RIP Oracle

[Noble Zarkon]

Oracle seems hit or miss as usual, but lately I've been leaning towards the camp of this wonder being overrated as I've had games where I do get it but still don't see the future saved faith value add up to justify precious early production and risk.

The Oracle gives faith?? Who knew!

 

[8housesofelixir]

The Oracle gives faith?? Who knew!

It gives like +1 faith. I think what @Oberinspektor Derrick said and means is "saved faith value" when purchasing a great person using faith.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Isn’t the main draw of the Oracle the 2 extra GPP added to all districts in that city? Which synergies with the 100% promotion on Pingala so a Campus with a library is 8 GSP in one city, which is super powerful. Basically it also used to let you grab all the early Merchants and if you rushed Apprenticeship, all the early Engineers

Nah, the best thing is the faith discount on buying Great People.

In reality, Oracle is just 2 extra GPP. That's just another city with a library in it. Yes, you can get grants to duplicate the effect when you can't with 2 separate cities, but that's still just 2 extra cities with a campus and you have to go get grants early which is its own cost.

It is also good for Great Engineers though, for sure, because non-unique or Japanese IZs are useless before Industrialization. However, if you do not get the useful GEs upfront and get the meme ones like +1 culture to workshops and the god awful Mimar Sinan, then it's also not that great. Great Engineers are probably the 2rd worst GP to me (worst being musicians)

I usually build it to boost Drama and Poetry, and sometimes it goes well with Great Merchants because GMs seem to have lower competitions and it may take me a while to build multiple commercial hubs. However, this is my personal preference and I doubt will fall under any kind of efficient strategy.

In scenarios where you cannot expand easily, Oracle does become more relevant though.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

It gives like +1 faith. I think what @Oberinspektor Derrick said and means is "saved faith value" when purchasing a great person using faith.

That's what I meant, yeah.
It gives a nice faith discount for sure, but the faith I do spend on GP is rather small overall (I only go for a select few, and often I can get them for free anyway), and either way the discount tends to come later in the game where the lack of faith is no longer so pronounced as I'm generally well stocked on faith income by then.
Overall I find the future saved faith to be an often harsh price to pay for diverting my production towards the Oracle over something else early on.

Edit: In a typical game with high faith income, I'll generally spend about 80-90% of my faith on civilian units (if Monumentality), Campus buildings (if going science with a Jesuit Education religion), units from the Grand Master's Chapel and (if cultural) every last penny on Naturalists and Rock Bands.
The remaining 10-20% perhaps might go into GPs, but overall that translates to very little faith.
If we assume that I would spend 100% of my faith on GPs, sure, that's like building a wonder that increases my faith by 25%, but when considering what I actually spend faith on, it turns out to be more like a 2,5 - 5% "extra faith" over the course of the game. Which is overall pretty bad for how I tend to spend my faith.

 

[Vargas1]

It is also good for Great Engineers though, for sure, because non-unique or Japanese IZs are useless before Industrialization. However, if you do not get the useful GEs upfront and get the meme ones like +1 culture to workshops and the god awful Mimar Sinan, then it's also not that great. Great Engineers are probably the 2rd worst GP to me (worst being musicians)

If you're planning on building a bunch of Ren/Industrial or later wonders, then Oracle is good. If you stack Oracle plus grants in a city with an IZ and workshop, you'll pull more GE points than almost any other civ up through at least the industrial era (maybe Scotland competes with you, and for some reason I've had several games with Macedon going crazy for GEs). If you have a passable faith income, that gives you a good shot to get all 3 of the rush wonder GEs between the points from your Oracle city and the faith discount. I do tend to like building a lot of wonders, even though it's not optimal from a gameplay perspective, so I find chasing those GEs worthwhile. Although I agree that Mimar Sinan is the worst - he also leads to the unfortunate choice of whether to spend a bunch of faith to get him out of the way (or take him and spend a bunch of faith getting the next GE), or wait while someone else painstakingly works their way up to him one GE point at a time.

 

[Kotofei]

Pyramids seems like it goes super early (I've seen it go before T25 on Diety) if anyone has desert so if it's still there at T40 it's likely no Civ started with desert and you've got a reasonable shot to get it. Oracle is hit or miss whether the AI goes for it early. I've had reasonable luck at still getting Oracle on Deity without chopping and since the patch got it around T90 in one game which shocked me. I hadn't planned to even get it but around T80 saw it was still there so I went for it and got it.

"Hit or miss" is a good way to put it. If it's not gone before I even start, I have no trouble getting it. That might even be an advantage, it makes district planning easier.