SGOTM 19 - Phoenix Rising

AlanH

AlanH

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Welcome to your BtS SGOTM 19 Team Thread. Please use it for all internal team communication, turn logs and discussions. Subscribe to it to receive notifications, and do not visit the other team threads for this game until you have finished. Please also subscribe to the
Maintenance Thread for this game, where teams and staff may post non-spoiler information of general interest.

You can find the Game Details in the first post of the Maintenance Thread. If any changes occur in the game settings or rules, I shall post them in that thread, and edit that post.

Please wait until your team leader/administrator/scribe has reserved a couple of top posts in this thread for game admin information. Then post here to let your team know you have arrived.

Good luck with the game. :)
 
Rota:

Lymond
Elite -Playing
Chessplaya -Next
Gumbolt - - On deck.
Packers
Fippy

Sampsa - AWOL
Izuul - Advisory.



Scribe of game and rota.

T0-14 Lymond Page 0-50.
Spoiler :
We settled 2 south. We like the look of copper, corn, pigs and marble. Marble was important as we wanted to gamble for Oracle. We put some early hammers into granary and switched to worker at size 2. On completion of worker we switched to granary and whipped after 1 chop into granary.
We found Indians, teched to poly and plan to fogbust the horse resource we found.


T14-21 Chessplaya
Spoiler :
Our plan for Oracle has failed. BIDL. We switched from PH to HBR. Capital has granary and all 4 key resources now worked. We have a second worker helping too.


T21-T41 Izuul
Spoiler :
We have whipped a library in our capital. (3 pop). Our settler headed to the horse city. Thankfully Asoka kept his setler away. We have whipped our 2nd settler and settled south for the sheep. A third worker has also been built to help this. The horse city has a monument too. We are a few turns off HBR now.


Elite T42-54 P80-P125
Spoiler :
We rip apart our plan for 11HA assault on Asoka and go 3-5 turns earlier with fewer units. We declare on Asoka and take his capital and cowtown city. 7 HA is enough to take both cities with only archer defences and a Ai not having a clue on how to defend. 2 HA lost. We meet Toku too.
Elite?

Gumbolt T54- T62 P125-179
Spoiler :
Aesth and lit is finally in. We begin to search the map properly using left over HA's and scout. We start TGlib/parth. We meet Nappy, Hynac and Khan and gradually figure the layout of the map.


Packers T62-70 P179-P205
Spoiler :
Our plan for fail gold continues. Our Sugar city is settled. Our exploration soon finds the rest of the AI. We plan to gift Nappy a city to get him to pleased. Meanwhile we have nearly completed TGlib and parth.


Okay keeping a turn by turn log was a bit harder. May have to rethink this next game.
 
Please read all of these team rules!!

Summarized Team Rules
Read the various Rule threads.
Check your ini files so that autosave is set to every turn.
No reloads from previous point, ever! If you make a mistake we have to live with it!!
No reading of other team threads. The best way to resist temptation is
to use the Subscribed threads tool under quick links or bookmark our thread! Similarily, do
not download other team saves. if you do accidentally view anothers teams thread or save please pm AlanH with details of what happened and wait for instructions.
When looking at the save, do not perform any irreversible action! You
can't trade, whip or move units.
If the game crashes, stop and pm AlanH with details of what happened. (If only 1 turn lost replay turn matching play as best as possible. If more than 1 turn lost await instructions.

Suggested:
Save often manually
Do stop if an opportunity becomes available or something goes wrong.
Pause the game before uploading/examining it.
When testing the game, make sure you're using the test game! Markers
will be added here and there to help.
Let us know when you can't make a deadline or RL becomes busy. A simple post will suffice.

