Eastern Roman Empire (BI faction)

[teja]

What, exactly, to priests do? Is whatever bonus they give nearby units worth the bother? I've always disbanded the buggers on sight, and never even considered building new ones. Better to have that 100+ maintenance going towards limetanei, archers, 2-3 peasants, whatever. The monks in the Badon Hill scenario didn't have any effect strong enough for me to notice.

Well Romans do have units enought to stand against most threats without priests, but they are worth to use! For example I once used to play the Goths, which have only fair spearunits to defend a bridge, but are always close to get routed when under hard preassure and enemy missles. If you have some priests behind them making their songs those units will stand much longer and in most cases the spearmen will easier get anhilated insted to get routed. This way is easy to boost your defence with priests, which also scare the enemy a little bit. So always try to use priests to boost your defence. Mounted priests for Vandal armies are great as they can move fast to any point at the battle field...
So: Priests only boost own forces, but are no match alone. So test and judge for your own.