Magical sites

[Sindri]

I'm enjoying the game and getting the mechanics very well as a newer player but I have trouble knowing what level mages should I send out to look for magical sites in early game ?

[Draken]

Level 1 mages are already worth it.
Level 2 will find most sites.

Though there are quite a few very interesting level 3 or 4 sites as well.

Personally, I tend to send some low level mages with multiple paths to search early, then use site searching spells later.
Though there are going to be people that will tell you that that isn't gem efficient. Which is probably true.

It also depends on the age. EA has a lot more magic sites than LA for example. Though you can change that in the world settings when creating the world.

[Sindri]

Originally posted by Draken:

Level 1 mages are already worth it.
Level 2 will find most sites.

Though there are quite a few very interesting level 3 or 4 sites as well.

Personally, I tend to send some low level mages with multiple paths to search early, then use site searching spells later.
Though there are going to be people that will tell you that that isn't gem efficient. Which is probably true.

It also depends on the age. EA has a lot more magic sites than LA for example. Though you can change that in the world settings when creating the world.

Ah ok I normally play MA haven't really had much experience with the other ages I normally wait till I get a lvl2 mage then look

[Sombre]

A good rule of thumb is any mage with 3 or more paths makes a pretty good searcher. Ideal if they have those paths at 2+

[Sindri]

Originally posted by Sombre:

A good rule of thumb is any mage with 3 or more paths makes a pretty good searcher. Ideal if they have those paths at 2+

Ah and the max level search is 4 right?

[Sombre]

Realistically, yes. There are some above 4 but you can ignore them. There are only a bit over 20 level 4s too. 3 is usually enough.

[Demonsthenes]

Also worth mentioning that for some nations, there is redundancy in paths. So for example, in Shinuyama, you definitely want to search everything with Bakemono Sorcerers, and that covers at least F2E2W1D2, so you end up wanting to add searching with the N2 random Ubas or Haruspex to complete searching, and then maybe later filling in W3 (about 1/3 of water gems are in sites above W1, so definitely worth doing eventually, but keep in mind that every province you search costs at least two mage turns).

[Draken]

I would also add some some of the level 3 or 4 sites are pretty powerful, even if they are rare, and it can be a big boon to find them.
Finding a Library of Time (Astral 4) that gives you the ability to recruit Astral 3 mages can unlock a lot of options for a non astral or not high astral nation.
A Conjurers Cave (Earth 3) gives a 20% discount to all Conjuration rituals cast there, which means for every 5 summonings you cast you get one for free.

[Ddraig Lleuad]

Originally posted by Draken:

I would also add some some of the level 3 or 4 sites are pretty powerful, even if they are rare, and it can be a big boon to find them.
Finding a Library of Time (Astral 4) that gives you the ability to recruit Astral 3 mages can unlock a lot of options for a non astral or not high astral nation.
A Conjurers Cave (Earth 3) gives a 20% discount to all Conjuration rituals cast there, which means for every 5 summonings you cast you get one for free.

Conversely though, some of the level 3 & 4 sites are altogether pretty meh, like the Cave of the Sleepers, or Umbral Cave, or Pool of Perpetual Night, and even many of the level 4 sites that are good are good only in that they generate more gems than lower level sites, like the Sea Underneath, Previous Forest, etc. Too, several of the more impactful high-level sites, like the Library of Time, generate events clueing you in to their existence, although sometimes that's a false positive.

At the same time, level 3-4 sites are definitely not the only powerful ones. Of the sites that give a conjuration bonus, 5 are level 3+ but 13 are level 1-2. All the alteration bonus sites that let you do things like set up a gem-positive Wish economy are level 1-2. There's 11 level 3+ sites that'll let you recruit mages, but pages and pages of level 1-2 sites that'll do that, some of them pretty gnarly - Elludian Moon Mages! Blackrose Sorceresses! Sorcerors of the Sands! Most of the ways you get metal order mages! Hell, the Steel Ovens is a level 0 site that doesn't even need to be searched, and that gives a construction discount that'll let you do all kinds of things.

There's some variance by pathing; Astral is often worth searching at higher than 2, or even remote searching, because it has level 3 and 4 gem-generating sites rated at rarity 0. But for the most part, level 3 & 4 sites just aren't worth seriously hunting for. Nice bonus if you stumble across them in the course of your searching, but even as someone who's pretty OCD about itesearching, enough that I regularly end up with more gem income even than players with gemgen globals, I consider myself sufficiently thorough if I've searched every path at 2. Breadth, not depth, that's the ticket.

[Hasefrexx]

I'll ignore all path 0 sites in the following (sites that are always discovered). I also ignored the fact that a few of the sites mentionned can give 2 gems instead of 1 for the majority for ease of calculations, the end result would be very close.

It's fine to site search with path 1, that will find most of the sites for that path. It's great if you can site search with path 2, that will find most sites of the path. If you can site search with a path 3 that's even better but largely superfluous. Path 3 sites tend to be rare, even if better (generating more gems etc). Notable exceptions are water path (good amount of path 3 sites) and astral (it has a path 4 common site).

For exemple looking only at rarity 0 sites (the majority of sites you'll find), an astral 1 mage may find 10 such sites. For each extra astral level you may find one more such site, so up to 14 for an astral 4.

So grossly an astral 1 mage will find ~70% of the potential astral income that a path 4 could find. However you'll have an easier time searching with path 1 so in the short term you'll also get more gems.

Now if we look at water, you'll find 18 rarity 0 sites with a path 1, nothing at path 2 and 3 more at path 3.

Therefore path 1 versus 3 may be along the lines of 85% of the potential income you could find.

More extreme, fire has 14 path 1 rarity 0 sites and one extra rarity 0 at path 3, so a path 1 may get close to 90% of the potential hidden gem income.

If you want to dig deeper, it depends on the terrain too. In caves for exemple there are 6 potental air sites, one of which is unique and thus not very relevant. If we also exclude the path 0 site (always visible), that leaves 4 sites, two of which are rarity 0. One is level 1 and another one is level 3. So a path 3 is a significant upgrade over a path 1. There's no path 2 site at all. However it's not very relevant to search for air sites in caves to begin with: if we compare with earth, there are 14 hidden rarity 0 sites.

TL;DR:
My rule of thumb is path 1 is more than good enough. Path 2 is great. Path 3, why not if you can, but often largely overkill.

[timlagor]

It's also worth noting that different terrains have different site probabilities -farmlands should not be searched first.

[timlagor]

What's "rarity 0"?

[Draken]

Originally posted by timlagor:

What's "rarity 0"?

I think that's the most common sites.

[Ddraig Lleuad]

Originally posted by timlagor:

What's "rarity 0"?

Sites have a rarity rating as well as a level; 3/4th's of magic sites are rarity 0, 90% of the remaining sites are rarity 1, and the final 1/40th of sites are rarity 2.