Oracle

[bite]

Pyramids is incredibly valuable, especially if you have any chopping you want to do. Getting a +1 build charge and chopping once with each builder for example can make the value of a builder in terms of empire wide infrastructure skyrocket. It's value as someone said is basically the inverse of the Oracle, the more cities and land you have the more valuable the Pyramids since you will need more builders over the course of the game.

I have never once needed the Venetian Arsenal to win a game, and in fact if I delayed building my navy to get it It would have simply slowed me down. I think its massively overvalued by the majority of players.

Stonehenge is just newbie bait unless you know what you're doing.

occasionally I have built Stonehenge just to deny the free religion from everyone else.

 

[Victoria]

TBH you can win with none, it’s more about speeding it up. The VA certainly does not do that but helps in MP if you ever got that far
If 5 civs have religion not 4 then that’s 5 civs that waste energy building and fighting over something immaterial.
Pyramids stack well if you make full use of them but coliseum also helps your buttress as well as a powerful culture and amenity boost. The GL is an alternative if Coli is gone because +1 to your embarked units is a big speed up early but is situational. because an SV does not need production Petra is so so but as China it’s a no brainier.

a lot does depend on difficulty. Oracle is more useful on Emperor because eras last longer

I find the large majority of natural wonders a bit of a trap also. Best used for their appeal but Torres, a crazy named volcano and Piopiotahi are great, some others like Pamukkale are OK.

I love building wonders when immersive though, it’s just that when going fast they feel like extra weight in the car.

 

[The googles do nothing]

I like the oracle because i've been there. It's definitely not on hill - it's on a mountain if I ever saw one.

Pyramids is incredibly valuable,

It so good it should have more restrictive building conditions. I often build it when I can grab 1 desert tile on a outer ring. If it was built on desert adjacent to the city center you would have to sacrifice having several desert tiles to get it.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Oracle is S tier when you're playing Russia/Japan

Actually Russian Oracle isn't that great. The Oracle doesn't boost the other GPPs of the Lavra, besides the Prophet one. If you try to pair this up with a theater square for sick writer spam, you're just recruiting a bunch of writers with no place to put them. Also Russia tends to have growth problems because of Tundra, so they tend to be later to putting additional districts.

I mean one would like Oracle as Russia for the faith purchases, but you would not use the Pingala-Oracle the same way as you would other civs.

The best Oracle users IMO are Japan (easy faith), Greece (fast oracle, synergizes with Acropolis), Rome (fastest possible Oracle + Classical Republic, also most likely to get the wonder card to go with it too), and Germany.(extra district space, can enter Classical Republic without gimping military)

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

It so good it should have more restrictive building conditions. I often build it when I can grab 1 desert tile on a outer ring. If it was built on desert adjacent to the city center you would have to sacrifice having several desert tiles to get it.

You need to have desert which is the worst terrain type except for snow and snow do have the research station which is basically like getting a part of Oxford and Ruhr in every city. Bad terrain like snow, desert, marsh and thundra is associated with some of the most potent wonders in the game.

Pyramid is nice to have but its not anything crazy, like I think the Mont St. Michel and St. Basils combo is much more crazy than the Pyramids.

Most wonders value depend on the situation, remove city states for example and now ask how useful wonders tied to city states are.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Actually Russian Oracle isn't that great. The Oracle doesn't boost the other GPPs of the Lavra, besides the Prophet one. If you try to pair this up with a theater square for sick writer spam, you're just recruiting a bunch of writers with no place to put them. Also Russia tends to have growth problems because of Tundra, so they tend to be later to putting additional districts.

I mean one would like Oracle as Russia for the faith purchases, but you would not use the Pingala-Oracle the same way as you would other civs.

The best Oracle users IMO are Japan (easy faith), Greece (fast oracle, synergizes with Acropolis), Rome (fastest possible Oracle + Classical Republic, also most likely to get the wonder card to go with it too), and Germany.(extra district space, can enter Classical Republic without gimping military)

yeah, I actually meant it uniquely in terms of faith purchases. imho Russia is probably one of the top civs in terms of faith output. I, too, always have problems with stray GW/GA/GM when playing Russia, because you just get too many, too early. Personally I sometimes sell great works to free the spot up again then instantly refill.

Card wonders are nice but consider you will pick the best card first which mean the card wonders simply allow you to use cards you would otherwise not use anyway if that make sense and you do get more and more cards with government which probably mean these wonders lose a bit value overtime.

I see it the opposite way. in the late game cards are most important, and you finally have more than enough "good ones", in the early to mid game it's often very clear which cards are worth running and which are not. even with T4 government I find myself having way too few policy slots, personally. I think additional policy slots, fast globalization and t4 govt make the difference between a t200 victory and a t180 one. also, pyramids is the best (and highest value wonder) in the game imho.

