable but require a detour to the Masonry technology.

Beelining Engineering from the start of the game isn't generally a good idea as expansion and Holy Sites demand attention. As such, don't strictly rush those three technologies - take time to pick up whatever other early-game technologies you might need, like Astrology, Writing, Archery, Masonry or so forth. Obviously you won't want to leave it too late, but don't feel obliged to rush right into it.

Making use of the food bonus

Khmer Aqueducts if possible should be positioned in a manner where you can maximise your food output. Look for spots surrounded by flat grassland, plains and/or floodplains, or at least a couple of wheat and/or rice resources.

The more farm-worthy tiles you have next to an Aqueduct, the more food you can get out of it - up to +10 at the most. Remember to position extra farms next to those once you have the Feudalism civic; triangles of farms will produce additional food. This is boosted even further with the modern-era Replaceable Parts technology.

To help with building farms and other tile improvements your growing cities will need, getting a Golden Age in the classical, medieval or renaissance game era will allow you to pick the Monumentality dedication. This allows you to buy civilian units (including Builders) with faith for a cheap cost! You'll also be able to buy Settlers - to avoid population loss, you can recruit Governor Magnus (the Steward) and give him the Provision promotion, then purchase all the Settlers in that city.

A bonus amenity

The bonus amenity is rather like the one Rome gets from their unique Aqueduct replacement. It nicely complements your food and housing bonuses, and combined with the River Goddess pantheon, you shouldn't need to worry too much about keeping your large cities happy.

That being said, there is one potentially effective use of Entertainment Complexes for the Khmer - the Bread and Circuses project. Large cities exert more loyalty pressure to nearby cities, and the Bread and Circuses project increases this pressure further. It's possible to turn neighbouring cities into free cities with enough nearby cities working on the project, and have the cities flip to your control, but this requires a production investment you may not be willing to spare.

Faith per population in cities with Aqueducts

A Khmer city with an Aqueduct, riverside Holy Site and the River Goddess pantheon will have a minimum of 10 housing - if food is sufficent, getting to size 9 won't be very difficult, and with a Granary and a few farms, you can easily get further. Thanks to this faith bonus, that size 9 city will add an extra +9 faith per turn - better than a Shrine and Prasat put together!

Most of the time, faith bonuses work on a per-city basis, so religious civs tend to be stronger the more cities they have. As such, this bonus is a bit of an outlier. This can give the Khmer a notable edge on the race to religious wonders like the Hagia Sophia, as the civs most inclined towards building them tend not to have large, productive cities which can compete.

Conclusion

Try to always settle cities in spots so they can build Aqueducts, preferably ones adjacent to lots of grassland, plains, or desert floodplain. Develop those farms, and you'll be able to grow huge cities generating lots of faith.

Unique Building: Prasat (Part 1/2)

The Prasat is an incredibly powerful unique building that deserves special attention regardless of your aims for victory. With a good faith output, a great culture output and potentially a spectacular tourism output, it's worth building them in every city you can.

Preparation

Prasats must be built in Holy Sites with Shrines, and you also need the Theology civic. It's a good idea to research Political Philosophy first before going to Theology as the governments unlocked there will help with early expansion. With one of those governments and the Mysticism civic, you'll be able to take the Revelation wildcard to help speed up your progress towards founding a religion if you don't have one already.

Faith Bonus

Prasats offer 6 faith, up from the usual 4. This is useful right away for generating Missionaries, Apostles and the like, and can be built upon with the renaissance-era Simultaneum policy card. That policy card increases the faith yield of Holy Site buildings by 50% if the district has 4+ adjacency or has 15 population, and by 100% if both are the case. Both of these prerequisites the Khmer have a notable advantage at achieving.

Given that you have so many faith bonuses, it's worth considering how to spend it! If religious victory isn't viable for whatever reason, here's a list of possible alternatives:

• If a rival religion spreads the Jesuit Education belief into your lands, you can use it to purchase Campus and Theatre Square buildings with faith.
  
• Being suzerain over the Valletta city-state lets you buy city centre and Encampment buildings with faith.
  
• The Monumentality Golden Age dedication, available in the classical, medieval or renaissance game era, allows you to purchase civilian units with faith, and cuts the cost of purchasing Settlers and Builders. That can be a great boost to development.
  
• Governor Moksha (the Cardinal) with the Divine Architect promotion allows you to purchase districts with faith.
  
• With the Grand Master's Chapel government complex building (requires a tier 2 government), you can purchase land military units with faith. This helps you put up a defence if someone decides they want to expel your religion by force.
  
• With the modern-era Conservation civic, you can buy Naturalists with faith. They can create national parks, providing you with tourism based on the appeal of each of their tiles, as well as amenities in nearby cities.
  
• With the atomic-era Cold War civic, you can buy Rock Bands with faith. They create large amounts of one-off tourism in targeted civs.

