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Good morning! Welcome to another South-East Asian themed dev diary. This week we’re focusing on the Khmer Empire.
Khmer was once the dominant power in Mainland South-East Asia. Ruling from the mighty capital of Angkor, the empire encompassed most of modern Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand. Due to a combination of factors which may have included plagues, ecological issues, and the decision to change the state religion from Hinduism to Theravada Buddhism the empire fell into decline starting from the 14th Century. Thai and Lao powers broke away from the periphery of the kingdom and established their own domains. In 1431, the killing blow was struck by Ayutthaya with the sack of Angkor. The Khmer empire would never recover from this final defeat. The period following the sack of Angkor has been called the Dark Age of Cambodia, and neatly corresponds to the EU4 timeframe.
Like Majapahit, Khmer begins the game in a Disaster. The Dark Age of Cambodia is a lot less punishing than Majapahit’s situation in that there are no additional events that break up the country or spawn rebellions, but you need to contend with a hefty 25% increase to all power costs (as always, numbers presented in dev diaries are not final). Your priorities will have to be on consolidation and reconstruction rather than expansionism.
Khmer can end their decline and restore the glory of their old empire through their new missions tree. They’ll need to restore their old capital of Angkor, achieve some degree of religious unity, and improve the development of their more rural provinces. When this is achieved the disaster ends and Khmer can truly begin restoring its empire.
Some additional highlights:
- The Second Golden Age mission rewards -25% powers costs and -33% culture conversion cost for 20 years, compensating for the lost monarch points during the disaster.
- The Enlightened Rule mission enacts the Chakravarti government reform discussed in previous dev diaries.
- Around half of the mission tree is focused on military expansion, and like Ayutthaya’s mission tree these missions reward Subjugation CB’s against your targets.
- The Restore the Empire mission increases your government rank to Empire.
- The Invade Burma mission grants +0.5 Army Tradition for the rest of the game.
- The Overseas Adventures mission has you invading Borneo and being rewarded with a permanent +1 Yearly Navy Tradition.
Above you can see four new estate privileges, with effects that should be fairly self-explanatory. Brahmins at Court functions essentially the same as the Brahmin privilege for Indian Muslims. This privilege as well as Advanced Irrigation Techniques are only available to specific nations, including Khmer, and are unlocked through their mission trees. Monastic Temples is available to all Buddhists and provides a new way to control your Karma, while Tropical City Planning is available to all countries in the Chinese or Indian tech groups and offsets the penalties for developing and colonizing in Tropical provinces.
That’s all for today! Next week we’ll take a look at the maritime Sultanates of Malacca, Brunei, and Aceh. And I think the week after that will be Vietnam. There's still plenty of content to show off, so make sure to catch up with weekly dev diaries.