[Cainehill]

Occasionally even a God must heed the Norns and the Fates. If they, on merely the second month of your drive to deific pre-eminence, have sent you such a direct sign as destroying your temple, then obviously....

You aren't meant to have a temple. Neither is anyone else, and you should begin a great Crusade to burn and pillage all temples on the face of the world. Temples are evil, and not in a good kind of way.

Ahem. No, seriously, as everyone else has said - on turn 2, you should have no problem turning a commander into a prophet who can then build you a temple.

Then again - depending on your race, you may not need a temple right in the beginning. Personally, in your boots I'd prefer not to make a ... relatively useless leader a prophet. A scout - sure, because it can do stealth conVersion for you, but if all you have is say, a basic infantry commander who can command all of 25 troops and has to cower behind his troops impotently lest he (or she) be slain, I'd hold off a turn or two.

Build a scout, spy, or assassin, and make that your Prophet. Or build something along the lines of a knight / cavalry or other elite combat commander, or an expensive and preferably beefy (high hit point) mage and make that your prophet. It'll make it more survivable, as long as it's in friendly domain, it's a unit that has long term usefulness, _and_ you might save significant gold in the long run on upkeep. (A theoretical 300 GP mage costs 20 upkeep each turn. The prophet Version only costs 10. If you have a shaky income and economy, this can make a difference.)

Alternatively, if your race's top priest units are either Priest-3 or P4 - make something your prophet that you won't mind killing off early. There's a huge difference between a P4 and a P3, and a significant difference between P5 and 4, though not as big.

So - if your theme / nation can't create better than a P2 (Ulm, New Age Pangaea, basic Man, etc), make any top notch commander your Prophet. But if your best is a P3 (most nations), I'd definately want to upgrade one of those to my prophet for the mighty Fanaticism spell (not to mention a small but significant site searching increase). Priest 4 to Priest 5 isn't as big - _but_ the Smite spell gained is a great way to help rout armies before they do any noticeable damage to your own. Also helps to get your priest into the Hall of Fame, hopefully for one of the good bonus abilities.

Hope this helped.

[ April 30, 2004, 02:22: Message edited by: Cainehill ]