Culture from Population

Normally, every point of population adds 0.3 culture. With the Prasat building, it's up to 0.8. While this sounds small, a city of size 10 with a Prasat will generate 8 culture per turn - as much as four Monuments. The Prasat alone will be generating 5 culture in a city of that size, which very few buildings can rival.

This culture yield can allow you to neglect building Theatre Squares early on in favour of Campuses or other useful districts. While such a course of action does mean missing out on some GWAMs, the potential to research Flight sooner can more than make up for it.

Flight Tourism

This is where the Khmer strength in city growth goes from being simply a great source of extra yields to something that can win you the game in its own right.

A city with a Prasat and 20 population will produce a massive 20 tourism with the modern-era Flight technology. The challenge is getting enough cities to size 20 and unlocking Flight fast enough.

Maximising City Growth

Although I've already covered the Khmer's unique food bonuses, they alone may not be enough to get your cities to size 20 population in time. Here's some things that may help, in a vaguely chronological order:

• Clearing marsh and rainforest tiles with Builders adds food in the nearest city. This is increased if Governor Magnus (the Steward) is present.
  
• Setting up trade routes between your own cities provides food and production based on the districts in the destination city.
  
  • Later on, the Wisselbanken diplomatic policy card (requires the renaissance-era Diplomatic Service civic) and the Democracy government (requires the modern-era Suffrage civic) add similar yields to international trade.
    
  • Alternatively, if you have the Communism government (requires the modern-era Collective Struggle civic) you can take the Collectivisation economic policy card for +4 food and +2 production for all internal trade routes.
• Governor Magnus (the Steward) with the Surplus Logistics promotion allows the city he's stationed in to grow faster, and internal trade routes sent to his city yield +2 food.
  
• The Hanging Gardens wonder (requires the ancient-era Irrigation technology) adds +15% growth to all cities. Building it is risky, though it does tend to be less competitive than most other ancient-era wonders.
  
• The Gurdwara Worship building adds +2 food and +1 housing to a city.
  
• The Migration Treaty World Congress resolution can temporarily add +20% growth and -5 loyalty to all of a civ's cities, or alternatively -20% growth and +5 loyalty. If the latter is used against you, the loyalty at least helps with Domrey warfare.
  
• The Angkor Wat wonder (requires the medieval-era Medieval Faires civic) adds +1 population in all cities you currently own, and +1 housing to all cities.
  
• The Colonial Offices diplomatic policy card (requires the renaissance-era Exploration civic) speeds up city growth by 15% for any city that does not share your capital's continent.

Some city-states have relevant bonuses as well, but they won't appear in every game. See the Administration section of this guide for more information.

Once a city has reached size 20, consider switching some of their food tiles to other adjacent cities, moving any traders they're using and moving out Governor Magnus if he is present to help other cities grow. Ensure the city has enough food to cover its present population, but otherwise other cities will need the surplus food more than it will.

Unique Building: Prasat (Part 2/2)

Rushing to Flight

The sooner you can get to Flight, the fewer domestic tourists of other civs you'll need to deal with, and the faster you can win a cultural victory.

Every point of population is worth 0.5 science, though to maximise your science output it'll help to have plenty of Campuses. Like Holy Sites, Campuses get decent adjacency bonuses from mountains, but they can also get particularly strong ones from reefs or geothermal fissures, though these only appear on coasts and continental boundaries respectively.

Researching Flight will take a long time, and before you head to it, there's plenty of other technologies that are helpful to grab first. You'll need Astrology for Holy Sites, some basic Builder technologies like Animal Husbandry to help develop cities, Engineering for Aqueducts and Military Engineering for Domreys. After that, it's a good idea to head for Education for Universities. Education is on the way to Flight anyway, and the more science you get now, the faster you can get to the technology.

So, assuming you've got Military Engineering and Education, here's what you need for Flight:

• Sailing - Boost: Settle a city on the coast. By now the technology should be so cheap that this shouldn't matter.
  
• Shipbuilding - Boost: Own two Galleys. If you have 520 gold, you can simply purchase two Galleys. They're not too expensive to build either.
  
• Buttress - Boost: Own a wonder of at least the Classical era. Angkor Wat is a good candidate, or you can simply capture one with the help of Domreys.
  
• Stirrups - Boost: Have the Feudalism civic. It's worth unlocking Stirrups earlier for Knights to complement Domreys anyway, but otherwise you will most likely have the boost by now.
  
• Cartography - Boost: Own two Harbours. The Khmer work best inland, so you'll probably have to ignore the boost.
  
• Mass Production - Boost: Construct a lumber mill. Exceptionally easy; you can achieve this immediately after researching Construction.
  
• Banking - Boost: Have the Guilds civic. Prasat culture makes unlocking it easy.
  
• Square Rigging - Boost: Kill a unit with a Musketman. An awkward boost you'll probably have to skip.
  
• Astronomy - Boost: Build a University next to a mountain. Given mountains are a good source of Campus adjacency, you'll probably achieve this as soon as you build a University.
  
