If you have the Gathering Storm expansion, click here for the updated guide.

This guide is no longer updated, but will remain for the sake of those without the Gathering Storm expansion.

Note: This guide requires the Rise and Fall expansion and the Khmer and Indonesia Civilization and Scenario Pack.

Content from other DLC packs (Poland, Vikings, Australia, Persia/Macedon, Nubia) is marked as such.

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.


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 (assuming they have one at all).
  
• The Victory Skew section describes to what extent the civ (and its individual leaders where applicable) are inclined towards particular victory routes. This is not a rating of its power, but rather a general 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 should be given more consideration than they would be for other civs but 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, culture, gold, 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

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

AoE (Area of Effect) - Describes bonuses or penalties that affect multiple tiles in a set radius. Positive examples include Factories and Stadiums (which by default offer production and happiness respectively 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 - The strategy of 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 deviation (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. Unlike unique units, buildings, districts and improvements, civ abilites do not have to be built.

Compact empires - Civs with cities close together. This is useful if you want to make use of districts that gain adjacency bonuses from other districts, maximise the number of copies of the same district in the same area, or to maximise the potential of area-of-effect bonuses later in the game.

Dispersed empires - Civs with cities that are spread out. This is useful if you want to ensure cities have plenty of room for both districts and tile improvements. 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.

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, which like civ abilities do not have to be built. Usually but not always, they tend to be more specific in scope than civ abilities. Some leader abilities come with an associated unique unit on top of the standard one every civ has.

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.

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.

Complete information on start biases within the game can be found in the Civilizations.xml file (find the Civ 6 folder in Steam's program files, then go through the Base, Assets, Gameplay and Data folders to find the file). DLC and Expansion civs have a similarly-named file in their corresponding folders. If a civilization is not listed as having a start bias there, it does not have one, even if you feel like you keep spawning in the same terrain when playing as that civ.

Super-uniques - Unique units that do not replace any others, and are hence particularly unique. 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 and offers some unique advantages on top. In some cases, there may be minor disadvantages as well, but these are always outweighed by the positive features. All unique districts cost half as much to construct relative to the regular districts they replace.

UI (Unique Improvement) - A special improvement that can only be built by the Builders of a single civilization. Unlike unique buildings or districts, these do not replace a regular improvement. Some require a technology to unlock, and many have their yields improved with later technologies. "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 built by a single civilization, and in some cases only when that civilization is led by a specific leader. These usually replace an existing unit and offer extra advantages (and occasionally minor disadvantages as well in exchange for bigger advantages).

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

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.

• All Aqueducts offer +3 faith and +1 amenity in addition to their normal yields
  
• Farms adjacent to Aqueducts gain an additional +2 food.
  
  • This bonus does not stack if two or more Aqueducts are adjacent to the farm.

• 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 adjacent to rivers provide +2 food and +1 housing, even when pillaged

A medieval-era siege unit which does not replace anything.

*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.


Notable Features

• Has 33 strength, 10 higher than classical-era Catapults and 10 lower than renaissance-era Bombards
  
• Has 45 bombard strength, 10 higher than classical-era Catapults and 10 lower than renaissance-era Bombards
  
• Imposes zone of control, unlike other siege units
  
• May attack after moving for just 1 movement point
  
  • This bonus functions identically to the Expert Crew promotion, making that promotion useless to Domreys.

A classical-era Holy Site building which replaces the Temple



Positive changes

• 2 relic slots, up from 1
  
• All Missionaries and Gurus trained in this city have the Martyr promotion, granting you a relic if they are killed in theological combat, unless all 24 relics in the game have been claimed already or you have no relic slots to store them in.

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.


The Khmer are notable in that their cultural and religious strengths are so closely intertwined that they can push for both victory routes at once. The Prasat UB makes it really easy both to obtain and store relics for a huge boost to early tourism and faith, especially with the Reliquaries belief along with the St. Basil's Cathedral and Cristo Redentor wonders. Your key challenges will be to find enough enemy religious units for your Missionaries to die in theological combat, and to have enough Prasats to store all those relics. If civs get wise to all that and refuse to kill your Missionaries, just use up the spread-religion charges to play the religious game instead.

