H2 priests: Why, when, how?
 

I have never quite figured out how to use H2 priests properly. Ok, so they can cast Sermon of Courage, they can preach a province to three candles and they can site search for H2 sites. However, this comes with a price, a price which I think is pretty steep, so there must be something I am missing.

I've tried to look at the H2 sites. Not something to call home about, is it?

Two or three candles, does it make a difference? Usually you can buy at least two H1 priests at the price of one H2 priest, so if you are preaching to defend your dominion, isn't two H1 priests *always* better than one H2 priest? If trying to reduce a hostile dominion then a H2 priest would be *almost* on par with two H1, unless the priests are inquisitors, right?

It would be purely lunacy to make a H2 priest to prophet, wouldn't it?

Sermon of Courage. Ok, I have to admit it, it is good. But is SoC the only real reason to go for a H2 priest instead of a H1 or H3 (altough H3 priests are in some cases capital only, and they might be old too)?

Re: H2 priests: Why, when, how?
 

Don't underestimate Sermon of Courage. You can lose a huge amount of troops when you rout (especially if they're slower than your enemies) so in a close fight that morale boost can really make a difference. If you need to sort out a Dom problem H2 is much better than H1. I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think H2 mages casting bless and banish have larger AoE and maybe in the case of banish more damage, which makes them much more efficient.

Generally you wouldn't go out of your way to make H1 or H2 a prophet - you should make prophets according to other reasons (e.g. a high HP friendly Dom thug, a flier for more manoueverability). H3 might be worthwhile because they become H4 when made a prophet.

Many times you'll get H2 on a unit you actually want for other reasons (e.g. they're mage priests like Pythium's theurgs, or have a patrol bonus, etc.). If you are specifically recruiting a priest for the sake of it, bear in mind that you're detracting from you recruiting something more useful, as most people may only have temples in their castle provinces. Even if the two H1s are cheaper, it's an extra turn spent building a priest when you could have a mage, thug or whatever.

Re: H2 priests: Why, when, how?
 

A lot of the H2 priests make good troop carriers, as well. That's something to bear in mind. It's much more convenient to build a priest that can lug troops around with 40-80 command, then hiring a pair of indy commanders that just sit on the battlefield with their thumbs up their butts doing nothing whereas the priests can spam sermon of courage.

Also, generally you want to prophetize your first scout. I do that in 99% of all cases. MA C'tis has a scout who can research, so I generally just prophetize my commander then, and leave the scout home for free research.

Jazzepi

Re: H2 priests: Why, when, how?
 

Blessing has an area of 5 per level
Banishment has an Area of 2+2 per level and damage 3 + 2 per level.

(And 6*7=42 is more then twice as good then 4*5=20, isn't it? :) )

But anyway, the main point should be, that in turns you recruit your nation's priests, you don't recruit your nation's mages.

Re: H2 priests: Why, when, how?
 

Communions can be another reason for building H2 units, since you can boost a H2 communion master to H3 or H4 with a smaller supporting cast than a H1 communion master. This can allow Divine Blessing on more armies than the one with your prophet, if you don't have any other H3 commanders available. Also, acts a force multiplier as Maraxus notes.

Re: H2 priests: Why, when, how?
 

And, if you're preaching to reduce enemy dominion, H2 priests are often rather more effective than 2 H1 priests.

Re: H2 priests: Why, when, how?
 

One last thing. When you're invading indy provinces at the very beginning of the game, sermon of courage makes a huge swing.

Since you can pick and chose where you fight, you can always pick a province where you have friendly dominion. This means -1 for enemy, and +1 for all your guys. Add sermon ontop of that, and you have +3 morale for all your guys (which is a 4 morale swing total). 11 morale troops are now 14 morale, and will rarely break compared to the low morale enemy.

This works great against provinces with huge amounts of indy militia which are already very low morale.

Jazzepi

Re: H2 priests: Why, when, how?
 

If you've got the gems and know how, pop a crystal Shield on your H2 priest and it is now H3. Very handy if you don't have any other recruitable H3 units and you need deployment flexability with your blessable troops.

Re: H2 priests: Why, when, how?
 

I think the crystal Shield only works if your H2 is a mage-priest. Still very useful, though.

Re: H2 priests: Why, when, how?
 

That depends on the number of hostile candles and wether a friendly temple is present or not. For example if the hostile dominion is four candles strong but there is a friendly temple present, the H2 priest has a 70% chance to drop one candle from that, while two H1 priests would have a a very good chance of dropping the number of candles by one or two (48% chance to drop one candle and 16% chance to drop two candles, ie quite a bit more effective than the sole H2 priest).