• Industrialisation - Boost: Build two Workshops. Can be tricky if you lack spare production or district capacity.
  
• Scientific Theory - Boost: Have the Enlightenment civic. Prasat culture helps you get there faster.
  
• Flight - Boost: Have an industrial-era or later wonder. Rushing this technology makes it hard to get this boost in time unless you have a wonder production-boosting Great Person to rush Ruhr Valley, the Statue of Liberty or other early-industrial era wonders.

Maximising Tourism

There's also a few tourism modifiers worth remembering:

• Having a different government comes with a tourism penalty. This is bigger for later governments.
  
• Sending a trade route to a civ gives you a 25% tourism bonus against them
  
• An open borders agreement with a civ gives you a 25% tourism bonus against them.

For a really fast cultural victory, you'll need to focus your tourism multipliers on whichever civs have the most domestic tourists, especially the common religion, trade route and open borders bonuses. Don't forget to also build some Theatre Squares so you can get other Great Works for additional tourism.

Stadiums

With the atomic-era Professional Sports civic, you can build Stadiums in cities with an Entertainment Complex with Arena and Zoo buildings present. Stadiums notably add +5 tourism in cities with 20+ population, making it a useful complement to Prasats.

Summary

• Look out for as many growth bonuses as possible to hit 20 population quickly.
  
• Once a city reaches 20 population, swap some of its tiles to other cities so they can grow faster.

Unique Unit: Domrey

Come the middle ages, the walls of Khmer's enemies shall fall into rubble and the invading navies shall break into splinters. Few cities can withstand the attacks of the Ballista Elephants, and their ability to fire after moving makes it much easier to get more hits on a city, as well as to get hits on enemy naval units.

The Domrey is an oddity among Khmer uniques, as it's best-served in offensive warfare - something the rest of the civ has relatively little inclination towards. Still, you can use Domreys to help weaken a religious or cultural rival, putting you in a better position for the rest of the game.

Preparation

Domreys arrive at the Military Engineering technology. Although a relatively expensive technology, its eureka - requiring you to construct an Aqueduct - is easy to achieve thanks to the nature of the Khmer civ ability. The classical-era Construction technology is on the way, and allows you to build Catapults which can immediately be upgraded into Domreys at Military Engineering.

It's also important to complement your Domreys with something with a melee attack so you can capture cities. Coursers or Knights are good.

In use

Ballista Elephants have little trouble tearing down enemy defences, and their ability to move after firing lets them move from out of a city's attack radius and hit the city in the same turn, ensuring they don't get hit beforehand and hence can deal maximum damage. It also allows you to rotate Domreys around a city, allowing you to move more in.

Furthermore, as Domreys impose zone of control, they're harder to flank than regular siege units. Nonetheless, their defensive strength isn't especially high so you should ensure you have an escape route ready - some open land will do. Being able to impose zone of control also makes it easier to put enemy cities under siege, preventing them from healing.

Domreys are exceptionally powerful against cities, but suffer a -17 strength penalty against land units, putting them at only 33 strength. With the Grape Shot and Shrapnel promotions, that strength penalty is removed against land units - with 50 ranged strength, they'll be able to perform well against any pre-industrial threat. Still, you may find it more useful to instead start with the Crew Weapons promotion to prevent Domreys being vulnerable to counter attacks. If you need to handle enemy land units, use Crossbowmen, Coursers, Knights or even Warrior Monks.

However, against naval units, Domreys perform very effectively. Their high mobility means you can effectively react to enemy navies rather than having to place them on the coast in anticipation of them.

The catch

Going to war can help you secure more cities, and hence more Prasats and their associated bonuses. However, your reputation as a warmonger may make it hard to get open borders agreements with other civs and the 25% tourism bonus on offer there. Grievances will erode over time, eventually allowing such agreements to be made once more, but until then you're likely to have trouble.

This means you'll often have to choose between a higher emphasis on warfare, or a higher emphasis on culture. Religious aims can be pursued either way, though beware of retaliatory wars leading to your religious units being pillaged.

A reasonable compromise is to only use Domreys for liberation and emergency wars, or to liberate cities as you conquer, so you can get the benefit of the units without having to create grievances.

Obsoletion

Bombards are five points stronger in melee and ranged strength relative to Domreys, but lack the ability to fire after moving and the ability to impose zone of control. They also require nitre, cost more to build and have a higher maintenance cost. As such, you might find it useful to form Domreys into corps as an alternative to using Bombards through the renaissance and even industrial eras.

Individual Domreys can survive a hit from industrial-era units like Cavalry, but will generally not survive two. As such, it's a good idea to start cleaning up your wars if you see industrial-era units around.

Conclusion

Domreys are incredibly effective against city defences, and a big part of that is their mobility. Despite the Khmer having relatively little in the way of direct bonuses to complement them, it's still worthwhile to take Domreys to war to weaken a cultural or religious rival.

