Newbish question

[sector24]

Apologies if other people answered first!

1) A lot of people make their scout into their prophet. The prophet gets 3 holy magic OR +1 holy magic if he already has 3 or more. He also gets the "blessed" status meaning if your pretender has more than level 4 in any spell path he always gets the bless effect. The advantage of a scout prophet is that you can stealth preach in hostile lands, but you can still fight if you want to by just following around the commander. Also, you can use your commander to patrol on turn 1 and increase taxes for some extra cash early on.

2) There's a spell that lets you raise dead heroes that made it into the Hall of Fame. Also, the bonuses are semi-random, but in part based on what you were doing to get into the Hall of Fame. For instance, there's a bonus that gives you increased research, but it's very hard to research your way into the Hall of Fame!

3) Pretenders generally come in 3 useful flavors:
Rainbow mage for site searching or forging
Heavy bless pretender (level 9 magic in 1 or more paths)
SC Pretender for early expansion and general mayhem

An immobile pretender could be useful if you wanted to set them up to cast Wish late in the game, or as a researcher, etc. But generally you want your pretender to do things that your nation normally can't do, like diversify your magic paths or supplement your weak national troops.

4) You don't actually have to build structures everywhere. In fact, every temple you build is 400g that you haven't spent on troops. The quickie answer on why you build temples is to unlock the recruitment of priest commanders, and spread dominion, which in turn spreads the scales you chose at the beginning of the game.

5) Divine Bless affects everyone on the field for the duration of the battle. Bless affects a bunch of units for the duration of the battle.

6) Most items only affect the person wearing them. Exceptions like the Endless Bag of Wine will say so in their description

7) There is no diplomacy, you're always at war with everyone. However, you start the game with a "cease fire" against all the AI nations. If you attack them or they declare war on you via a message, you are at war for the rest of the game. The notable exception is if you both attack a 3rd party province at the same time; this does not break the cease fire.