A few notes of etiquette: Please read this before we begin the game.
Spoiler :

1. Active participation -- Your contribution to every set is important, even if it's a 'I agree'. Although everyone might have real life issues sometimes, it's courteous to notify the team of you absence.
Due to size of team players who choose to show up just before and after their turnset may be skipped or marked as ‘assumed away’. You must try to participate in each turnset where possible. This is a team game afterall. This rule is to make sure that the team is not left waiting for a player to show and to reward those that actively take part.
2. Plan of playing -- The spirit of SG is to play the game following the consensus of the team decision. Therefore the player who is UP should post a clear plan for discussion. Guidelines have been posted for the contents of your plan in the next post. It might be that the team decides to head in a direction you were opposed to, it does not mean you are wrong but rather that the team believes the odds of winning are more likely with the decided approach.

3. Timing -- In the pre-thread we agreed to use the following as upper bounds for discussing, planning and playing the set. Since the game cannot last forever, it is important to respect these in order not to be rushed to finish the game later on.
-24 hours for 'got it' and pre-play-plan [0~24] - Make sure you can open the save before saying 'got it'.
-24 hours for discussion and first plan draft[0~48]
-24 hours for edits [24~72]
-24 hours to play [72~96]

Please keep in mind those are upper bounds, meaning if a consensus is reached before the time is fully elapsed, the set can proceed ahead.
Once again it would be greatly appreciated if you can warn the team, either in this thread or via pm, of your absences so that we do not have to wait for a consensus or skipping. You will be skipped if you cannot meet the time frame.

3a. Please include a report when you submit the save. You may submit your report later but it would be preferable to have it before the discussion on the next set starts.

4. Do not automate workers without first discussing with your team.

5. Do not use city governors without first discussing with your team. Or at least if you do, check cities every turn and remove the governor at the end of your round.

6. Do not leave units on goto orders that extend beyond your set of turns. If for some reason this happens, then be sure to inform your team as to what the unit(s) is/are going.

7. Finish all your discussed turns and upload the game saved at the END of the discussed part.

8. Respect your team mates, and demand their respect. Take care of your writing style, accept that people whose first language is not English will use English in a different way than you are used to. Disagree by all means, but don't make it personal, and don't take it personally.

9. SG's are team games. Be a good team member. Post your ideas, argue your corner and encourage and praise your team mates. Don't be afraid to post in your game thread. That is what it's for.

10. Have fun and remeber a Phoenix always rise from the ashes!!!



How a set will be played
Spoiler :

There are 7 major parts to every set.
1. Pre-Play-Plan: see below.
2. Voting: everyone voices his opinion on the issues raised in 1. Voting should only be used as a last resort.
3. Plan: see below.
4. Critique of the Plan: once the Plan is posted, players should try/read the plan and look for anything they'd like to change. This is where you must support your arguments!
5. Final Plan: tries to glue everything together.
6. Play the Set: see below.
7. Post the Report: see below


What is the Pre-Play-Plan?

The Pre-Play-Plan is to initiate the discussion on the diverging possibilities at the start of a set. This includes, but not limited to, EP focus, general city micro, general worker micro, general techs. Basically, make an idea of what you want to do with your 5-10 turns.

In the spoiler below are general ideas as to what you can cover with the pre-play-plan. Not everything needs to be discussed, only the obvious decision points.


Spoiler :


What your plan should cover:

The plan must contain 2 detailed parts:

1. What you will check for every turn (EP, trades available, GPT available etc.) [this is easy]

2. Turn-by-turn worker moves, city micromanagement, unit movement and or general guidelines as to what we can't control via test game. [this is the hard part]
The team might at one point decide to slack on #2 once the game becomes well in hand.

