Oases: bonuses, animals and annexing

Oases are the unsettled tiles around villages. An oasis a village annexes raises that village's production; one nobody owns is full of animals and slowly fills with resources.

Types and bonuses

Each resource has an oasis of its own and one that also carries crop:

In the grey area in the middle of a Wonder of the World world, every oasis gives +50%. The bonus applies to the village's base production.

An unoccupied oasis produces too, into its own store: 40 an hour of each resource it favours and 10 of each other on a 1x world, faster on faster worlds. Raiding it takes what has built up.

Animals, and what they pay

At the start of a world every oasis holds a few weak animals and nothing else. Killing an animal pays its bounty straight into the hero's inventory: 40 of each resource per point of the animal's crop upkeep - a rat pays 40 of each, a bear 120, an elephant 200. The bounty is paid even if every attacker dies, and even without the hero in the attack.

An oasis starts producing once its original animals are all gone. No new animals appear until the initial protection ends - 5 days on 1x, 3 on x2 and x3, 2 on x5 and 1 on x10 - after which they come back quickly, weak ones first.

The animals depend on the oasis: rats, spiders and bats in iron oases; rats, spiders and wild boars in clay; wild boars, wolves and bears in lumber; rats, snakes, bears, crocodiles and tigers in crop. A hero carrying a Cage captures animals instead of fighting them, and they then defend the village for free.

Annexing

• A village needs a Hero's Mansion: one oasis at level 10, a second at 15, a third at 20.
• The oasis must be within three fields of the village.
• The hero takes it, by attacking it once its defenders are dead.

Taking an oasis from another player needs its defence cleared and then as many hero attacks as the owner has oases fewer than three: one hit if they own three, two if two, three if one. Unlike an administrator, the hero is not used up.

After a capture, an oasis regains loyalty at a fixed 1% every 30 minutes. Raiding an oasis someone owns steals up to 10% of what it stores, and that share refills over ten minutes - a raid seven minutes after the last takes 7%. Raiding your own oasis gains nothing. A village can release an oasis from the Hero's Mansion: it takes about 6 hours on 1x and 2 on x3, and the oasis goes back to nature.

An oasis is lost when its village is conquered, even by its own owner, and has to be taken again.

Egyptians

The Egyptian Waterworks raises a village's oasis bonuses by 5% per level. It needs a Hero's Mansion at level 10, and on worlds with cities it can only be built in a city. Egyptians get the most out of settling on rich land with oases all around.