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

Finally, science is the weakest path for the Khmer. You can use the Jesuit Education belief to convert excess faith into science buildings, and the growth bonuses are nice to have around, but there's nothing directly useful here.

Pushing for an early religion usually has the problem that it comes at the cost of early city development. The Khmer, however, have a couple of bonuses that make pushing for an early religion much easier.


Place Holy Sites adjacent to rivers, and you can enjoy a bonus similar to a Granary. Although you'll be receiving 1 housing and 2 food instead of the 2 housing and 1 food offered by Granaries, the extra food is more useful when you're trying to expand your empire with Settlers early on, and helps you fill your population capacity (helping the city to become more productive) a bit faster.

And expand you should! The more Holy Sites you can manage early on, the more Great Prophet Points you can generate and the sooner you can found a religion. Expanding to 6+ cities by the time the Prasat UB is available helps to maximise your faith output - helping you to purchase plenty of Missionaries - and gives you a decent capacity for relics ensuring you can maximise the faith/tourism you get from them. Lots of fast-growing cities should give you enough science and culture early on that you can afford to neglect Campuses to some extent in favour of a stronger faith infrastructure, though don't neglect science too much or you'll leave your defences weak.

The hard part of using this ability is the need to position the Holy Site in a way that is adjacent to a river, still gets good adjacency bonuses and won't get in the way of an Aqueduct later. To do so, it's useful to break down each consideration you need to make.

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 location is where there's plenty of flat grassland, flat plains or farm resources as well as a river, lake or mountain on one side of the city (that's where you'll want your Aqueduct), and mountains next to a river on the other (that's where the Holy Site should go).


This spot is pretty much perfect. South-east of the city is a tile adjacent to both a river and mountain, and north-east is a potential Aqueduct spot next to two wheat resources.

Look at the first ring

Aqueducts may only be placed adjacent to a city centre, and must also be adjacent to a river, lake or mountain. 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. River adjacency is more important than maximising faith; you'll get lots of the latter later via your UB.

Consider the River Goddess pantheon

The River Goddess pantheon adds +1 amenity in every city with a Holy Site adjacent to a river. As Jayavarman's leader ability pushes you to always position Holy Sites in such a manner, this is an easy source of bonus amenities. That's really useful for managing the fast city growth the Khmer have.


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 find a good Holy Site spot, so just think of it as a few bonus tiles when you're starting out. More tiles means more places for your citizens to work, and combined with the housing/food bonuses, you can get some pretty productive cities rather quickly while still forwarding your religious aims.


The Khmer early game strongly benefits from fairly rapid expansion mixed with Holy Site development. Getting an early religion is important for securing the Reliquaries follower belief, which triples the effectiveness of relics and makes Prasats extremely powerful as a consequence. While you can afford to put off Campuses for a bit (every point of population is worth 0.5 science, and you can end up with a lot quite quickly), don't neglect your defences. The Khmer are vulnerable early in the game.

The bonus doesn't stack for multiple Aqueducts, but +2 food is still good.

The Khmer civ ability nicely complements Jayavarman VII's leader ability. Together, they help you create large cities with a good faith output ready for buying Missionaries with once you have the Prasat UB.


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.




Khmer Aqueducts should be positioned in a manner where you can maximise your food output. Look for spots surrounded by flat grassland, plains and/or floodplains (though note you can't build Aqueducts on 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.

The area around your Aqueduct should be the city's breadbasket, providing it with a large share of the food it needs. That gives you a lot of other free tiles for other uses, such as for mines and lumber mills. Or maybe even some national parks and seaside resorts to complement the tourism Prasats will help you acquire?


+3 faith from every Aqueduct is a helpful little bonus that will really help in acquiring the first few martyr Missionaries. Once some start dying in theological combat, your faith output can snowball to an incredible quantity.

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.

The Prasat is an incredibly powerful unique building that deserves special attention regardless of your aims for victory. Use it well and you may be able to manage an early cultural victory, or more faith than you'll ever need.


Prasats must be built in Holy Sites with Shrines, and you also need the Theology civic. There's two routes you can take to get to Theology:

• The fast way - Beeline Theology. This depends on you being able to found a religion very early for the inspiration boost. If you can secure the Stonehenge wonder, you can get the Drama and Poetry inspiration as well, though that's risky.
  