Administration - Government and Policy Cards

Note that the Administration sections strictly cover the options that have particularly good synergy with the civ's uniques. These are not necessarily the best choices, but rather options you should consider more than usual if playing this civ relative to others.

Governments

Tier One

Classical Republic is a reliable choice. Extra Great Person Points will help you found a religion if you haven't already, while the good number of economic policy card slots works well to support a religious game.

A good complement is the Audience Chamber building for even more housing and amenities.

Tier Two

Theocracy will generally be your best choice due to the savings it makes on faith purchasing.

The Grand Master's Chapel is a good choice of government building, as it allows you to react accordingly if someone declares war on you. Aqueducts and other Khmer uniques together provide so much faith that you'll be able to afford to spend faith on military units. Of course, doing that means you'll have less faith for buying religious units with, so consider the trade-off carefully.

Tier Three

Democracy's high number of economic policy slots and food from trading with allies makes it a great choice for the Khmer, but Communism offers a production bonus which scales with city population as well as access to the helpful Collectivisation policy card for extra food.

For a cultural game, take the National History Museum for extra Great Work slots. For a religious game, the War Department's health-on-kills bonus extends to theological combat.

Tier Four

Digital Democracy is probably the most reliable choice. It lacks the tourism penalty of Synthetic Technocracy, and the amenity bonus helps support extremely large cities.

Policy Cards

Ancient Era

Corvée (Economic, requires State Workforce) - The Khmer ability to grow huge cities makes them particularly well-equipped for wonder construction.

Ilkum (Economic, requires Craftsmanship) - Helps you get some more farms around your Aqueducts, or to chop down some woods or rainforests to help rush Holy Sites.

Revelation (Wildcard, requires Mysticism) - Getting an early religion is important if you want to maximise your chances of getting great beliefs like Cross-Cultural Dialogue and Work Ethic.

Classical Era

Insulae (Economic, requires Games and Recreation) - Helps you support even bigger cities.

Natural Philosophy (Economic, requires Recorded History) - Science is critically important to the Khmer tourism game as the sooner you can unlock Flight, the sooner you can unlock the significant Prasat tourism boosts.

Scripture (Economic, requires Theology) - Doubling your Holy Site adjacency bonuses not only adds faith, but food as well!

Medieval Era

Gothic Architecture (Economic, requires Divine Right) - Allows your large cities to build wonders up to the renaissance era faster.

Medina Quarter (Economic, requires Medieval Faires) - An even better version of Insulae for some more housing.

Serfdom (Economic, requires Feudalism) - Growing cities will need to work a lot of tiles. Serfdom's extra build charges will help with that.

Renaissance Era

Colonial Offices (Economic, requires Exploration) - Been settling (or conquering) cities on foreign continents? You can help them grow faster with this policy card.

Rationalism (Economic, requires The Enlightenment) - Getting to Flight quickly is crucial for maximising the Khmer's tourism output. Rationalism offers a considerable science boost to cities with high Campus adjacency bonuses and 15+ population. With the Natural Philosophy policy card on top, meeting both requirements becomes a lot easier for the Khmer.

Simultaneum (Economic, requires Reformed Church) - All your Prasats will be making an impressive faith yield, so go ahead and increase it with this policy card. Your food and housing bonuses will make it easy for cities to reach size 15+, and the Scripture policy card combined with river-adjacent Holy Sites will get them to 4+ adjacency easily.

Wisselbanken (Diplomatic, requires Diplomatic Service) - A source of extra food, so long as you have an ally or a city-state you are suzerain over.

Industrial Era

Public Transport (Economic, requires Urbanisation) - Need to grow your cities further? Neighbourhoods are a great source of housing, but with this policy card, they can grant food, production and gold on top.

Public Works (Economic, requires Civil Engineering) - You'll be able to train Builders faster and get more charges out of them, allowing you to more easily develop the lands around your growing cities.

Skyscrapers (Economic, requires Civil Engineering) - Bonus production towards wonders of any era! Wonder-construction is a great way to use a large, productive city.

Modern Era

Collectivisation (Economic, Communism only, requires Class Struggle) - Adds +4 food and +2 production for all internal trade routes, aiding with city growth.

New Deal (Economic, Democracy only, requires Suffrage) - Provides housing and amenities alike to aid your city growth.

Information Era

Online Communities (Economic, requires Social Media) - Boosts the tourism from Prasats, alongside other kinds of tourism you may have.

Administration - Age Bonuses and World Congress

Age Bonuses

Only bonuses with notable synergy with the civ's uniques are covered here.

Monasticism (Dark Age, Classical to Medieval eras) - Seeing as Holy Sites are one of the first things you want to build in most cities, you can really make a lot of science out of this policy card. That being said, the culture penalty will mean it'll take longer to reach key religious civics, so consider building a few Monuments and/or Theatre Squares to offset that.

Monumentality (Golden Age, Classical to Renaissance eras) - This Golden Age dedication lets you convert your strong faith yield into infrastructural advantages.

