racles are a special type of temple, dedicated to all the gods. They provide the same benefits as temples – enhanced desirability and a higher Culture rating – while pleasing all gods equally. It can get quite expensive, and take up a lot of land, to build all the temples you need in an area to keep the gods happy. Oracles solve that, by pleasing all the gods with far less physical space and less cash investment than an equivalent number of temples would take. This makes oracles especially powerful and useful.

As is usually the case when something sounds too good to be true, oracles do have a down side. To build an oracle, you need supplies of marble. Not every assignment will have marble available, and those that do might require you to import it at a fair price. Furthermore, oracles do not send out priests to minister to the population. The oracle's role is simply to honor the gods, and provide a place for citizens to come and worship their gods.