• The slow way - Get Political Philosophy first. This is a more reliable method and should probably be done in most games. Getting a classical-era government allows you to pick up the Relevation policy card at Mysticism to help speed up your progress towards founding a religion if you don't have one already.

When founding a religion, try to take the following beliefs:

• Reliquaries (Follower) - This makes relics three times as effective, turning the UB from being good to being incredibly powerful.
  
• Monastic Isolation (Enhancer) - Prevents you losing religious pressure when your Missionaries die.
  
• Alternatively, Holy Order (Enhancer) - Reduces the cost of purchasing Missionaries.

If you can't manage to pick up Reliquaries, consider Warrior Monks instead to complement your unique unit and go on some conquests, or Religious Community for bonus housing to complement your high food output. More alternatives are highlighted in the Administration section of this guide.


Once you have a Prasat in a city following your religion, buy a Missionary there and use all but one charge spreading your religion. If you spread your religion into the cities of a civ which has their own one, you can encourage them to retaliate with Inquistors or Apostles. If they don't have them yet, consider saving up some faith for an Apostle or two of your own to fill out your religion's beliefs in the mean-time.

It might sound strange, but it can be better not to try and build the Mahabodhi Temple wonder. Whichever civ builds it will get two free Apostles, and there's a good chance they'll either use one to launch an inquisition or fill out their religious beliefs rather than doing that later. In other words, by letting another civ get the wonder, you can ensure they're ready to engage in theological combat sooner.

Every Missionary originally purchased in a Prasat city will create a relic if they die in theological combat, but not if they die from being pillaged by military units. Keeping your army reasonably strong (Domreys will help) should discourage the civ from starting a war. Alternatively, declare friendship with the civ or form an alliance to prevent them from being able to do so. If your opponents get wise to your ability to gain relics quickly and avoid theological combat, then you can just use your faith advantages to push towards a conventional religious victory in the knowledge that your Missionaries will be largely safe from harm.

Once you find a religious rival regularly relying upon Apostles or Inquisitors, keep spamming one-charge Missionaries at them. If you can surround their Apostles or Inquisitors, they'll be forced to either engage in theological combat or start a war.


I've surrounded Russia's capital. If they want to convert it back, they'll have to get through my Missionaries.

If the other civ does start a war, use up your Missionaries' charges to convert as many cities as you can before they get pillaged. Every city you convert in war grants you +3 era score, and a civ with a high faith output like the Khmer can get a lot out of early Golden Age bonuses like Monumentality or Exodus of the Evangelists.




If your religious rivals are refusing to fight your Missionaries, you have another tool that'll help. Surround their Holy City with Prasat-boosted Missionaries, use enough spread-religion charges to convert the city (have a few charges spare so you can maintain your religion's presence there) and you'll typically start a Religious Emergency.

Religious Emergencies last 30 turns. The target (in this case, you) wins if the full 30 turns pass with your religion being dominant in the city for at least 15 of those turns. The members (in this case, the other civs) win if the city doesn't follow your religion for at least 16 of those turns.

With their city surrounded by your Missionaries, they'll either need to start a war, or start recruiting Apostles or Inquisitors to kill your Missionaries - which will supply you with relics. If they do neither, then you'll win the emergency and reap its rewards - a lump sum of gold, and a huge boost to your religious pressure in every city in range of your religion. That can result in a huge leap towards religious victory!

Every Missionary dead in theological combat creates a relic worth 4 faith and 8 tourism, or 12 faith and 24 tourism with the Reliquaries belief.

The key thing here is speed. You'll want to be able to kill off Missionaries quickly enough to fill your relic capacity, to meet every civ in the game so you can accumulate tourism against them (or know where they are ready to send Missionaries over to convert them), and to ensure your relic capacity is as high as possible (up to 24 slots, seeing as that's the maximum number of relics in the game).

• Getting Missionaries killed quickly is easy once you find another civ with Inquisitors. Although spamming Missionaries can cost a fair bit of faith at first, once you have a few relics that won't be a problem any more.
  
• Meeting everyone can be tricky. Getting the Cartography technology may be necessary in order to cross oceans and find distant civs. Make sure you get lots of open borders agreements - it'll also offer you tourism bonuses.
  
