Khmer

The Khmer are the Southeast Asian civilization based on the Khmer Empire. They are featured in Age of Empires II HD: Rise of the Rajas as a siege and elephant civilization.

The capital of the Khmer Empire was Angkor, which is among one of the largest pre-industrial cities. At its peak, the city supported one million people. This is reflected by two of their bonuses: Villagers can garrison inside Houses, and they don't need to build certain buildings to unlock other buildings or to advance to the next ages. Like their Persian and Indian neighbors to the West, Khmer Empire were known to employ war elephants widely for both tactical and logistical purpose. To reflect this, their Battle Elephant moves faster and can be upgraded to deal more damage with the Tusk Swords unique technology.



Like their Chinese neighbor to the North, the Khmer Empire were also known to employ ballista technology. Consequently, their Team Bonus increases the range of Scorpions. In addition, Khmer also possess a ballista-carrying unique unit named the Ballista Elephant. Furthermore, the number of missiles fired by both Ballista Elephant and Scorpion can be increased with the Double Crossbow unique technology.

Overview
Khmer are classified as a Siege and Elephant civilization in the game, thanks to their team bonus, their faster Elephants and their two Unique Technologies, that encourage them to exploit 2 different types of Elephants, as well as Scorpions, hinting that they are based on expensive units (somewhat similarly to the Slavs and Teutons, both possessing mighty, brute force units and siege). Their balanced tech tree, however, pushes them towards a jack-of-all-trades/generalist civilization, similarly to the Malians, Byzantines and the Chinese. In fact, they aren't as dependent on mighty, vulnerable-to-conversion (they lack both Heresy and Faith) units as possibly thought.

Khmer is one of most creative and challenging civilizations to play, as their ability to ignore building prerequisites means they do not have to follow standard build orders that every other civilization uses (similar to the Chinese in that regard, whose 6 villager 0 food start force them to play differently). This allows them to play very unpredictably (i.e. a Khmer reaching Feudal Age without a Barracks could still perform an immediate Archer/Scout rush). Their unique ability to garrison houses also offer many new options, such as house-hopping (moving villagers from one house to another to protect them), moving villagers through palisade-house walls, aggressively using villagers in forward bases (tower rush, proxy barracks, castle drop), etc.

This combination of no-building-prerequisites and house-garrison is unlike anything else ever implemented in Age of Empires II. This makes Khmer one of the two most "unconventional" civilizations in the game (the other being Chinese).

Rushing, booming and even turtling (they only lack Bombard Towers and Arrowslits) can be considered, depending on civilization matchup, map settings, default age and alliances. They lack direct economic and early game bonuses, but their Villagers will be safe, as long as Houses are around, and no-requirement means that resources can be diverted away from certain structures towards anything else. One, if bold enough, can even totally ignore Mills or other essential structures. Elephants and Scorpions, among others, offer solid late level power and their balanced tech tree provides a wildly unpredictable army. They operate well with siege civilizations (especially Slavs and Teutons, see strategy section) and ones that provide team bonuses to generic unit lines (e.g. Goths or Huns) and the Chinese. They may struggle against ones with great Monks (Spanish, Aztecs) or great early game.


 * Unique unit: Ballista Elephant (siege cavalry)
 * Unique technologies: Tusk Swords (Battle Elephants +3 attack), Double Crossbow (Ballista Elephants and Scorpions shoot two projectiles)

Civilization bonuses

 * No buildings required to advance to the next Age or to unlock other buildings
 * Battle Elephants +15% faster
 * Villagers can garrison in Houses
 * Team Bonus: Scorpions +1 range

In-game dialogue language
The units speak Khmer, the official language of modern Cambodia. An Austroasiatic language (related to the Vietnamese one), it is one of the few major languages of Mainland Southeast Asia that is non-tonal (along with Malay). It shares similarities with Malay due to Indian and Sanskrit influence, e.g. suosdey (Khmer) and swasti (Malay).

Villagers

 * Chah ចា៎ស់ - yes (female)
 * Bat បាទ - yes (male)
 * Tae neak mean lomdab? តើអ្នកមានលំដប់? - do you have order?
 * Mean kar banhcheatinh? មានការបានជាទន? - have orders?
 * Peak ban chea ពក់បានជា? - command?
 * Aroun suosdey អរុណសួរស្ដី - good morning
 * Kniom neung teuw ti nouh ខ្ញុំនឹងទៅទីនេាះ - I will go there
 * Ban yol បានយល់ - understood
 * Troemotrauv ត្រូវមក់ត្រូវ- all right
 * Neung chuosachoul - will repair
 * Neung bramoul នឹងប្រមូល - will gather
 * Neung pongrong - will cultivate
 * Neung kab chheu នឹងកាប់ឈេី - will chop down wood
 * Neung chik dom th- will dig stones
 * Neung sangsang នឹងសង់ៗ- will construct

Military

 * Bat បាទ - yes
 * Peak banh chea ពក់បានជា? - command?
 * Bamnng robsa neak? - your wish?
 * Kniom neung teuw ខ្ញុំនឹងទៅ - I will go
 * Kniom yol ខ្ញុំយល់ - I understand
 * Teuw moukh! ទៅមុខ! - forward!