Heartbeat of Steam (Golden Age, Industrial to Atomic eras) - Large cities are excellent at building wonders, and this Golden Age bonus takes that further.

Collectivism (Dark Age, Modern to Information eras) - Though this comes at the harsh penalty of 50% of your Great Person Points, it does offer extra food to all farm and housing to all cities, allowing your cities to grow even larger.

(Cultural) Flower Power (Dark Age, Atomic to Future eras) - The high Khmer faith output makes spamming Rock Bands very affordable, so this Dark Age wildcard can help you win the game faster - but make sure your defences are adequate, as all new military units will be more expensive.

Wish You Were Here (Golden Age, Atomic to Future eras) - The Khmer have large cities - great for wonder construction, and lots of faith - great for purchasing Naturalists for making National Parks. Both of them gain more tourism with this Golden Age dedication.

World Congress

How you should vote in the World Congress will often be specific to your game - if you have a strong rival, for example, it might be better to vote to hurt them than to help yourself. Furthermore, there may be general bonuses to your chosen victory route or gameplay which are more relevant than ones that have stronger synergy with civ-specific bonuses. Otherwise, here's a list of key relevant votes that have high relevance for this civ relative to other civs.

Deforestation Treaty - Effect A (Clearing features of the chosen type yields gold equal to the production and/or food) on rainforest or marsh

Clearing rainforest or marsh is a method to give cities a lot of food quickly. Passing this resolution gives you gold as well, allowing you to purchase buildings like Granaries to aid with further city growth.

Migration Treaty - Effect A (+20% faster population growth but -5 loyalty per turn in this player's cities) on yourself.

Helps you fill your housing cap sooner.

Military Advisory - Effect A (Units of the chosen land promotion class gain +5 strength) on siege units, at or before the time Domreys are relevant to warfare.

Domreys are more versatile than most siege units owing to their decent defence, good mobility and ability to impose zone of control. This means a +5 strength bonus to siege should generally help you more than it does other civs.

Urban Development Treaty - Effect A (+100% production towards buildings in this district) on Holy Sites if you still have Prasats to build.

Gets you to the excellent faith and culture bonuses sooner.

Administration - Pantheons, Religion and City-States

Pantheons

City Patron Goddess - A useful pantheon when you're trying to grow new cities, as it'll help you build their first district - typically a Holy Site when playing as the Khmer - faster.

Divine Spark - Aids you in founding a religion faster, which increases the chance of securing key beliefs like Work Ethic.

Fertility Rates - While not as strong as some of the pantheons on this list, it does build upon the high food output of Khmer cities, and the free Builder aids early development as well.

God of Healing - The Khmer are strongly encouraged to build a lot of Holy Sites, and the Domrey is a little more mobile than most siege units allowing it to retreat, heal and get back into the fight.

Lady of the Reeds and Marshes - A bit situational, but if you can successfully place an Aqueduct next to multiple desert floodplain tiles, you can end up with decent production as well as a massive food output.

River Goddess - Usually your best option as the Khmer seeing as you're encouraged to place Holy Sites next to rivers anyway. With every riverside Holy Site providing +4 housing and +2 amenities, your cities can grow rapidly - especially with an Aqueduct. The amenity bonus on offer is so strong you can neglect districts and wonders that provide amenities for a long time, freeing up production for other uses.

Religious Beliefs

You can have one founder, one follower, one enhancer and one worship belief.

Choral Music (Follower) - You'll be building a lot of Shrines and Prasats as the Khmer, so if you can't manage to take the Work Ethic belief, this is a possible option to help boost your civic accumulation considerably.

Cross-Cultural Dialogue (Founder) - Probably the best choice of founder belief for the Khmer. Housing and food bonuses from the Khmer help to grow larger cities, which can lead to more science via this belief, and therefore can lead to you unlocking Flight for Prasats' tourism bonus sooner.

(Domination) Crusade (Enhancer) - Once the Khmer have a Aqueducts, your faith output will really take off. That makes it easy to convert a few enemy cities ahead of a Domrey invasion.

Divine Inspiration (Follower) - Large cities are better at building wonders, so this can be a good source of faith.

Feed the World (Follower) - Food and housing bonuses to aid with city growth.

Gurdwara (Worship) - Extra food and housing.

(Cultural) Jesuit Education (Follower) - You can use this belief to convert faith into cultural or scientific buildings. This can be a powerful alternative to Work Ethic, particularly in conjunction with Governor Moksha (the Cardinal) with the Divine Architect promotion (whcih allows you to purchase districts with faith).

(Cultural) Lay Ministry (Founder) - A small bonus that gets you a little more culture and faith from converted cities with Holy Sites or Theatre Squares. If you're going for a cultural victory, you'll have a lot of both.

Sacred Places (Founder) - Large cities are great at building wonders; this belief offers a range of yields for cities with wonders.

Wat (Worship) - A source of science to aid on the long road to Flight.