• Maximising your relic capacity will require up to 12 cities. Consider training some Builders in your more productive cities and chopping down woods or rainforests with them near your newer cities to get Holy Sites built faster. Governor Moksha (the Cardinal) with the Divine Architect promotion will help as well.

There's also a few tourism modifiers worth remembering:

• Tourism from relics is halved against civs with the Enlightenment civic, unless you can secure the Cristo Redentor wonder.
  
• Tourism from relics is also halved against civs with a different religion, so you might want to use your excess spread-religion charges converting those with high culture outputs. This allows you to push religious and cultural goals simultaneously!
  
• 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.


Having 24 tourism per relic not enough for you? St. Basil's Cathedral makes relics worth another 8 tourism, though only in the city that contains the wonder. Usually, you should aim to build the wonder in your capital as your Palace already has a Great Work slot that can hold a relic.

Aside from the slot from the Palace, the two from a Prasat and the three from St. Basil's Cathedral, you can get more relic slots from the following sources:

• The Apadana wonder (requires the Persia and Macedon civilization and scenario pack) adds +2. It requires the classical-era Political Philosophy civic and can only be built adjacent to your capital's city centre.
  
• The medieval-era Mont St. Michel wonder adds +2. It requires the Divine Right civic, and must be built either on a marsh or on floodplains.
  
• The renaissance-era Great Merchant Giovanni de' Medici can create a Market and Bank in a Commercial Hub. The Bank will have two slots for any kind of Great Work, including relics.
  
• The modern-era National History Museum building can be built in your Government Plaza once you have a tier-three government. It offers four slots.

Secure all of the above in your capital, and you'll have 16 relic slots in your capital, so St. Basil's Cathedral will be offering you an extra 128 religious tourism. Even with just the wonder, a Prasat and the Palace, you're looking at a boost of 48 religious tourism, which certainly isn't bad.

Even if you can't get it in your St. Basil's Cathedral city, the Mont St. Michel wonder is worth building as it grants the Martyr promotion to all your Apostles. If you spam enough Missionaries, Apostles can actually end up cheaper to buy than them, and Apostles have the notable advantage that they can initiate theological combat rather than having to wait around for something else to kill them. To put it another way, just because you have a unique way of generating relics doesn't mean you should neglect the more conventional means as well.

Don't forget about the Cristo Redentor wonder as well, which arrives with the modern-era Mass Media civic. It prevents the halving of religious tourism against civs with the Enlightenment civic, ensuring you can carry your huge amount of tourism through the later stages of the game.


The Khmer Holy Site emphasis, faith from Aqueducts, and faith from relics can grant masses of faith. The best use of it is generally additional religious units, but there's plenty of alternative options if winning a religious victory isn't viable. Here's just a few:

• 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.
  
• 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 starting at 1,600 faith each and rising by 200 each time. They can create national parks, providing you with tourism based on the appeal of each of their tiles.

A cultural victory just as I'm entering the industrial era. No archaeology, no boost from Flight or Computers, no National Parks, no seaside resorts and barely any wonders.

The Prasat lets you get an enormous early faith and tourism output via relics, which is good for religious and cultural victories alike. The more opponents kill your religious units in theological combat, the stronger you get at the cultural game, and the more they hold off, the better you get at the religious game.

The main risk is that the other civ declares war on you - declaring friendship, an ally and/or keeping your defences strong will help.

Come the middle ages, the walls of Khmer's enemies shall fall into rubble. 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.


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. Unfortunately, Domreys are pretty expensive and have no policy cards helping you to build them faster, nor can you upgrade Catapults into them. Be prepared to set some cities to a production emphasis to help build them at a reasonable rate, or chop a few rainforests or woods to speed the production up.

Furthermore, you'll want to complement your Domreys with something with a melee attack so you can capture cities; Horsemen or Knights are good.



The damage doesn't look that high at first glance, but that's because I took this screenshot part-way through the city's health going down..

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.

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.

Domreys are exceptionally powerful against cities, but suffer a -17 strength penalty against land units, putting them at only 28. With the Grape Shot and Shrapnel promotions, that strength penalty is removed against land units, putting them on a par with Crossbowmen with the Volley promotion. 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, 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.