How your set should go:
• Play according to the plan
• If something unexpected (or an opportunity) comes up, STOP AND CHECK WITH THE TEAM.
• If you have to adapt, do so!
• You can add markers in game during and at the end of your set. It's a lot easier on team members to figure where units are going.
• If something unexpected comes up, you can (and possibly should) stop and make a short report to the team so we can decide how to move ahead

~~~~

What your set report should cover:
• WHEOOHRN alerts and possible/likely targets
• GGs in distant lands and Great Engineers
• When to renegotiate trades
• What you were planning for the future
• How the plan worked out/didn't
• Anything unexpected

__________________
 


You will play as The Trumpster, otherwise known as Cyrus of the Dutch.

Goodies which ensure a fast pace:
-Bank Error in Your Favor, you start with 200 gold!
-An extra worker and a scout are added to your normal units.
-Some tiles around the start are unfogged to prevent a random direction choice from having too much impact on the competition.
-You and all AI (and barbs) start with all of the Ancient Era technologies EXCEPT those which grant a religion (i.e. Meditation, Polytheism, and Monotheism), so all religions can be founded and none are distributed randomly. Priesthood will NOT be included for the human players.

Your start looks like this:




Your goal: You will found or capture the Corporate HQ of at least one corporation, and monopolize (owned and accessed, or traded for) every instance of its resources on the map before winning the game in any way you choose. Too simple? Ok, there is just ONE other thing you must do before winning the game...
Spoiler :
but that will not be revealed until you submit your save where the technology of Democracy has been learned. (PM Alanh and kcd_swede when you have learned Democracy, and this condition will be revealed).


Game Options:
Ancient Era Start
Normal Speed
Aggressive AI
Unrestricted Leaders
Choose Religion
New Random Seed
No Vassal States
No Goody Huts
No Events
All Victory Conditions Enabled

Map size Standard
6 Opponents
Normal Barbs
Map script: Lakes, low seas, flat (no world wrap).
Difficulty: Immortal

Restrictions: 1) Culture VC cannot use espionage to spread culture to legendary city; 2) You may not have more than +1 diplo modifier for "you have liberated our city" with any civilization remaining alive; and 3) You may not offer nor accept peace or cease fire in any war declared by you until an enemy city is captured or one of your cities is lost by capture, or the war is ended by UN/AP resolution.

Mitigators: Resources that "pop" from a mine in the final 20 turns will not count against you; and teams which fail to secure all the resources will remain eligible for laurels after a 10 turn penalty is applied plus 5 turns for each instance of a resource not accessed.

Note, the usual GOTM restrictions still apply (no replaying, no liberating cities to a civ you are at war with, have fun, etc).

Timetable

The Pre-game Discussion Thread for this game is now open for business.

Please sign up in this thread by January 31 at the latest. To help us to assign players to teams, please indicate your preferred team, whether you have played previous SGOTMs or SGs, and the highest level of Civ4 difficulty you can typically win at.

The team discussion threads for this game will open on or before February 3

The team starting saves will be available here on February 7.

The completion deadline will be May 7.. Plan your game, and please avoid a last minute struggle to meet the deadline.
Please be warned, except in the event of cosmic catastrophes. THERE WILL BE NO DEADLINE EXTENSIONS.

Notes
  • Versions
    This game will be played in Civilization IV Beyond the Sword, version 3.19, using the standard BUFFY-3.19.003 HoF mod, Unless stated otherwise in this thread before the game starts..
    If a later BtS patch is released during this game you will NOT be able to use it to play. You will need to complete this game in BtS version 3.19 before updating your copy of BtS, or you should create and update a separate copy.

  • Rules and Procedures
    Please visit the Civ4 SGOTM reference thread to check out the rules and procedures to ensure that you are adequately prepared for this game.

    All saved game files uploaded to the server are parsed through software that extracts and archives data about your save, including reload count for each turn set.

    ][/QUOTE]
 
Okay. Can everyone post to say hello.

Remember to bookmark our thread. We can't view other threads till we have completed our game.

I am really excited about this game.
 
Hi everyone!

