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Oracle guide
- Thread starter dylanmeditates
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rfcfanatic
Mercantilist
I never understood the typical tech path to Priesthood - the Oracle pre-requisite. Let's say I start with Agriculture - AH - Mining - BW - Pottery - Writing. Is it now the right time to go for Priesthood? Or should I get Alpha - Currency before that?
Kallikrates
Prince
I have hardly ever made Monarchy a priority playing Monarch and Emperor and almost always trade for it. It seems actually less crucial on BtS, because the Emperor happiness cap is lower on Warlords. (The AI is smarter, sometimes more aggressive in BtS, but the these caps gave me a really hard time in some Warlords Emperor games, of course it depends crucially on (bad) luck with the map. If you are charismatic and have ivory and gold or gems in you capital, it's not a problem at all)
If one is moderately lucky one will have one or two early (camp/mine) happiness resources and be able to get a religion either from a neighbor or by oracling CoL (I admit that I lack fantasy, but I think I have only once or twice oracled anything but CoL...). Or self-teching CoL, with a Fin leader and/or decent land one can get there first, unless another Civ uses the oracle for it. Or if IND and/or Stone the Pyramids give happiness for the larger cities
Otherwise Calendar is on a more important research path (although most of the time I traded for this as well). If one is isolated and has only one or two happiness resources altogether, Monarchy might be a higher priority. But this is a very rare situation.
Maybe all this is not possible on the two highest levels. But for me Alpha, Currency, CoL are all way more important than Monarchy. Also, depending on land and neighbors Iron Working or Horseback Riding.
If one is moderately lucky one will have one or two early (camp/mine) happiness resources and be able to get a religion either from a neighbor or by oracling CoL (I admit that I lack fantasy, but I think I have only once or twice oracled anything but CoL...). Or self-teching CoL, with a Fin leader and/or decent land one can get there first, unless another Civ uses the oracle for it. Or if IND and/or Stone the Pyramids give happiness for the larger cities
Otherwise Calendar is on a more important research path (although most of the time I traded for this as well). If one is isolated and has only one or two happiness resources altogether, Monarchy might be a higher priority. But this is a very rare situation.
Maybe all this is not possible on the two highest levels. But for me Alpha, Currency, CoL are all way more important than Monarchy. Also, depending on land and neighbors Iron Working or Horseback Riding.
Kallikrates
Prince
Isn't priesthood before writing? You skipped Mysticism and Medi or Poly. I think one main point of the "oracle skeptics" is this early diversion by researching two (if you start with mysticism) or three religious techs in favor of other things. Depending on your start it often will not make sense to delay AH or Agriculture, because one will need them both to improve ones cities. Unless you edit yourself a map with two wet corn patches for two cities...
I think before I really realized the use of chopping I researched to priesthood, started building the oracle and timed the completion with the research of writing to get CoL.
If you go Alpha or Currency before you can maybe get a more advanced tech, but I don't really think anything is clearly preferable to CoL, because of the religion founded, the option of caste, and following techs down the tree like Civil Service and Philosophy, although one will have to backfill first before going for them. I never tried gambles with late oracles for some more advanced tech, but the classic one was to get CS. But for this you need to self tech math and CoL before, so this is hardly feasible, because the AI will usually get the oracle before.
Abegweit
Anarchist trader
At the higher levels, you have already researched too much. BW is normally required. Add a food tech and that's about it. Go to PH next and research the tech(s) required for your chosen goal while building the Oracle. That would generally be Pottery or Writing.
If you have time to go Alpha-Currency, then you have time to go Math-CoL instead.
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
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??? If you play a low difficulty you can easily just start it in city #5 or a captured city and slow build it, completing it without trouble. Such can be pretty useful in those settler space games where you oracle assembly line or some such.
Mylene, and a couple others tried to argue to me awhile ago that the Oracle doesn't even come close in power to the Pyramids. But yes I understand all these things, but the benefit of slightly stronger specialists takes way to long to snowball a game, and the Oracle instantly starts a snowball. But I agree with you 100% any OCC game with out stone should be rerolled.
That hasn't been my experience in OCC. I've won some EMP/Immortal OCCs by simply hitting Civil Service with oracle and actually using cottages X_X.
You do, of course, have to have met enough different AIs. If you're on a 2-3 civ landmass you're not getting anywhere near this...in fact you might only get alpha and monarchy (which don't obey the monopoly tech trade restriction).
Oracle is undoubtedly better than 'mids in the vast majority of games. However, it's not true to say it isn't a risk even on immortal. It's just less of one. 1900BC construction means you got the oracle at 1900BC. AI can easily get oracle in 2300 bc to 2000 BC on immortal sometimes...if you hold off on it to 1) expand or 2) get a better tech, you can and will miss it sometimes. This is to an extent dependent on which AI are in the game and religion founding times of course.
One can significantly mitigate the risk with tech order, but it's always there. It's just that oracle is so strong it tends to be worth it.
Imperator Knoedel
Currently obsessed with The Owl House
Huh? I knew about Alphabet, but Monarchy too? Why exactly actually? Is it because these two techs don't enable any buildings, wonders or units?
BornInCantaloup
Agent of Chaos
Yep! (Or so I think). Printing Press and Liberalism are the same, later on. Replaceable Parts, too. Those techs spread fast once the AIs get them.