Going to war can help you secure more cities, and hence more Prasats and relic slots. 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. Warmonger penalties 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, so you can get the benefit of the units without having to suffer warmonger penalties.


Although Domrey corps are as strong as Bombards and have the advantages of being able to move after firing and impose zone of control, they're much less cost-effective. Still, if you have a lot of faith and the Grand Master's Chapel building, purchasing them won't be too much of a problem.

Come the industrial era, however, you're going to have trouble if you continue to use Domreys extensively. Cavalry have promotions offering bonuses against siege units as well as having high mobility, 62 strength and the ability to ignore zone of control.

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.


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 Ancestral Hall building to help you train Settlers faster, and save production on training Builders.

Tier Two

Theocracy will generally be your best choice due to the savings it makes on faith, but the bonus it offers to theological combat can actually be a disadvantage when you're trying to get Missionaries killed for relics. On the whole, though, it's not a significant enough downside to outweigh cheaper 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. Relics 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 housing boost makes it generally the best late-game choice for the Khmer.

If your Government Plaza is in a city that also has St. Basil's Cathedral, go for the National History Museum. It can hold four relics, which means an extra 32 bonus religious tourism from the wonder. If you lack the wonder, or it's not in your Government Plaza city, the building may still be useful for holding Great Works you might not have enough capacity for elsewhere.


Ancient Era

Colonisation (Economic, requires Early Empire) - The Khmer need to expand quickly to maximise their early faith output and have productive cities ready for the Prasat UB.

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 the powerful Reliquaries belief.

Urban Planning (Economic, requires Code of Laws) - A straightforward production boost which will help you build Holy Sites in new cities.

Classical Era

Insulae (Economic, requires Games and Recreation) - Khmer food bonuses can be complemented with bonuses to housing to create bigger cities.

Medieval Era

Gothic Architecture (Economic, requires Divine Right) - The St. Basil's Cathedral wonder is powerful for a civ that can create huge quantities of relics, and this policy card can make the difference between being able to build it and not.

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

Retainers (Military, requires Civil Service) - Having lots of large cities will be quite a drain on your amenities; this policy card will help with that.

Serfdom (Economic, requires Feudalism) - Growing cities will need to work a lot of tiles. Serfdom will help with that. You can also chop down more woods or rainforests if you need to get more Prasats up quickly for more relic slots.

Renaissance Era

Liberalism (Economic, requires The Enlightenment) - Helps you support the amenity requirements of larger cities.

Logistics (Military, requires Mercantilism) - Nice if you're still using Domreys and need to get them to the front line sooner, but the main use will be getting Missionaries to rival Inquisitors/Apostles sooner.

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 10+, though getting a high adjacency bonus for Holy Sites can be tricky when you simultaneously need to have them next to a river.

Modern Era

New Deal (Economic, requires Suffrage) - The Khmer civ ability provides the food you need - take this policy and you'll have the housing and amenities you need for large cities as well. Watch out for the gold cost, however.

Information Era

Online Communities (Economic, requires Social Media) - While not the only tourism-boosting policy card that's good to pick up, this is the only one that will directly make your relics more effective (in addition to all other sources of tourism).


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

Exodus of the Evangelists (Dedication, Classical to Renaissance eras) - Even if you're after relics, you'll still want to use religious charges to make the most of your Missionaries. Getting plenty of era score from converting cities will make it much easier to get to later, substantial bonuses.

Exodus of the Evangelists (Golden Age, Classical to Renaissance eras) - More mobile Missionaries means you can get them to rival Apostles sooner, while extra charges means you can push your religious pressure further while you're at it.

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 be prepared to build a few Theatre Squares or Monuments to offset that.

Monumentality (Golden Age, Classical to Renaissance eras) - Particularly powerful if you have a lot of relics already, this Golden Age dedication lets you convert your strong faith yield into infrastructural advantages.

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 - Aside from helping you found a religion faster, this also can give you generate more Great Writers, which helps a little towards cultural victory.

Fertility Rates - While not as strong as many other pantheons on this list, it does build upon the high food output of Khmer cities.

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 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. This, combined with the amenity for having an Aqueduct in a city, should prevent your cities becoming unhappy for quite some time!


