Using The Priest Specialist.

[salty mud]

I'm wondering if it's ever worth incorporating the Priest into play. As a specialist, they give +1 hammer and +1 gold. They're unlocked by Temples, but unlimited amounts can be assigned with the Caste System civic.

The thing is, I just can't think of a situation they'd be the most useful specialist to run. If I want more hammer I'd assign an engineer. If I need more gold I'd assign a merchant. If I REALLY need more hammers, I'd work towards a Great Engineer. If I REALLY need more gold, I'd work towards a Great Merchant.

If I have a holy city then fair enough, a Great Prophet can be used for the shrine. But apart from that, an engineer or merchant seem preferable in every way. The only advantage I can think of is that an engineer is harder to obtain than a priest, but even the generic citizen specialist gives +1 hammer like the priest.

 

[Fippy]

One use i can think of, if you want a golden age person (or are fine with a mixed pool either way cos of that), Madrassa i.e. can then give you that GP quicker. Without Caste you can still run 4 specialists, 2 scientists and 2 priests

In the Pacal team game thread, we would be happy about a Madrassa i think for a 3rd great person later. Caste not an option there, so we are limited.

 

[Lennier]

Caste does not let you run unlimited priests (or engineers or spies.) If you control the Angor Wat, priests get as manny as engineers, so then they are better specialists.

 

[gaash2]

One use i can think of, if you want a golden age person (or are fine with a mixed pool either way cos of that), Madrassa i.e. can then give you that GP quicker. Without Caste you can still run 4 specialists, 2 scientists and 2 priests

In the Pacal team game thread, we would be happy about a Madrassa i think for a 3rd great person later. Caste not an option there, so we are limited.

This.

I only use priests when playing Saladin to get faster great people. Madrassa in general is probably an underrated unique building.

 

[unas876]

To touch on the Saladin point: Ramesses also has this going for him somewhat. Unlike Hatchet, he actually needs some monuments for border pops. Now on top of that he is IND, which makes it at least more viable to get Mids (-> Rep Priests) or Angkor Wat, even though it's still debatable whether you'd want to build especially AW but also the Mids without their respective resources.
Anyways, point being: the Obelisk allows you to hire priests and IND makes it easier to get some wonders that make Priests better.
Now both Saladin and Ramesses are also SPI which allows for cheap temples so in theory you could run a whole bunch of priests.

But yeah as you can see I'm probably stretching it here and in any case that would just be 2/52 leaders where something like that applies.
Apart from that priests seem to be kinda useless in most cases.

 

[Pangaea]

Angkor WTH. Am I right?

 

[Chase_2_Rabbits]

Rammy + BFC stone can lead to some fun with a hammer economy centred around priests and Great Prophets; it's just a bit of fun though, and I wouldn't try it on deity. if you've got Rammy and BFC stone then there are going to be more effective ways to beat the map.

 

[lymond]

Yep, settled prophets with Mids >Representation are not bad at all. However, I still don't go out of my way to get prophets.

 

[6K Man]

The problem with Priest specialists isn’t that they don’t do anything especially well. Engineers are better for hammers, Merchants are better for gold. And even if you have Angkor Wat (which seems to exist solely so that the city governor will assign Priests and not Engineers and pollute your GPP pool), the question is, what do you do with the Great Prophet? Without an unshrined holy city, there’s not much you can do with them besides settle or GA… and unless you plan to run 4 GAs, you can probably get three different GP for GAs with Caste and not need Priests at all.