Underwater site searching
 

The Baalz guides made me take a look at the frequency masks as reported in the 3.17 DB. (Thanks Edi!)

Turns out the most efficient site searching is:

VFB was completely right, I misread the table. So, I removed sites that are alwasy found (lvl 0) and I adjusted % by the number of gems found. So, a site that gives you 2 e is 2x as interesting as one that gives you 1.

n2=22%
w2=22%
d2=15%
e2=9%
s2=9%
a2=6% (never in deep seas iirc)
After that f1,a3, pick you up 2.5%, s3, e3 pick you up 1.3. Rounding due to lvl 0s

So, an N2W2D2E2S2A2 gets you almost everything. A3/F1 depending on design cost.

Now, the fascinating thing is, if you wish to eliminate rares from the equation

W1 - 18.5%
D1- 15.7%
N1 - 15.7%
E2 - 10.5%
W3 - 7.9%
F1 - 7.9%
H1 - 5.26%
w2 - 2.5%
N2 - 2.5%
A1 - 2.5%
E1 - 7.89%
etc.

So all you really need to find more than half of all common sites is
w3D1N1 - Gives you 61%
W3D1N1E2 79%
Adding an F1H1 gets you to 92%.

Re: Underwater site searching
 

very useful thanks

Re: Underwater site searching
 

I find it amusing there are so many Astral sites underwater. What about Holy? Was the Ancient Temple of the Deeps the only possible?

What I like most about underwater, is that if you want to manually search, you can focus on N/S/D + Holy, and then just use Tiamat for the rest. Though Voice of Tiamat is a funny spell, it can be the best thing ever, or you can burn all your Water gems, and only get Fire and Earth for your troubles. Oh the fickle sea. ;)

Re: Underwater site searching
 

Yeah, I should have looked at holy. Tunnel vision, thinking of mage searching. Out of town - I'll look at it if I can when I get back.

Re: Underwater site searching
 

So no Death or Nature sites in the Deep Sea?

For remote site-searching that's useful to know.

Re: Underwater site searching
 

No. "Deep Seas" provinces always also have the "Seas" tag. So any site that can be found in a "Sea" can also be found in "Deep Sea". I made the same mistake here originally, but I've fixed it now.

Also, there are no S4 sea or deep sea sites. Chris, what S4 site do you think can exist in seas? Or N3? or F4?

Highest site level in seas from Edi's DB:
Non-unique: E3, A3, W3, S3, F1, H1, N1, D1
Unique: N2, D2

(There are S3/?3 unique deep sea sites, but it's irrelevant, because there is also a non-unique site at the same path level.)

Highest site level in deep seas (including "seas"):
Non-unique: E3, A3, W3, S3, F1, H1, N1, D1
Unique: N2, D2

Re: Underwater site searching
 

I'll get back to you on it vfb; I took the 3.17 db., sorted on terrain; then by gem type; then by lvl. I'll look back into it when I get home. I had forgotten your excellent post.

How did you determine that deep seas also share the seas tag?
If so, this would mean deep sea sites have almost twice the variety of sites possible - and many more uniques.

Re: Underwater site searching
 

If you use the dom map editor, you can't set a province to being deep sea without 'sea' also being automatically selected. This gives a bitmask for the province terrain of 2052: Sea (4) plus Deep Sea (2048).

If you edit a .map file by hand, you could create a province with terrain type 2048. But if you do that, it's not actually underwater, and you get land poptypes in the province. It's called 'Deep Sea' in the game overland map, but you can't move aquatic units into the province.

Re: Underwater site searching
 

Sea Oak is a N2, non-rare.

Re: Underwater site searching
 

Thanks Chris, you're right about Sea Oak, it's N2, non-unique.