I just bookmarked this thread. I also created a test game last week based on what we can see in the starting screenshot. I'm attaching that and another version where AIs have their default techs. I also ran some tests on Oracle dates but maybe I should wait to post results to not influence other tests (and in case someone from another team accidentally clicks on our thread). The game options should match the real game with the exception of "require complete kills" which I added so we could have 200 gold at the start.
 

Attachments

  • SGOTM 19 Test Game.CivBeyondSwordSave
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  • SGOTM 19 Test Game-AI Default Techs.CivBeyondSwordSave
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In! Thoughts:

Leader/Civ
Cyrus (CHA/IMP) of the Dutch - Pretty mediocre, no good synergy like you sometimes get with UR. Dikes might be decent on a lakes map for some cities that can get a LH, but no FIN water tiles like with Willem, so this is less appealing than if we had the regular Dutch. CHA is good at least.

Settings
Aggressive AI - I'm not too familiar with this setting. Does it turn Gandhi into Shaka? I mean, what does it change specifically? Unit prob? Attack thresholds?

Unrestricted Leaders + Choose religion - I guess they are just trying to make things as confusing as possible! With Aggressive AI maybe it won't matter as much though?

Special Changes
We start with 200 gold. Some extra gold to fund research early. Perhaps more leeway to pursue some aggressive IMP expansion while still being able to get to Currency. This is going to be a long-term tech race though, so not wrecking the economy is going to be very important

We start with a worker. Combined with the free techs, we can improve just about any resource from T0. If we move the settler keeping corn or pigs in first ring seems wise.

We start with all ancient era techs EXCEPT Med, Poly, Mono, and PH. It sounds like the AI does start with PH, so we would have to research TWO techs for the Oracle while the AI will have access to it from the start. This is really screwy no matter how you look at it. Despite having access to the Oracle from T0 it's still possible that the AI just ignores it long enough for some team to build it. It seems like a huge risk to even try for it, but what if some team goes for it anyway and just lucks into it? I wish it were just removed entirely or something.

Barbs also start with these techs - Will this have any impact at all? Can barb axes and spears show up super early since barbs will start with BW?

Tech trading and brokering are both allowed. Given that we start with all early worker techs, early Alpha still doesn't seem like a huge priority in and of itself, but this should have a big impact on the game going forward.

Goals
1) Found a corporation and monopolize all associated resources. Choosing which corp we shoot for is going to be very important. Should we go for a strong one (Mining/Sushi) or one that will be easier to monopolize? Or will any actually be easier to monopolize? The rules say that we can trade for the resources, but i don't know how that will be possible as the AI simply refuses to trade their only copy of any resource unless they are a vassal and vassals are not allowed in this game... Does that mean wiping out practically the entire map? If so, how do we avoid domination limits?

2) Mystery objective received after obtaining Democracy. Interesting.. why Democracy? It leads to nothing, unlocks the SoL, US, and Emancipation. This is a commerce-themed game so perhaps it has something to do with US and rush buying? I'm not sure what kind of objective would be associated with rush buying though. I guess it's possible that it has nothing to with Demo at all, but why make us rush to it in particular?

Restrictions
1) No espionage culture can be used for a culture VC. Doesn't hurt my feelings at all.

2) Can not have more than a +1 diplo modifier for liberating cities. So, no exploiting gifting cities back for UN diplo victory. Assuming we have to conquer most of the world to obtain our resources, UN seems like a difficult option. I do have one thought about this at the bottom of the post, but it's just random speculation.

3) No peace or cease fire can be taken in a war started by us without losing or capturing a city. Nerfing worker steals. Some people are probably pretty upset over this, but i like the idea.


Now for my random thought... Is there any chance the map is cooked to unevenly distribute certain resources amongst the AI?? I remember a weird team democracy game that Sulla played back in the day where teams were essentially given monopolies of certain resources. The mapmakers were idiots because they treated gold the same as silks and such, so one team had a tremendous advantage early with loads of gold mines (including some grassland golds!), but the concept was interesting and came to mind when i saw this. Anyway, that's the only way i can see this challenge playing out WITHOUT having to kill off all of the AI for their resources.

