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[USEC_OFFICER]

Are thrones more likely to have magic sites by the way? Specially high level thrones?

The link that Thepodger provided has the answer. All thrones, regardless of level, have +20% to site chance, identical to the bonus that waste provinces get. So thrones will most likely have more sites than normal. It also means that waste provinces are slightly more valuable than at first glance, since they may have more sites to generate gems. Which helps to compensate for the fact that they're terrible at everything else.

[E. Albright]

As long as each mage has more than two paths, the mage turn argument is valid. Every three path mage searches three paths every two turns.  Every site search remote spell searches one path every turn.  The more 3+ path mages you send out searching, the larger the more turns saved.  You're not thinking.

This assumes no wasted turns for backtracking, etc. This also assumes that you value all gems equally. This critically assumes that you'll have multipath mages in convenient, non-overlapping combinations for all paths you're interested in (which is very much an unreasonable assumption grounded in pure theorycrafting, especially since a non-trivial number of nations have at most two-path or two-path plus holy or random-path mages - and since you aren't always going to be searching for sites from mages you can just recruit more of). And if you're allowed to throw more mages at the problem, you're still not getting away from the fact that each mage only searches one province every other turn; more remote sitesearchers mean more every-turn searches, and depending on searcher path levels, you're not missing 10-40% of sites (and those being missed are more likely to be recruitment or multigem sites) - and you're getting the gems sooner. You're not thinking either.

OTOH, remote searching is range-limited - for some paths brutally so. And it requires a modest research investment before you start. And most paths require at least two levels to cast the spells, and all need seed gems to start searching. And that of course is beyond the normal gem and potential time cost.

Neither option is all good, but neither is either all bad. A hybrid approach is best. Sweep with multipath mages as is convenient and possible, remote sitesearch for thoroughness as you can and as circumstances encourage or demand. I entirely agree that in general it's better to base your sitesearching on manual searches. But remote sitesearching is not the worst thing evar, nor so grossly inefficient that you'll wreck yourself if you use it regularly, etc. It's caffeine, not crack. It's bad for you to use too much of it, and if you use it in exclusion to everything else it's inefficient and will give you a headache - and if you've used too much, stopping using it will give you a headache. But it has its place and it has its value.

[thepodger]

Dominions provinces are not exactly a rat maze.  Plotting a course without overlap is trivial.  And in general, the gems you need are the gems your mages use.

Lastly, you're at best arguing that searching has more variables, not that remote spells are worth a wet fart.   Remote search by all means at thrones and areas that you believe may harbor something tasty.  But outside of that, it's a waste of gems.

[Delta Foxtrot]

EDIT:  P.S. Asphodel is broken as fuck.

At least they no longer get 100g temples, or so I hear. But yes, Asphodel is pretty bonkers

[Kagus]

Yeah, they're 200g now.  Half of what anyone else pays ('cept Man, who doesn't have nearly as much use for them).  Also the early game income boost from high growth scales means you're still putting out more of them than Ermor even if they had the same price tag, even though those few percentage points really don't seem like much.

Dominions provinces are not exactly a rat maze.  Plotting a course without overlap is trivial.

Early on when you're plotting a route through the non-terrifying indie provinces it can sometimes be tricky, but still that's only talk of one or two turns lost.  I do still think Voice of Tiamat is worth mentioning, as it finds all sites of all elemental magic in ocean provinces, and as the underwater nations can frequently have some issue putting out site searchers that cover all those bases I think it's actually fairly reasonable for the 8 water gem cost.  Plus, there are only so many ocean provinces, so even if you're a perfectionist you're not gonna be using it nearly much as the land spells.


I'm running a little quirk pretender design test where I'm using a fountain of blood to try and jumpstart Yomi into some blood production.  This is mostly just a test run to see if End of Culture/Weakness are at all worth using, and more importantly to see whether or not they affect "normal" demons as well as the oni.  I noticed a province was going berserk with massive unrest problems, and I'd already searched for death sites, so I had my immobile pretender (who had just woken up and was the only blood mage I had available) run a bowl of blood on the province.  Sure 'nuff, demon gate site.  Even better, that same turn I miraculously wound up getting a bloodhenge druid random event so I even had someone I could pop over there to start summoning fiends.

Immobile pretenders with paths your nationals don't get is not exactly a great argument, but it is potentially one of the times when it could be used.

[Delta Foxtrot]

That's when I use them most often, when I have a rare non-national path mage. When I have 20 provinces and one mage it's a lot more appealing to just start spell searching rather than marching all over.

Beyond that, my most used search spell is the S one. Thaumaturgy is rarely a priority path for me, while evocations is almost standard. In addition you only need S1 while most spells require X2. It's also "only" 3 pearls per cast as opposed to 4 gems some others cost. It's still not my preferred way to search for S, but finding a random S is common enough that I find myself casting astral probing a lot more often than any of the other spells.

[Il Palazzo]

Remote search by all means at thrones and areas that you believe may harbor something tasty.  But outside of that, it's a waste of gems.

BUT WHAT IF YOU MISS A SITE? WHAT THEN EINSTEIN, HUH?? HOW CAN YOU CARRY ON LIVING?

[ThtblovesDF]

I didn't get to play this mp yet, but in the old game, I always enjoyed astal record (or what its called), since it gives you the true statisfaction of knowing all the sites @location.

[USEC_OFFICER]

Except it costs 25 pearls or something crazy like that, which is definitely a lot. Especially since most provinces are only going to have 2 sites on average with the default settings, so it could take a long time to earn your investment back.

[Delta Foxtrot]

25S and fairly high up in the research tree (conj-6?). I suppose it's fun if you play SP, but it sounds very inefficient to use in MP circles. Either you've already searched most of your sites and you're spending pearls just to find those few really high level sites, or worse you only start searching once you hit conj6. Either way it doesn't sound appealing at all.

If such a thing as "too many pearls" existed then I guess, but I've never hit that ceiling.

[Kagus]

That's when I use them most often, when I have a rare non-national path mage. When I have 20 provinces and one mage it's a lot more appealing to just start spell searching rather than marching all over.

Beyond that, my most used search spell is the S one. Thaumaturgy is rarely a priority path for me, while evocations is almost standard. In addition you only need S1 while most spells require X2. It's also "only" 3 pearls per cast as opposed to 4 gems some others cost. It's still not my preferred way to search for S, but finding a random S is common enough that I find myself casting astral probing a lot more often than any of the other spells.

Isn't Astral also one of the two paths that has ultra-rare level 5 sites?  There you have it, it simply must be done!

Also, god damn but searching was a pain and a half in Dom 1...  You'd either have to manually write down which provinces had been searched by what, or risk re-checking a province you'd just been over.  Didn't have the handy-dandy icons we have now to show which places have been checked for what.  Also if you were casting remote spells, you had to type in the province number manually, no clicking on the map.

Although, Dom1 was also the only one to feature that seriously cool dynamic map that would actually change to reflect the scales affecting particular provinces.

[Delta Foxtrot]

I am not aware of any findable sites that exceed 4. Someone may correct me.

[Kagus]

It was either 4 or 5 where only two paths had sites that high, those being Astral and Death.  ...I think it may even have just been those two sites, even.

This was from an earlier version though, I don't know if they've changed it around for Dom4.  Also, the spreadsheet I saw that pointed this out appears to no longer exist, as is sadly the case with all number of Dominions-related information pages...

[lijacote]

The inspector is perfectly good for checking sites out. Also for items, units, spells...

[Delta Foxtrot]

I know inspector shows sites, a handful at 5/6, but are those searchable or a result of some events?