JustBen
Prince
Here's a very old game of AbsoluteZero doing so on a good map. Creative libraries let him bulb Mathematics, though he still doesn't finish the wonder until 1600 BC. I seem to recall him doing a lot of interesting Oracle plays around that time (it's his Deity #7), but this is the only one I remember well enough to find quickly. (I know his videos are long but the Oracle plays usually happen in the first hour.)
More recently he's posted some games with a late, failed Oracle. It's hardly the end of the world. He can count on a big payoff for his risk because he knows how to finesse both caste system and an early tech lead. Your mileage may vary -- mine certainly does.
ben-jammin
Emperor
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You Oracle construction in 1900 BC by playing double riverside gem starts that would have gotten you to an early construction date even without the oracle.
Manco Capac
Friday,13 June,I Collapse
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I have studied the particularities of BTS monopoly coding and indeed, techs not enabling any buildings, units, wonders or projects are automatically multiplied by a factor 0, which didn't exist in previous version of civ (Vanilla & Warlord) as the monopoly function is recent addition.
Agriculture, Monotheism, Alphabet, Monarchy, Fishing (WB is not counted as a unit in the function), AH (Wheel is the tech enabling chariots), Replaceable Parts, Printing Press, Scientific Method and at last Chemistry are those monopoly techs. EDIT: I forgot about Lib.
Nevertheless, I need to focus on Chemistry as a special case. It is on certain maps a monopoly-less tech and others not. The condition is simple: if there is a single AI being isolated within an area (continent), automatically, chemistry is affected by monopoly function.
I have made a lengthy study about this and even made an applet (which I used like 2 times ever....).
Manco Capac
Friday,13 June,I Collapse
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ben-jammin the negativist.
Manco Capac
Friday,13 June,I Collapse
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True! Mylene showed us a tangible case (one long forgotten deity BOTM) where he admitted impossible to keep up without the lucky oracle shot.
ben-jammin
Emperor
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I'd love to see someone show me construction in 1900BC with an average start. I suppose the best bet would be Gandhi, beeline writing, chop a library, bulb math, pre-chop oracle. Oracling advanced techs really early with overpowered commerce starts aren't really worth talking about.
Izuul
Level 86
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I tried one with Gandhi and no commerce tiles (attached the save below). Somebody else can probably do a little better than me, but i tried several times using slightly varying methods and always finished the oracle in the 1600s. There's just too much to research and having to tech Ag > TW > Pottery delays cottages too much.
Suleimon might actually be faster since you could go straight for Pottery. TW and AG are also a bit more expensive than Mining and Myst and since you need them all anyway, that would be a slight advantage. You would spend a lot more worker turns moving in and out of forests, but getting the techs faster would probably offset that.
vranasm
Deity
maybe cre+philo leader would be better to bulb math.... I think that's Pericles, not sure now the starting techs of greece, would be best if AH is open right away.
I think greece has fishing, so maybe quick tw, pottery, writing can work too.
I think greece has fishing, so maybe quick tw, pottery, writing can work too.
Fippy
Mycro Junkie
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When you have stone in your bfc or easily reachable with a 2nd city, Pyramids are at least as "powerful" as getting 1 Oracle tech.
250h that you can "partly" not put into much better stuff at start anyway (over-expansion isn't really great on Deity..) gives you 2 possible awesome civics, and rare GE points that can easily get you an instant Great Library or anything else later with some luck to go along with your Rep.
That concept seems to be *really* hard for some here, how many hammers and pop you safe later with using police state when building up an army..every crappy city can get units out, even one with 2 3f farms as only "good" tiles.
Sure if you always rush with Cats or Trebs, you will not grab that concept, and i just hope you never run into big prot. AIs as neighbors doing so.
250h that you can "partly" not put into much better stuff at start anyway (over-expansion isn't really great on Deity..) gives you 2 possible awesome civics, and rare GE points that can easily get you an instant Great Library or anything else later with some luck to go along with your Rep.
That concept seems to be *really* hard for some here, how many hammers and pop you safe later with using police state when building up an army..every crappy city can get units out, even one with 2 3f farms as only "good" tiles.
Sure if you always rush with Cats or Trebs, you will not grab that concept, and i just hope you never run into big prot. AIs as neighbors doing so.
Izuul
Level 86
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Pericles probably has the best traits for it, but Fishing and Hunting are of dubious value. I also thought about Elizabeth, but i don't really see an advantage for her over Gandhi. Financial cottages might give a few extra bpt, but that advantage is all but lost since she would have to tech Myst. Maybe a coastal start for commerce instead of cottages?
Louis is an interesting one since you may be able to skip BW entirely. The problem would be the 22-23 turns to get a GS after completing Writing. That would probably be a fair bit longer than the time required to research Masonry, Myst, Med, and PH.
One additional issue with doing this is the lack of early happiness. That actually makes it difficult to build anything with pure production, because you may have 1 good food source, 3 cottages, and 3 mines, but you can only work 5 of those tiles at a time. That made me consider Lincoln though, again, I'm not sure if the Cha bonus is worth starting with a useless starting tech.
vranasm
Deity
Looking at the latest IU I really start to think if it isn't good framework for the Oracle->Construction thingy ZZZ talked about... especially with phants in BFC and marble "nearby".
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