The value of site searching rainbow pretenders

[NTJedi]

Strages Sanctus said:
Does it really make sense to use a rainbow pretender for site searching?

Depending on the magic site frequency and current actions/distance of your neighbors a rainbow pretender can be quite useful. Searching with a rainbow pretender almost provides the same value as casting Ashaic(sp?) Record which costs 25 astral for one spell. Sometime during midgame it's better to return the rainbow mage to a lab where all future time is spent casting spells, forging items and summoning creatures.

[RamsHead]

I like rainbow pretenders. Like others here have already said, they pay off in the long run. They are useful as site searchers, but they can also research, forge items, summon creatures, and cast artillery spells. You will always have a rainbow pretender doing something important.

[Turin]

If you go for a rainbow mage, don´t put anything in the paths covered by your national mages. It´s usually much cheaper to bring a mage or two along for the sitesearching than to spend the designpoints on raising those paths.

[curtadams]

It's a tough call on what to do with national paths. You will be able to get strong magic in national paths eventually, but unless you can get level 4 nationals your rainbow pretender can cast and search for your national paths better. Since you get bonus gems in your national paths - and generally can best use gems in your national paths - 4 in national paths can have big benefits in the early and midgame. Of course there's also bless benefits. People ignore the small benefits because they seem so wimpy compared to the level 9 blesses, but if your sacreds are worth getting anyway, +2 attack/defense/+afflictions/etc. is a pretty nice boost.

[Strages Sanctus]

Ermor ashen empire so my early game is fragile already.

I have no idea how to build SCs...