You can have one founder, one follower, one enhancer and one worship belief. Note that the Burial Grounds enhancer belief is useless to the Khmer, as they have that ability already.

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 Reliquaries belief, this is a possible option to help boost your civic accumulation considerably.

Church Property (Founder) - The Khmer get little in the way of gold advantages and Domreys can be quite expensive to maintain. As such, this may be a useful belief to take.

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

Defender of the Faith (Enhancer) - When you send Missionaries to an enemy land, they have three options. Kill your Missionaries (which provides you with relics), leave them alone (which lets you convert their cities) or start a war. This belief makes that last option far less lucrative to your opponents.

Holy Order (Enhancer) - Cheaper Missionaries will help you get your first few relics sooner, and potentially give you a head start on the way to cultural victory.

(Cultural) Jesuit Education (Follower) - Fail to get Reliquaries? Don't worry, you can still push for a cultural victory with help from this belief, which lets you convert faith into cultural buildings. You should exhaust the supply of relics before really using this belief however, as Missionaries tend to be a lot cheaper than cultural buildings.

(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.

Missionary Zeal (Enhancer) - Cuts down the time needed to get Missionaries into rival lands, which means you can get relics a few turns earlier.

Monastic Isolation (Enhancer) - An excellent choice for the Khmer, as all those Missionaries dying to provide you with relics won't ruin your religious pressure.

Mosque (Worship) - Extra spread-religion charges for Missionaries allows you to put more religious pressure on other civs before you sacrifice them for relics. This lets you push your cultural and religious goals at the same time!

Pagoda (Worship) - Some extra housing to go with your high food output.

Pilgrimage (Founder) - If civs kill your Missionaries, you get extra faith from relics. If they let your Missionaries spread your religion instead, you'll get extra faith from this belief.

Religious Colonisation (Enhancer) - Can save a little bit of time when you're trying to expand your relic capacity by founding new cities. There's better choices of enhancer belief than this one though.

Religious Community (Follower) - More housing to go with your high food output.

Reliquaries (Follower) - The most important belief to take as the Khmer due to it tripling the faith and tourism output of relics. This belief can be your ticket to an early cultural victory, or an unstoppable faith output to help convert the world.

Tithe (Founder) - A decent source of money to help support Domreys.

Warrior Monks (Follower) - One possible backup option if you don't manage Reliquaries. Warrior Monks nicely complement Domreys for some medieval-era conquests.


Babylon (Scientific) - Lots of relics means a lot of science with this city-state's bonus!

Jerusalem (Religious) - Maintaining your religion's pressure can be difficult if a lot of your Missionaries are dying. The pressure bonus offered by Jerusalem will help offset that.

Kandy (Religious) - Extra faith from relics builds on your already-strong faith output.

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.

Palenque (Scientific) - Faster growth builds on your high food advantage to fill district capacity at a rapid rate. Requires the Vikings Scenario Pack.

Yerevan (Religious) - If other civs aren't using Apostles or Inquisitors, getting an Apostle of your own to fight their Missionaries will strongly encourage them to do so. Yerevan lets you choose any promotion for the Apostles - try using Debater to kill more enemy Missionaries and push the other civ even more into using Apostles/Inquisitors of their own, or Martyr so you can still fill the relic slots in Prasats even if other civs aren't killing your Missionaries.

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 with the Reliquaries belief can make insane amounts of faith, and this provides you with something to spend it on.

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

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 Reliquaries belief, as well as the inspiration for not only Theology, but Drama and Poetry as well, letting you beeline Theology for early Prasats.

Apadana (Classical era, Political Philosophy civic) - The envoys are nice but you'll usually be after the extra Great Work slots, which can hold relics. Your relic slot limit will often be a major barrier to relic production, so it helps to get all the slots you can. It's also a good idea to try and build this wonder if you think you can build St. Basil's Cathedral in your capital later, as more relic slots in the same city means you can make even more out of its bonus. Requires the Persia and Macedon Civilization and Scenario Pack.

Mahabodhi Temple (Classical era, Theology civic) - An interesting one. While getting it means you can fill out your religious beliefs without spending faith you'll need for your Missionaries, on the other hand, letting another civ get it makes them more likely they'll launch an Inquisition sooner, giving you an easy way to sacrifice your Missionaries.