It looks like we start with resources for just about every corp, but what's important is what resources the AI have, not us, as that could heavily influence who we need to conquer and what VCs we can pursue.
 
/waves
This time we will have to consider all options, from the start and take our time :)

No hurry please, game will move along faster once plans are made.

Izu, aggressive AI basically increases the chance for positive war preparation checks.
So nopes Gandhi does not act like Shaka, but let's say if you are cautious with somebody like Shaka and he's close..very high chance he starts plotting.

Oracle: Costs us only 75h if we connect marble (already having all techs and 1 worker, that would be not too hard i guess), and there would be no waiting time for writing or so. Downside would be that maths first instead of Reli techs would obv. be great, there are many forests.
I think AIs are very unlikely to start with wonders if they only have 1 city, but we can test that.
Also for tests, let's remember that aggressive AI option..possible that it's reducing wonder building prob.

Democracy: my first thought was, cos it's an annoying tech..expensive, Constitution needed which usually is low priority.
Makes tech decisions harder, and just increases tension ;)

Corps: most likely this will mean winning by conquest or Dom, cos we need all res.
Our traits also suggest that this game will be mostly about war and capturing land.
Something like Sushi could be bad, if you need every seafood..but that topic will probably not come up until much later.

edit (again :b) some quotes about agg. AIs:
"Aggressive AI no longer causes the AI to have a relationship penalty with humans. Basically it can be said that the AI expects things to get aggressive. The pacifist AI's aren't actually that much more likely to declare war, they just keep larger armies on hand as to not be easy victims. The naturally militaristic AI's go crazy. In any case if you neglect your army, any AI will notice and with it's larger power will be more likely to declare war and come for you. It is more likely you'll get declared upon, especially if you don't change your playstyle..."

"In my experience Aggressive AI only means that the AI civs tend to build more units, and they are quicker to declare war on you, if they are unhappy with you for some reason. They don't go on the warpath by default. "

"They're not "so quick" to declare war, and they're not all focused on military. As other people have said, they'll take advantage of weaker civs more quickly (so don't be stuck with archers in the industrial era), and they'll focus a bit more on military themselves."

"Darius actually sneak attacked and took one of my cities in a surprise attack last night. I was impressed."
 
Checking in.

My first thoughts about the gold is funding some early rexing.

As for choosing the corp to monopolize, I think we should go for an easy one. We can still go for Mining or Sushi, just monopolize an easy one.

I wonder if we can plant a city in an AI's face, leave it unprotected, and worker steal/choke an AI. The AI can take/raze the city easily, so that satifies the city taking concept. We are Imp so settlers are a bit cheaper.

Also good job getting an test map going, chess. :goodjob: That was something we lacked last game, which led to little testing on the team's part ie HA rushing GK...
 
AG AI can also slow the AI tech pace a bit

I guess with this mystery objective, I would like to know if it would have any or direct impact on any victory condition. Right now, it looks like Diplo is the best option here given how far in the tech path we are required to go. Simply going for a Corp like Civilized Jewelers which syncs with having Mass Media for UN and not worrying about any other "corp" techs.

Getting Democracy sucks, but at that point on this level, we can simply trade for it. It's an AI priority tech. But if the mystery objective is more impactful to the game or VC then we may want to grab ourselves earlier.

Oracle is interesting. I assume the AIs actually have Priesthood. If we settle next to the Marble (pigs/corn/marble spot) we could tech PH straight-up and may actually get it. I doubt AIs start Oracle first thing with just one city, but we could test that. Otherwise though, SIP seems okay here

I'm inclined to chop out a second worker first thing

(edit: Actually, come to think of it, with the corp resource requirement, some type of War victory seems more optimal here. Conquest or Dom. So any easy corp to get would be nice with the corp itself really not factoring much on the game. Mining seems logical. Sushi, regardless of sucking on this map anyway, might prove some obstacles due to awkward placements on lakes. At least we don't have to worry about resource pops with that one though)

