Priest

All priests in a row, as well as the shaman

Attribute	Value (Human | Dark)
Health	80 | 200
Tool	None

Overview

Priests are the living connection between humans and the gods they worship. If a civilization has made sacrifices to their gods to receive mana, priests can use it to call in various favors from their gods - in other words, cast magic. These spells differ between the four civilizations and enable both unique economies and special combat strategies.

Shamans are a particular plague, as they are capable of enslaving civilian settlers. This is particularly painful if the affected settlers owned a valuable tool, as that is lost.

Strategy

Enemy priests should be neutralized at every available opportunity. This can be difficult, as a priest with mana has various means of defense - it can be assumed, however, that a player whose priests are in danger won't use his spells optimally and thus waste mana. Unguarded priests are best attacked by individual units - even if the enemy uses magic, most of it will be wasted. Without mana, priests are absolutely defenseless.

Shamans also act as squad leaders for the Dark Tribe and have particularly high helf, requiring concentrated attacks to kill them. In the early game, shamans like to move away from battle to hunt for settlers. Since the trojan expansion, however, shamans have a limited individual mana pool, restricting their enslavement to a max of 10 settlers before needing to return to dark land to recharge. Because of this, it is possible to position thieves at the border in order to turn them into carriers when shamans approach, thus sacrificing them to protect the main settlement.

As a Dark Tribe player, shamans and dark gardeners can be combined in an exploit, as even a small patch of dark land is enough to enable infinite enslavement for shamans.

Trivia

• Although the Dark Tribe has a few spells of it's own, shamans are not actually priests. If the player controls the Dark Tribe, shamans are also locked out of the normal spell menu. Enslavement is their default attack, but their other two spells, rot and theft, cannot be used by the player.