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.

Hagia Sophia (Medieval era, Education technology) - An extra charge for all Missionaries means you can spread your religion around more before sacrificing them for relics, letting you further both cultural and religious aims.

Mont St. Michel (Medieval era, Divine Right civic) - By denying other civs this wonder, it helps you get a bigger share of the game's 24 relics. It also provides extra relic slots in case you need any more. If possible, try to build this in the city you intend to build St. Basil's Cathedral in, so the latter's bonus to religious tourism can affect more relics.

Kotoko-In (Medieval era, Divine Right civic) - A city with a lot of Reliquaries-boosted relics can create quite a bit more faith with this wonder. The Warrior Monks also make great complements to your Domreys.

St. Basil's Cathedral (Renaissance era, Reformed Church civic) - In conjunction with Reliquaries, relics in this city will provide 32 religious tourism each.

Cristo Redentor (Modern era, Mass Media civic) - Can't win an early cultural victory? You'll certainly want this wonder to ensure your relics continue to have a strong tourism output late in the game.


Remember that these are only the ones that have particular synergy with Khmer uniques, not necessarily the most effective options.

Renaissance Era

Giovanni de Medici (Great Merchant) - His special Bank can hold relics, helping you to maximise your tourism even sooner if you're short on relic capacity. If possible, try to create the special Bank in the city you intend to build St. Basil's Cathedral in, so the wonder's tourism bonus can affect more relics.

Industrial Era

John Spilsbury (Great Merchant) - The first of four Great Merchants offering unique luxuries, which means more amenities to support your growing cities.

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 relics.

Atomic Era

Helena Rubenstein (Great Merchant) - Another unique-luxury Great Merchant.

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

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

Levi Strauss (Great Merchant) - Yet another unique-luxury Great Merchant.

Melitta Bentz (Great Merchant) - Enjoy another tourism bonus for trade routes, helping you to make more out of relics.

Information Era

Estée Lauder (Great Merchant) - The final Great Merchant offering unique luxuries.

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.


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 slowing 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 - Aqueducts can't be built on floodplain, tundra tiles can't support farms and 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.


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).

Food and Housing

The Khmer will get a strong start to their cities' growth, but 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 this bonus, so settling some river-heavy areas may be an effective (albeit mean) way to severely curtail their strength.

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 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 and rush GWAMs.


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.

Perhaps the best counter to Domreys is Horsemen. They have slightly higher strength in melee combat, are quite a bit cheaper, ignore zone of control and have bonuses that specifically help against siege units. Knights are also good if you can research and train them fast enough. If you lack strategic resources altogether, Crossbowmen may be a reasonably effective alternative.


The Prasat is a potentially monstrous UB that if ignored can spiral out of control and hand the Khmer two different kinds of 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, Khmer relic slots will be limited, restricting how much faith and tourism they can generate.

If you're going for a religion (especially an early one), grabbing the Reliquaries belief will deny the Khmer it and make them much less of a threat. Placing a wall of Inquisitors along your border with the Khmer will force them to spend faith on Apostles or send their Missionaries elsewhere, depriving them of opportunities to gain relics.

More of a warmonger, or a scientific civ with good military technology? Pillaging the Khmer Missionaries will destroy them without handing Jayavarman precious relics. Yes, that'll start a war, but the Khmer lack unique defensive bonuses making them one of the game's easier targets on the whole.

Playing culturally? Note that as relics don't offer culture, the Khmer are often left with a much slower civic accumulation than you. You can race to The Enlightenment to lower the tourism effect of relics on you, and more importantly, you've got a good shot at beating the Khmer to Reformed Church (and hence the St. Basil's Cathedral wonder), and Mass Media (and hence the Cristo Redentor wonder).

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These guides are for those with the Rise and Fall expansion, but not Gathering Storm.

Compilation Guides

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• Zulus (Domination)

The Vanilla guides are for those without the Rise and Fall or Gathering Storm expansions. These guides are no longer updated. You can find these by scrolling to the top of this page, clicking "Zigzagzigal's Guides" and looking near the end of the list of guides. The "Other Guides" section of every Vanilla guide has links to every other Vanilla guide.