chessplaya - thanks for the test maps. Not sure why "complete kills" ties to giving us gold. You can simply add that to a city in WB.
 
I'm in, subscribed and excited about the game!

Regarding the mystery objective, we are the Trumpster which would suggest something to do with money. But on the other hand, maybe the corp objective already is Trumpster enough.

I would also think we should go for an easy corp to monopolize. Scouting the entire map is quite important for this.

I also made a test map last week, but chessplaya beat me to it. Let me know if you want an alternative test map with presumably other opponents and I can post it.
 
I definitely think scouting the entire map fairly early will be very important. We need to know what resources are where before we can make any intelligent decisions on which corp to pursue.

Right now i guess what is most relevant though is to figure out if the Oracle is viable and worth the risk to pursue, and also what tech we would Oracle. Whether or not we go for the Oracle will influence where we settle so that seems like the logical starting point.

We won't have time to tech any big pre-reqs so Construction Oracle and the like are off the table. Options would be CoL, Monarchy, MC, Math, Alpha, Aesthetics, etc.

Alpha - really has no value here as the point behind that is to trade for skipped worker techs and all, but we start with all of those.

CoL - always a pretty strong Oracle choice

Monarchy - should be pretty easy to trade for given these settings, right?

Math - has a lot of value here early starting with BW and lots of forests, but not something you typically use Oracle for.

MC - would basically just be trade bait unless we plan to go down the Machinery line.

Aesthetics - I don't recall ever using Oracle for this, but with marble here that could lead to a really early TGL (which would mean really early GS or two) and some good FG opportunities, plus open up Music for later.
 
Go head and post those Oracle test dates when you can chessplaya. We need to determine two things pretty soon before making any real decisions:

1) What date range we can expect the AI to complete the Oracle

2) What date can we complete the Oracle with this start (shouldn't be too difficult to figure out a pretty close estimate)


I'd like to keep copper in the BFC if we do try for Oracle though (settle 2S?). It means we have to build one more road to hook up marble, but we gain an extremely good tile that will help build the Oracle faster and it's also riverside for 1C so it could potentially help get us to PH 1T earlier. Should also make it easier to get an axe out in case barbs starting with BW and stuff turns out to be a problem.
 
Is it perhaps a bit optimistic to assume that we get the bonus of an extra worker, a scout and 200:gold: and the AI would get nothing extra? If the AI also gets extra gold and/or units, this could have an effect on their oracle dates. Guess we should closely examine the demographics screen as soon as we get access to that if we can spot something from there.
 
Wow we are organised this game. :d

Just missing sampsa.
 
elitetroops said:
Is it perhaps a bit optimistic to assume that we get the bonus of an extra worker, a scout and 200:gold: and the AI would get nothing extra? If the AI also gets extra gold and/or units, this could have an effect on their oracle dates. Guess we should closely examine the demographics screen as soon as we get access to that if we can spot something from there.
Click to expand...

You never know with these SGOTM games. It's possible the IMM AI have been given 2 settlers here and will start on the Oracle around T2-3 with 2nd city.

All we can really do is plan based on what we currently know and try to adjust and react accordingly. Like if the AI starts with 2 settlers we should only waste 1-2 turns on Med before we find that out and abandon the Oracle.

TEST GAME ATTACHED - See how fast you can complete the Oracle here*!

*I turned some potential BFC tiles into peaks that are currently in the fog. It's possible there could be something down there that improves our Oracle date, but we need to test this as if all of those tiles are completely useless. Also, lmk if i got anything wrong.
 

Attachments

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Some thoughts.

I notified KCD about the Oracle issue due to fact that teams originally could of had HA by turn 20 or so. Even for the Ai that would be pretty hard if we started choking the AI.

Testing for Oracle is important here.

Things to look for when testing:
Spoiler :

Make sure to check in world builder to see what dates they start wonders. E.g Stonehenge, Great wall, Oracle and any other they can build?

