Site searching based upon independents

[Cammorak]

This is most likely a rank newbie question, but I have yet to find an answer through searching to forums. Do magic sites affect indie composition when you attack the site?

For instance, if I attack a province with the standard infantry/archer combo for whatever age I'm playing but also find that it contains a fire and water wizard, does that imply that there is an Academy of High Magics in the province or are the two events unrelated?

[BlanketThief]

Unrelated as far as I know

[Gandalf Parker]

No in general they are not connected at all in randomly generated maps, and most of the created maps.

However there are map commands which allow maps to set the magic sites, and the units that guard the province. Part of the irritation about fighting what you dont get to have led to the creation of a program called SemiRandom. Running a map thru the SemiRand program will scatter logically designed provinces around the map to be found.

Players can design provinces. Set the name, the sites, the guards, and many other features. That means you can (already done) name a province as Camelot, give it the magic sites of "White Man Hill", "The Forest of the Lake", "The Enchanted Isle", "Stone Circle". You can create and name Arthur, Merlin, all of the knights. That province gets added to the files of what SemiRand can use to scatter onto maps.

[Bananadine]

Originally Posted by BlanketThief

Unrelated as far as I know

Well, they'd at least be related via terrain type--a province defended by knights wouldn't have a Sunken Galley in it. (being pedantic)

[Cammorak]

Then that raises the next question of when magical sites are generated: on searching or on game start (barring creator-defined sites)? I've seen some posts with people holding off on high-magic sites so they can search specific paths, which seems to indicate the former, but the latter seems more logical for some reason.

[Septimius Severus]

Originally Posted by Cammorak

Then that raises the next question of when magical sites are generated: on searching or on game start (barring creator-defined sites)? I've seen some posts with people holding off on high-magic sites so they can search specific paths, which seems to indicate the former, but the latter seems more logical for some reason.

Which magic sites are in a given province are determined at game start. The .map file can then be used to overide whichever sites have been assigned at random during game start. Some sites will only appear in a certain terrain type. Magic sites can be of different levels, so you need a site searcher with enough magic in the appropriate path to actually find the site. Or an appropriate site searching spell.

[Gandalf Parker]

An interesting note:
For people who are making maps. Here are some of the map commands concerning sites.

5.5 #features <0-100> Sets the magic site frequency for the map.
6.12 #killfeatures Removes all magic sites from the active province.
6.13 #feature "" Puts a magic site in the active province.
6.14 #knownfeature "" Puts a found magic site in province.

The #feature commands lets you set a magic site which starts out hidden, and #knownfeature for setting it already found. But whether or not you use #killfeature first is very important because of the game assigning sites randomly first, and then it reads the map commands. It means the difference between your suggested sites being there instead of the random choices, or being added as recommended fill into any empty slots left after the random choices. This can be very irritating to learn, but fun to make use of.

[llamabeast]

I've seen some posts with people holding off on high-magic sites so they can search specific paths

They are silly people.

[Fantomen]

Originally Posted by Cammorak

I've seen some posts with people holding off on high-magic sites so they can search specific paths

A reason for this might be to increase time effectiveness of searching. Since mage turns are valuable it might be better to wait for a i.e death 3 mage than sending a death one first and then maybe have to search again. Or to wait for a mage with several paths or site searching spells.

But in general you want to search for sites as early as possible since you'll get more out of each site the earlier you get it.

[Edi]

Gandalf is right about when sites are generated. Independent province population has no effect on which sites are found, unless it is one of the random special provinces that may appear in the game, in which case they have scripted defenders (Solaris the Paladin for one, the two Great Mother and Lord of Fertility in another etc).

Magic sites may add various mages, units or commanders to the list of units that can be recruited from a province when found.

Also, for mapmakers:

If you use the #knownfeature command, any special buildings granted by the site do NOT appear in the province unless scripted.

For example, upon discovery, the Firbolg Fortress builds appropriately enough a firbolg fortress. If you use #knownfeature "Firbolg Fortress", you must also use the fort command, because the site does not appear.

Also, if a commander has begun constructing a fort in a province and you site search and find a site that would give a better fort (e.g. crystal citadel), the fort will not appear because of the fort being constructed.