Who likes a scout as first prophet?

[thejeff]

It's a trade off.
A commander prophet is more resistant to stray arrows and the like. I also can't count the number of times I've had scout prophets sneak along with the army and thus miss the battle, so the flexibility can bite you.

Mostly I like to have the scout early on, so I can find out who's off in one direction at least. Sometimes you'll get lucky and find indy scouts early. In my last MP game it was almost a year before I had any. EA is especially bad.