Musings on getting the most out of the early game

[Ironhawk]

izaqyos said:
-> Prophetizing. For nations with level four priests I usually wait a few turns before recruiting a would be prophet. Early on I prefer to use gold for mercs, troops and cheap researchers.

I used to wait but I hardly do, anymore. Having an L4 or L5 priest is nice but I find that it is sort of overkill in the early game. If you build your indy-killer forces right you can do fine with SoCs for a long time. Plus you can spend the money you would on a powerful priest (usually expensive!!) and that turn's time at the fort to build another researcher. Usually I will just prophetize my starting military commander. Then later on, if he has no good heroic ability, I just kill him off and prophetize a powerful priest or an SC.