Work Ethic (Follower) - Jayavarman's leader ability allows for some great Holy Site adjacency bonuses. With Work Ethic, you can have faith, production and food all on the same district.

World Church (Founder) - Large cities can now produce even more culture.

City-States

Brussels (Industrial) - Larger cities are great at building wonders.

Fez (Scientific) - Fez lets you get science from converting cities for the first time, scaling to the city's population. Science is crucial for getting to the Flight technology sooner and the associated Prasat tourism bonus!

Geneva (Scientific) - Extra science.

Jerusalem (Religious) - Your many Holy Sites will produce considerably more religious pressure onto nearby cities.

Lahore (Militaristic) - Got faith to spare and need a melee-attacking unit to accompany your Domreys? Try the Nihang unit!

Mitla (Scientific) - Faster growth builds on your high food advantage to fill district capacity at a rapid rate.

Mohenjo Daro (Cultural) - This city-state allows you to place cities away from fresh water to link up via an Aqueduct later. That may help you maximise the number of high-food farms adjacent to the Aqueduct.

Valletta (Militaristic) - Allows you to use your impressive faith output to buy Granaries and the like, saving precious production.

Administration - Wonders and Great People

Wonders

Great Bath (Ancient era, Pottery technology) - It's usually too risky a wonder to build, but the Great Bath nonetheless synergises well with the Khmer's abiliies. Extra housing and amenities on top of a riverside Holy Site boosted with the River Goddess pantheon can support a huge city early in the game - just make sure you have enough food!

Hanging Gardens (Ancient era, Irrigation technology) - Extra housing in a city can make it very powerful very early on, and faster city growth in the empire helps you fill up your housing capacity even faster. Like all early wonders, it's a risk to build when you're trying to expand early on.

Oracle (Ancient era, Mysticism civic) - Good for its bonus to Great Person Points, but cheaper Great Person patronage really makes this useful. The Khmer's uniques can make incredible amounts of faith, and this provides you with something to spend it on.

Pyramids (Ancient era, Masonry technology) - Growing cities need to work a lot of tiles, and the Pyramids will help you do just that.

Stonehenge (Ancient era, Astrology technology) - Complete this quickly and you can secure the Work Ethic belief, as well as the inspiration for not only Theology, but Drama and Poetry as well, letting you beeline Theology for early Prasats.

Temple of Artemis (Ancient era, Archery technology) - With an Aqueduct, riverside Holy Site and Granary, you could create one particularly large early city.

Angkor Wat (Medieval era, Medieval Faires civic) - The Aqueduct adjacency requirement is easy to meet as the Khmer while the population and housing boost can help you support some of the world's largest cities at this point in the game.

Huey Teocalli (Medieval era, Military Tactics technology) - Extra food for all lake tiles.

Kilwa Kisiwani (Medieval era, Machinery technology) - Being suzerain over two Religious city-states provides a powerful 15% faith bonus on all cities, building on your already impressive outputs. Being suzerain over two scientific city-states offers a 15% science bonus to all cities, aiding on the way to Flight.

Kotoko-In (Medieval era, Divine Right civic) - A city with an Aqueduct and a high population can create quite a bit more faith with this wonder. The Warrior Monks also make great complements to your Domreys.

Estádio do Maracanã (Atomic era, Professional Sports civic) - By this late stage of the game, amenities may be strained in your empire as cities reach huge populations. The Estádio do Maracanã helps to address that with +2 amenities in all cities in your civ.

Great People

Great Generals and Admirals are only mentioned if their retirement bonuses have specific synergy with the civ; not merely for providing a strength bonus to a unique unit. Obviously all GWAMs are useful in a cultural game, and it would be redundant to list them all.

Classical Era

Hypatia (Great Scientist) - Extra science is important for getting to the Flight technology and the Prasat tourism bonus sooner.

Zhang Heng (Great Scientist) - Helps you get to Engineering faster, which unlocks Aqueducts.

Medieval Era

El Cid (Great General) - Make sure you have a spare classical or medieval-era Great General, and you can use his retirement bonus to make a powerful Domrey corps. A Domrey corps is stronger and more mobile than a Bombard, allowing you to tear down enemy walls with ease.

Hildegard of Bingen (Great Scientist) - An excellent Great Scientist for the Khmer - a Holy Site will now generate faith, food and science - and with the Work Ethic follower belief, production as well!

Renaissance Era

Galileo Galilei (Great Scientist) - A one-off boost to science.

Ibn Khaldun (Great Scientist) - An amenity surplus can become a boost to all kinds of yields. Also adds 2 housing and an amenity for a city.

Isaac Newton (Great Scientist) - Extra science.

Modern Era

Sarah Breedlove (Great Merchant) - International trade both helps spread your religion and boost your tourism. Sarah Breedlove makes the tourism multiplier even better, helping you make the most of your Prasats.

Atomic Era

Jane Drew (Great Engineer) - More housing and amenities for a growing city.

John Roebling (Great Engineer) - Even more housing and amenities.