AI player names

 * Barom Reachea I (បរមរាមាធិបតី, also known as Dhamkat (ដំខាត់)) (reigned 1363 to 1370): One of the last king of the Khmer Empire under the rule of Thai Kingdom of Ayutthaya, leading a rebellion against Ayutthaya Empire before died after being poisoned by his crucibles, leading to civil war and downfall of Khmer Empire, Father of Ponhea Yat.
 * Indravarman III (ឥន្ទ្រវរ្ម័នទី៣) (reigned 1295 to 1308): King of the Khmer Empire, also titled Srindravarman (Khmer: ស្រីន្ទ្រវរ្ម័ន), upon his ascension to power, he declared Theravada Buddhism as the state religion. Son-in-law of Jayavarman VIII.
 * Jayavarman II (ជ័យវរ្ម័នទី២) (reigned 802 to 835): Founder of the Khmer Empire, unifying several parts of Khmer warlord states, marking the beginning of Angkor (great city) era in Cambodia history.
 * Jayavarman VII Mahaparamasaugata (ជ័យវរ្ម័នទី៧) (1125-1218, reigned 1181 to 1218): Regarded as one of the greatest King in Khmer history and his reign is remembered as the "golden age" of the Khmer Empire. during his reign, he defeated the Champas, expanding his empire to its greatest extent, as well as building the Bayon Temple and hundreds of Buddhist temples.
 * Jayaviravarman (reigned 1002 to 1006): Khmer King who dethroned Udayadityavarman I, ruled the Khmer Empire during the civil war before defeated by Suryavarman I.
 * Ponhea Yat (ពញាយ៉ាត) (1396 - 1463, reigned 1405 - 1463): The last king of the Khmer Empire who reigned at the age of 11, known by his reigning title as Barom Reachea II (បរមរាជាទី២). after the attack by the Ayutthaya Kingdom in 1436, he was forced to submit his kingdom to the Ayutthaya, ending the Angkor era and beginning the era of Kingdom of Cambodia, which saw the conquest over Cambodia between the Siamese and the Vietnamese.
 * Rajendravarman II (ជេន្ទ្រវរ្ម័នទី២) (reigned 944 to 968): King of the Khmer Empire, described as a great warrior-king who ruled his people kindly.
 * Sangrama (died in 1065): General under the service of Udayadityavarman II, he was credited for put down several rebel against Udayadityavarman II's rule.
 * Suryavarman I (សូរ្យវរ្ម័នទី១) (reigned 1006 to 1050): First king of united Khmer Empire. during his reign, he expanding his territory to the west to Lopburi, including the Menam basin in Thailand, and east into the Mekong basin. after his death in 1050, he gained the posthumous title Nirvanapada (the king who has gone to nirvana) for his Buddhist beliefs.
 * Suryavarman II Paramavishnuloka (សូរ្យវរ្ម័នទី២) (reigned 1113 to 1145/1150): King of the Khmer Empire, widely regarded as the greatest king of Khmer Empire, well-known for building the Angkor Wat, the largest religious monument in the world.
 * Udayadityavarman I (reigned for only few months in 1002): Succeeded the throne after Jayavarman V, Udayadityavarman I later dethroned by Jayaviravarman in 1002.
 * Yasovarman I (ព្រះបាទយសោវរ្ម័នទី១) (reigned 889 - 910): King of the Khmer Empire. his reign is remarkable for various major construction project, he build several water reservoir around the new capital of Yasodharapura (later known as Angkor) as well as a hundreds of monasteries.

Trivia

 * Despite the Khmer civilization depicted in Rise of Rajas are based on the Khmer Empire, their depiction in early version of campaign's cutscene erroneously depicting various Khmers (including Suryavarman I) to wearing Siamese (Thai) warrior costumes. this were later fixed in later version.
 * However, Suryavarman I depicted in expansion's cover and various Khmer hero unit in-game icons is still depicted as wearing Siamese clothes.
 * If a player picks the Khmer civilization, the bottom left and middle of the navigation bar will show the image of a human face and human-bird creature respectively. The face is based from the statues found in Bayon Temple depicting the face of Avalokitesvara, the Bodhisattva of compassion. The human-bird creature is known as Garuda, a mythical creature in Hindu mythology who served as a transport for Hindi god, Krishna. commonly depicted in Angkor reliefs as symbol of power.
 * The Garuda also shows similarities to the modern national emblem and monarchy symbol of Thailand.
 * Khmer Houses can be compared to Atlantean Manors from Age of Mythology: The Titans; both can garrison Villagers. However, Manors support more population, soldiers can garrison inside and also cost some gold alongside wood.
 * They are the only civilization outside most Age of Empires III civilizations (Asian ones, however, need to construct Wonders) that can advance to the next Age without requirements.
 * Although Khmer are one of the newest civilizations in Age of Empires II series, they have long been considered as the new potential addition by Ensemble Studio. During the development of The Conquerors expansion, Khmer - along with Tibetans and Koreans - were considered as one of the new factions to represent Far East region. Eventually, the developers picked Koreans because they were impressed with Turtle Ships and attracted by potential sales in South Korea.