I just finished a game where I had more than 3000 science per turn because of my T4 government and two extra policy slots from big ben and greece. at t180 nonetheless. finished t195.

I like the oracle because i've been there. It's definitely not on hill - it's on a mountain if I ever saw one.



It so good it should have more restrictive building conditions. I often build it when I can grab 1 desert tile on a outer ring. If it was built on desert adjacent to the city center you would have to sacrifice having several desert tiles to get it.

I disagree. it's not that Pyramids are too good, it's that almost all of the wonders in this game suck ***. I would rather build almost everything else, but definitely a builder or city project, over most wonders in the game. world wonders should be a risky investment that really pays off. the bottom half of the wonders don't even pay off if you do get them in time.

 

[kb27787]

It's pretty good (great with Kongo... so you get 3 additional GWAM and merchant points instead of 2), but not worth beelining (spending 10+ turns of your early culture to get mysticism only to go for a wonder which an AI can beat you to, as hills are plenty, is beyond risky).

Actually the only early wonders worth going for are the ones which need a very specific terrain requirement to build (which is why pyras are great some games, and Artemis can be built--depending on your luck with camp luxuries no other AI may be able to build it... besides archery is something you always want to beeline)

 

[GrumboMumbo]

I play a lot of games forcing either OCC or Tall playstyles, and under these circumstances the Oracle (with the help of Big Daddy P) is incredibly powerful at grabbing the early Scientists/Merchants/Engineers. The problem is, tall is not optimal in civ6, and a lot of the best Great People are more impactful when you have a critical mass of cities. If you can fit Oracle in your Pingala city without affecting your ICS too much then you are golden.

Having said all this, with the recent patches the AI is now far more competitive with running projects and snaffling up a lot of the early Great People, and that was the Oracles biggest power, rushing a city quickly to pop 7 with Oracle and 3 key districts used to mean you could easily get all the early GPs of that type, and the rising GP cost meant the AI was always behind. The AI is now more competitive with this, and to top it off Firaxis also changed the GPP requirement for future era GPs. So now if you run too far ahead (era wise) on GP generation, your extra points will be worthless because of how insanely expensive the future era Great People get.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

For me I actually don't consider this that good. Yes it provides a lot of GP points but by the time it's effect becomes active a GP will cost 610.

Personally I prefer Hanging Gardens more than Oracle.( although I won't build either of them.)

For the faith discount, faith have better uses.

 

[Navelgazer]

I would rank Oracle as my #1 top priority Wonder.

 

[Aurelesk]

For me I actually don't consider this that good. Yes it provides a lot of GP points but by the time it's effect becomes active a GP will cost 610.

Personally I prefer Hanging Gardens more than Oracle.( although I won't build either of them.)

For the faith discount, faith have better uses.

The Pingoracle is an early strategy that is stronger when the map is smaller. With less civilizations on board, there is less competition about recruiting Great Peoples, allowing to recruit way more.

The strength of it comes early. If you wait the Great People cost to be 610, well it is way too late. It needs to come as early as possible to be as impactful as possible. You may argue that it might be counterproductive on focusing on wonder and city development when the top priority is expansion and securing the maximum amount of land as early as possible. To that I could only agree: the Pingoracle isn't perfectly suited for that type of strategy. Or dare I say: the Pingoracle might be a trap strategy for most play, but still a powerful strategy.

You can generate early a lot of Great People points with a single city (before tier 2 building), even maxing out to 9.2, up to 11.5 Scientist / Writer / Prophet. I am counting on the district (+1), the first building (+1), Divine Spark (+1), Oracle (+2) under Pingala (×2) and Classical Republic (×1.15). You can claim all the early Writers and offer them the very good way of life of scouting and unemployment.

My guess is that you tend to play on larger map and your primary goal on the early game is about expanding as fast as possible. Is that right? In this case, the Oracle is surely less impressive.

 

[Kwami]

@Aurelesk: Just so that you're aware, Lily is the kind of player that has a bad game when it goes past turn 160 or something. I'm sure that his great people are at 610 much earlier than yours or mine.

Anyway, Oracle is great for a city with Pingala. It's an early wonder, which means great adjacency bonuses for Theater Squares, and it starts working quickly to get the early Writers and Scientists that the AI would otherwise snatch away. The 25% Faith discount is really helpful later when you're buying the important Scientists or Engineers. Also, the AI almost never goes for it early, so you might as well build it if you've got some trees to chop.

I guess I'm not saying anything new, but I wanted to throw in another vote for the Oracle!

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Well if you think about it, why pay 290 for a wonder when you can pay 300 and get 5 archers or even 7.5 with the agoge card?

 

[Kwami]

Well if you think about it, why pay 290 for a wonder when you can pay 300 and get 5 archers or even 7.5 with the agoge card?

Because killing everyone is the most boringist way to win.