Melitta Bentz (Great Merchant) - Enjoy another tourism bonus for trade routes.

Information Era

Jamseth Tata (Great Merchant) - If you built a lot of Campuses earlier to help you get to Flight faster, this will pay off, as this Great Person will make all Campuses worth +10 tourism.

Kenzo Tange (Great Engineer) - Got a city with a powerful Holy Site adjacency bonus? Or a city that's grown large enough to support lots of excellent districts? Enjoy a tourism bonus!

Masaru Ibuka (Great Merchant) - The high population of Khmer cities results in a high district capacity, and also works well for wonder construction - something complemented well with Industrial Zone districts. Retiring this Great Person will make Industrial Zones produce +10 tourism each.

Counter-Strategies

Left to their own devices, the Khmer can dominate in both the cultural and religious elements of the game. However, they lack defensive advantages and their large cities can make good targets for conquest.

Civilization Ability: Grand Barays

This ability depends on fairly specific city placement to be fully effective. The Khmer need to have a river, mountain or lake a tile away from a city centre, and for that tile to have eligible spots for farms adjacent to it. The simplest way to slow the Khmer's ability down is to take riverside city spots before the Khmer can. Areas with a lot of hills, desert or tundra can also be bad for the Khmer - desert and tundra tiles can't support farms while hill tiles can't host farms until quite some time into the game.

Alternatively, take advantage of the tendency for the Khmer to cluster farms in one area when attacking them. Pillaging farms heals up your units by 50 HP, so attacking cities from the direction their Aqueduct is facing may be a good idea if you have the option.

Jayavarman VII's Leader Ability: Monasteries of the King

Holy Site Culture Bomb

Although a relatively small bonus, it may still catch you by surprise occasionally. Thankfully, because Jayavarman is strongly encouraged to place Holy Sites next to rivers, you're unlikely to lose land except in the circumstance you have a border with Khmer close to a river. Until the border city already has a Holy Site, avoid using those tiles except for national parks (which are constructed instantly and can't be culture-bombed) or unique improvements (they'll be destroyed if culture-bombed, so the Khmer can't steal them).

Adjacency, Food and Housing

The Khmer will get a strong start to their cities' growth, but the housing is on the strict condition that they need a Holy Site adjacent to a river. If they have no river tiles available, they can't use the housing bonus, so settling some river-heavy areas may be an effective (albeit mean) way to severely curtail their strength. Alternatively, taking the River Goddess pantheon for yourself will deny the Khmer it, meaning they will lose out on a lot of housing and amenities.

The food yield for Holy Sites scales specifically to the district's adjacency bonuses. You can pillage a district for it to temporarily produce no yields, and you can shut the Khmer out of river or mountain-heavy locations to limit their adjacency bonuses. If you take the Work Ethic belief for yourself, it'll stop the Khmer from getting production on top of the faith and food.

An encouragement to emphasise early Holy Sites comes at the cost of other districts, which must be put off a little bit. Emphasising Campuses can give you a scientific edge over the Khmer, which can then become a military advantage.

Jayavarman VII's Agenda: An End to Suffering

Jayavarman likes civs that have a high average population in each city, as well as lots of Holy Sites. He dislikes civs that seriously lack one of the two criteria.

This is a great agenda for India and Indonesia to meet thanks to their growth and religious advantages, but many other civs may have trouble meeting both objectives. Most religious bonuses are done on a per-city basis, encouraging very wide expansion. Still, cultural civs later in the game might do reasonably well here, seeing as large cities are good for building wonders with and Holy Site faith can help buy Naturalists, Rock Bands and GWAMs via patronage.

Jayavarman also has a 10% chance of having the Sympathiser hidden agenda, which makes him friendlier to civs in Dark Ages and more inclined to dislike civs in Golden or Heroic Ages.

Unique Unit: Domrey

Domreys are mostly effective on the attack, and can struggle when the Khmer are in defence. Attacking the Khmer rather than letting them attack you can help ensure Domreys are kept to an area where they're less effective.

A fine counter to Domreys are Coursers. They have higher strength in melee combat, can be produced faster with the Chivalry policy card (requires the medieval-era Divine Right civic), ignore zone of control and have promotions that specifically help against siege units. Knights cost a bit more (though they're still cheaper with the Chivalry policy card) and are even stronger. If you lack strategic resources altogether, Crossbowmen may be a reasonably effective alternative.

Unique Building: Prasat

The Prasat is a very powerful UB which immediately offers extra faith and also culture scaling to the city's population, but if the Khmer reach the modern-era Flight technology, it can lead the Khmer to a fast cultural victory. Thankfully, there's ways to stop it being quite so much a threat.

A general method that may be helpful is to constrain Khmer expansion. Taking up river spots already helps weaken the Khmer civ and leader ability, but if they can't settle many cities, they can't build as many Prasats. As a consequence, their potential tourism output will be limited.

If you're going for a religion (especially an early one), grabbing the Cross-Cultural Dialogue belief will deny the Khmer it and remove that potential source of science for them.

