Scrying Magic Sites from afar

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

It doesn't seem worth it to scry from afar for magic sites. It takes a decent mage out of operation for a turn, it uses up gems of the appropriate type, and you aren't assured of anything. You can beef up your prospects by searching only mountain regions, which have a higher chance of having magic sites, but you still have the problem of searching for fire, but the only site there is water--so you wasted your time, your mage, and some fire gems.

You can just search mountains, and use the astral spell which shows all magic sites--but it is a humdinger, using a lot of astral pearls, and you still aren't guaranteed results.

It seems to me it just isn't worth it. However, I constantly see posts about "make sure you start scrying early in the game...." Doesn't it make more sense to have a couple of rainbow mages searching provinces turn by turn? Include them in your army, and you get a battle mage that also searches. You can include a priestess (Arco) or whatever and do Heal while the mages search. Army marches first turn, second turn searches and heals up. Again and again. Much less expensive on the gems, and better chance of finding sites too....

Or am I missing something?

[Nerfix]

I mostly use Astral or Death mages to scry with their site search spells because those spells are cheap and can be cast by low level mages.

Those and Voice of Tiamat are the only search spells I've used so far. Perhaps I could use the other spells if I would play more nations that benefit from researching Thaumathurgy and I had gems coming out of my ears.

[dirtywick]

Your way works too and I use it quite frequently.

It does waste a turn and gems if you don't find anything. But moving to the site and searching manually takes at least two turns at no cost. Basically, it's a tradeoff between gems and time.

But, here's a good scenario when spells are better: You have a dormant pretender with Death magic, but death magic isn't available to the nation so your pretender is the only one with a chance of finding it when it wakes up. Rather than moving and searching manually, you can cast spells from afar and find them twice as fast. Then, your pretender is already at a lab and ready to do what you needed the gems for.

It has it's uses IMO.

[Shovah32]

Well, while I agree searching provinces can be too costly for the results remember that not every nation has access to rainbow mages. Remote spells keep your mages safer and together, save alot of time, can reach provinces cut off from your empire AND allow your mages to search above their level. While the only searching spells i tend to use are voice of tiamat and acashic record (only use it on wastes/mountains/forests) i occasionally dabble in other remote spells with certain nations.

[PDF]

I usually proceed in 2 steps :
- First I send "search squads" of 1-2 assorted mages (level 2+ in as much paths as possible) to search the most obvious magic-rich provinces
- Then I complete the searches with scrying spells, when I have a significant income, and now that we have a "repeating spell search" possible (even if not perfect).

There's a special case for Death and astral, as the spells only need 1 level, whereas manual search at level-1 is insufficient : here I use spells only if I don't have level 2+ mages (let's say I don't play an astral nation and find sage for example).
Usually, this way I'm pretty high in the gem income charts in MP, and waaaay above any AI in SP

[Teraswaerto]

I always start thinking "what if there's a level 3 or 4 magic site there" when I search by moving around a typical mage with some paths at levels 2-3. Yes, I know they are rare, but I just can't live with uncertainty, so I prefer the searching spells.

Also it's less micromanagement.

[Agrajag]

If only one in ten provinces turns out to have a fire site, which gives only +2 gems, than for an investment of 20 gems you get +2 fire, just as good as unnerfed dom2 clams

A bit more seriously, its just tedious to shuffel mages around all the time, and you can't have your pretender marching with your army all the time (because that will be too slow for early expansion, and too dangerous for later battles)

[Unwise]

As with everything else in a well-balanced game, it's a trade-off.

If you've got a fire-2 mage (with no other paths) then it is almost certainly worth it to use Augury: he will only search one site every two turns (at best) if you do it manually, and he will never find the best fire sites. As Agrajag noted, as soon as you've found two sites with Augery (for example), then the operation is self-sustaining.

However, if you have a high-powered mage (say F2A1N3), then it is probably a waste to have them cast Augery because you have a decent chance of finding more sites manually than only fire sites through the spell.

[Theonlystd]

Only takes 1,2 sites for the mage to start paying for himself from finds..


I rarly haev mages out and about searching

[Corwin]

When I have a choice, I rarely search with mages, unless I have mage with 3/4 in at least two scools of magic, whom I don't need for forging/summoning. Anthing less misses the best sites, or takes too long, or both. IMHO time is more precious resource than few gems early on.