Tech order. I am guessing most will blindly go for religious techs first.

How quickly the Ai start building units.

Barbs! They start with all basic techs. This means axes/spears very early on. Fog busting will be critical this game.

Ai expansion speed.


Things to consider at start. Worker stealing!
There may be a rule on worker stealing but we should consider it. In last 2-3 SGOTM we have never worker stolen. Don't let the rule stop us. The AI are terrible at settling metals/horse. (Unless KCD has started their capitals on copper/horse.) Even so we can choke with the aim to wipe out the AI and abuse to steal worker. Restrict the Ai from the metal/horse resources early on. It may mean being at war with an Ai for a long period.

Have you noticed in last 3-4 SGOTM the reason we fall behind top teams is 2 fold.
Choice of early war - We often start our wars too early before we have set up a strong economy. Plus we often don't consider what units the AI they might have. Last game with 1-2 chariots we could of choked the Mongols whilst we built our HA. This could of saved a 30 turn war. Could we do the same here with a nearby AI?? The scout is so important here. You can bet TSR will choke and capture a city later to make peace.

Expansion - I looked at the city graphs of some of the top teams from last few games and they often have 4-10 more cities than us early on. So how to expand quickly?? War vs spamming cities.

Some other thoughts.
Choice of early wonders Picking the right wonders this game could make difference of winning and losing.

Corps - Guessing if we are going the corp route and we may need some hammers then we will want mining corp. So think about a GE at some point.

Finding resources - You can bet some resources are going to be scatter in the far corner of the map. With domination limit we can get around this by having 10-20 settlers near end to settle on resources unclaimed. I suspect this is going to be a big war map.

Other things to expect Team Ai. Note we have 6 opponents not 6 AI. AI starting with other techs?? Ai starting with 2 settlers? Maybe 2 workers??

Early techs?? Construction or HBR for early wars mixed with choking?
Enough thoughts from me.
 
lymond said:
chessplaya - thanks for the test maps. Not sure why "complete kills" ties to giving us gold. You can simply add that to a city in WB.
Click to expand...
The problem I had was I built our city, entered WB, gave us the 200 gold, deleted the city, gave us a new settler, and got the message "You have been defeated!". I suppose there must be a way around this or else we wouldn't have been able to get 200 gold in the real game.

Oracle dates I managed (as they would appear in the log):
Techs available from start: 2920 BC
Theology: 2840BC
(Construction/Currency looked like it would be 2680BC/2640BC)
Civil Service: 2440BC

I haven't used any fogged tiles to built Oracle, and I only put in 2 non-math chops (one for granary).
I haven't tested this much, but AIs with marble and good production tiles (including Industrious AIs) typically built Oracle between 2800BC and 2600BC. The reason seemed to be because they would not start a wonder until they have 2 cities, and they had to grow their cities before they would consider building a settler. Of course this could get thrown off completely if some AI starts with an extra settler, but we should be able to avoid selecting a tech for the first 5 turns of the game.

In my opinion we should go for Oracle->Theo. I highly doubt that KCD gave none of the AIs marble so anything later seems far too risky. I should note that I had to sacrifice REX significantly for the 2920 BC Oracle date, but not at all for the 2840 BC date. Also beakers for Theo are pretty exact so we have to be careful about the micro, which I will explain soon. Here's a screenshot of Oracle->Theo:
Spoiler :
Here's a screenshot of my fastest Oracle attempt:
Spoiler :
More explanation to come!
 
I got a 3080 Oracle with 1 city. My fear is that going for any big Oracles could result in losing it entirely. I didn't add all of the extra AI starting techs in my save since i was mostly just interested in what date we could finish the wonder, though perhaps i should have.
 
A few downside points to Oracle is it might restrict us in some ways.

1. Slower expansion.
2. Worker stealing restricted. I would rather cripple 2 Ai than have a free tech.
3. More barb issues if they have axe/spears early on. Maybe Chariots too? Can we confirm this??
4. GP points. Our capital will end up with great priest points. This is a big downside. Last thing we want is 2-3 Great Priests.

We should test giving an Ai a 2nd city on test game and see what happens.

There are big dangers in focusing too much on Oracle.
 
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