AU Mod: The Oracle

[alexman]

The Problem

The Oracle is one of the weakest Wonders in the game, giving just one extra content citizen in cities that already have a Temple. It costs 300 shields, and expires with Theology.

Compare the Oracle to the Hanging Gardens, which for the same shield cost gives a content citizen in every city, even without Temples, three content citizens in the city where it is built, and expires in the Industrial Age.

As a result, players rarely decide to build the Oracle, unless they are aiming for a single-city cultural victory.

Possible Solution

One obvious solution would be to reduce the cost of the Wonder to 200 shields.

This Wonder is usually one of the AI’s top priorities, so a cost decrease would allow the AI to tie up one of its productive cities for less time. Expensive early Wonders hurt the AI because before luxury trading, the growth of the city forces the use of entertainers, which slow down production.

Any other ideas?

[Tall Stranger]

Seems reasonable to me. When I first saw this topic, I was afraid we would get bogged down in a debate over what new capability the Oracle should have. 200 shields for this wonder feels about right to me. While it will never be a "must have" wonder, I can see situations where this might be useful to build.

[ZargonX]

The Oracle is a wonder I never, ever even bother trying to build. But, like you say, the AI goes for it constantly. A cost-reduction does seem the most reasonable solution.

[ducki]

So - just out of curiousity - the Great Wall is no longer the de facto booby prize?

I'll admit I'm a bit out of touch with Ancient Wonder "desires", having joined Wonder Addicts Anonymous a few months ago. As such, I have a very short list of wonders I'll shoot for currently. I could count them on the number of toes a deer has on one foot.

So, that said, isn't 200 shields the same cost as the Colossus? Is the power of the Oracle in line with the power of Colossus?

I don't want to start talking about new abilities either - I think it's good that there are wonders that the player just defaults to letting the AI take and is probably a subtle contributing factor to the emergence of KAIs, though I haven't gathered any data.

So how about a secondary suggestion - boost the Oracle's culture generation a bit. Maybe put it on par with the GLib? Does the Oracle only double the contentedness of temples or does it also double their culture? If not, a small boost might help further generate KAIs, or boost them, in a fairly subtle way.

[Arrian]

I think reducing the cost to 200 shields is a decent enough solution.

Does the Oracle become a tourist attraction?

-Arrian

[alexman]

Of course. You should see the number of tourists visiting Delphi in the summer...

[Risa]

I think 200 shields may be the right cost.

And I always consider colossus a very useful wonder, unless I'm playing large map or standard map with 60% water. Just can't resist the temptation of Colossus + CO + NU ...

[pvzh]

What about making it expire later (Education: inline with Temple of Artemiss), increasing its effect to +2 content, but keeping the cost at 300 shields.

In my opinion, it is better to strengthen the wonder to entice player to build it rather than making the AI not to spent too much time on weak and powerless wonder.

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Edit: another good option make it pay temple's upkeep, +1 content face and expire with Education (cost 300): it would be good thing to attempt to build it if you are religious. Set Mysticism as your first research option than you can have a good chances to get it even at cost 300.

I noticed that C3C AI not always set a city to wonder building ASAP. At least I do not have pop-ups about Oracle if Mysticism is my first tech, I first to get it and trades immediately to all neighbours (Emperor level).

[ducki]

I noticed that C3C AI not always set a city to wonder building ASAP. At least I do not have pop-ups about Oracle if Mysticism is my first tech, I first to get it and trades immediately to all neighbours (Emperor level).

I'd have to double-check a debugmode game, but I doubt that the AI will switch production of a city from ItemX to WonderY when it buys a tech - because the AI uses the governor, I'd bet quite a bit that the knowledge of the available wonder is not accessed until a town completes its current build and asks the governor what to build.

Like I said, I'd have to double check in debug mode, but I would not expect an AI to switch normal production to a wonder as a result of tech trading. In fact, it would probably be a "bad thing" for the AI if it did. Probably.

[alexman]

No, the AI doesn't build Wonders unless it has enough cities. I'm not sure of the exact number.

The problem is that once the AI gets enough cities, it tries to build almost all the Wonders that it has available to build. That's bad when there are many Wonders available.

[pvzh]

Once you have build it. It is no longer available. Right?

[Krill]

Yes, once someone builds the wonder, it is no longer available to be built. Hence around 1000~2000 lost shields in total.

EDIT: changed spelling mistakes (among other things...)

[pvzh]

By each civ on Oracle? Maybe by all? Besides, usually Oracle has something to cascade to.

[Krill]

If the cascade keeps on falling, alot of shields would be lost by the majority of the AI civs (and human)

[ducki]

No, the AI doesn't build Wonders unless it has enough cities. I'm not sure of the exact number.

So I was wrong about the switching thing or was that in response to pvzh?
If directed to my post, then I have a question about when the AI decides to build a wonder(Oracle).

Example:
Assume # cities is not a constraint:
AI 1 is building units/improvements/settlers in all cities.
Player trades Mysticism to AI
AI 1 now does what?
-Switch first city in database to Oracle
-Switch random city to Oracle
-Switch highest production city to Oracle
-Wait for:
--Any city to grow, requiring Gov input, who switches to Oracle
--Any city to complete production of its build, then choose Oracle as new build order

Does that make sense? I'm probably not wording it well, but by "switch", I mean changing the build order from a unit in progress.

[nbarclay]

The Oracle has far more genuine value to AIs than it does to human players. Human players routinely use the luxury slider to grow our cities however big we want them. Further, unless most of our cities have temples, we're likely to use the same luxury slider settings with the Oracle that we would without because we want our cities that don't have temples to be big and productive. (Or if we do go with a lower luxury slider setting, it is a mixed blessing because we lose production in non-temple cities.)

In contrast, the benefit AIs get from the Oracle is much clearer and more significant: all their cities with temples can grow one bigger than they could otherwise before they have to start using entertainers. Couple that with how consistently AIs build large numbers of temples (since happiness improvements and luxuries are the only ways they can grow their cities) and the Oracle may not be such a bad thing for AIs to build even at 300 shields.

A cost reduction to 200 is not a bad idea, because it would almost certainly tend to help AIs more than it helps human players. But I dont think it's as necessary as it might appear at first glance from looking at the wonder's value (and lack thereof) from the perspective of human play styles.

Nathan

[GodKing]

I would look to not only reduce its cost, but to give it a minor bonus as well, such as a free aquaduct in the city it is built in. I feel that it could use both.

[alexman]

OK, the following proposal is now under consideration:

Yes/No: Reduce cost of Oracle to 200 shields.

[alexman]

Time to vote! AU mod panel, you have 48 hours.

My vote: Yes.

[Nor Me]

Yes.

[Stuie]

Yes.

[ZargonX]

Yup

[nbarclay]

Yes.

[lockstep]

Already official, but anyhow:

YES

[Theseus]

Y