More of a warmonger, or a scientific civ with good military technology? Pillaging Prasats will stop their powerful yields working. Yes, that'll require a war, but the Khmer lack unique defensive bonuses making them one of the game's easier targets on the whole.

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Gathering Storm

Compilation Guides

• Civ summaries (Start here for an introduction for all civs)
  
• Civ-specific tricks, secrets and clarifications (Ideal for more experienced players)

Individual Civilization Guides

• America - no additional content* (Cultural/Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• America - all additional content* (Cultural/Diplomatic/Domination/Scientific)
  
• Arabia (Domination/Religious/Scientific)
  
• Australia (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Aztecs (Domination)
  
• Babylon (Cultural/Domination/Scientific)
  
• Brazil (Cultural/Domination/Religious/Scientific)
  
• Byzantium (Domination/Religious)
  
• Canada (Cultural/Diplomatic)
  
• China (Cultural/Domination/Scientific)
  
• Cree (Diplomatic)
  
• Egypt (Cultural/Diplomatic/Religious)
  
• England (Cultural/Domination/Scientific)
  
• Ethiopia (Cultural/Religious)
  
• France (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Gaul (Domination)
  
• Georgia (Diplomatic/Religious)
  
• Germany (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Gran Colombia (Domination)
  
• Greece (Cultural/Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Hungary (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Inca (Religious/Scientific)
  
• India (Domination/Religious)
  
• Indonesia (Cultural/Domination/Religious/Scientific)
  
• Japan (All)
  
• Khmer (Cultural/Religious)
  
• Kongo (Cultural)
  
• Korea (Scientific)
  
• Macedon (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Mali (Diplomatic/Religious)
  
• Māori (Cultural/Religious)
  
• Mapuche (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Maya (Scientific)
  
• Mongolia (Domination)
  
• Netherlands (Scientific)
  
• Norway (Domination)
  
• Nubia (Domination)
  
• Ottomans (Domination)
  
• Persia (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Phoenicia (Domination)
  
• Poland (Cultural/Domination/Religious)
  
• Portugal (Diplomatic/Scientific)
  
• Rome (Domination)
  
• Russia (Cultural/Religious)
  
• Scotland (Scientific)
  
• Scythia (Domination/Religious)
  
• Spain (Domination/Religious/Scientific)
  
• Sumeria (Diplomatic/Domination/Scientific)
  
• Sweden (Cultural/Diplomatic)
  
• Vietnam (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Zulus (Domination)

*The Teddy Roosevelt Persona Pack splits Roosevelt's leader ability in two, meaning the game with it is substantially different from without - hence two different versions of the America guide. Lincoln was added later and is only covered in the latter guide.

Other civs with alternative leader personas are not split because the extra personas added in later content do not change the existing gameplay - as such the guides are perfectly usable by players without them.

Rise and Fall

These guides are for those with the Rise and Fall expansion, but not Gathering Storm. They are no longer updated and have not been kept up to date with patches released since Gathering Storm. To look at them, click here to open the Rise and Fall Civ Summaries guide. The "Other Guides" section of every Rise and Fall guide has links to every other Rise and Fall guide.

Vanilla

The Vanilla guides are for those without the Rise and Fall or Gathering Storm expansions. These guides are no longer updated and have not been kept up to date with patches released since Rise and Fall. To look at them, click here to open the Vanilla Civ Summaries guide. The "Other Guides" section of every Vanilla guide has links to every other Vanilla guide.

[P-Dog]

A quick addition to the pantheons section, Sacred Path, Desert Folklore, and Dance of the Aurora are all valid pantheons for Khmer because the bonuses these provide work with your leader ability and also with work ethic. After Scripture you can easily have holy sites worth 10 Food, Faith, and Production. I even get 14's pretty regularly. Desert Folklore and Dance of the Aurora especially can be game changers if you are near the appropriate biome because they take otherwise useless land and give you viable city locations

[Ron. A Whey]

All I have to say is THANK YOU FOR ALL OF YOUR AMAZING GUIDES!! Both your civ 5 and 6 guides are amazing and super helpful!

[EpicScizor]

Khmer has a niche domination strat by taking the Warrior Monks belief and using the amazing faith output and the Domrey to dominate the medieval and reneissance eras. Add the Grand Master's Chapel and Theocracy and the Crusade belief and you have a militant theocracy that can churn out some pretty impressive numbers of fast melee units and good siege units, in a style similar to the Ottomans.

[Zigzagzigal]

Guide reworked entirely for the April 2021 patch! Very little has gone unchanged, though the civ remains a cultural/religious hybrid.

[Zigzagzigal]

Ah, must have missed that line when updating the guide. Thanks.

[Xetrov]

Quick note that with Gathering Storm, aquaducts can be built on floodplain tiles.

[atroxfang]

Is there a patch for the Stonehenge bug? I've tried building it several times, getting the prophet but not getting Stonehenge itself.