Are there holy sites?
 

I just realized that I don't think I've ever seen a holy site, but that's possibly because I usually have my pretender do the searching, and he has no holy skills.

Do holy sites exist? I'm guessing the answer is no, since there seems to be no holy-specific search spell, but who knows...

Re: Are there holy sites?
 

Yes Holy sites exist. The most common one I encounter is something like "Ruined Temple" and gives +1 Astral gem per turn.

Re: Are there holy sites?
 

yeah, they usually decrease unrest, kill undead and demonic troops, and let you recruit priests.

Re: Are there holy sites?
 

ummm, no... where did you get that from? the most common holy site by far is the UW site that gives +1 pearl. above the seas it's rarer to find holy sites but they're still there. when I finally run into a holy site, either in SP or MP, it usually generates a random pair of gems.

Re: Are there holy sites?
 

those are the ones I've encountered.
such as the Hidden Temple/Monastery.

Re: Are there holy sites?
 

There's one holy site that blasts any undead in the province - which is a good indication one needs to search there ;).

Other than that though, I haven't looked up the various dbs but I believe from personnal experience that:

- holy sites tend to be a bit more likely in open plains and farmlands, where regular magic sites are rarer
- even so they're about as rare as Blood sites, so 1 in 10-15 provinces.
- the UW sunken temple is a lot more common than the overland one, presumably because the complete list of UW sites is shorter.

The grand majority give at least an astral gem, some a few randoms, and I know at least one lets you recruit regular indie priests without a temple.
Mostly they're not really worth getting a headache over unless you're really hurting for Astral. If your nation has decent sitesearchers who also happen to be H1-3 then great. Do that instead of remote site searches if you've got the time. If not, meh.

Re: Are there holy sites?
 

Interestingly enough, there is actually a level 4 Holy site that you will never find. As I recall it is rather terrible though. Have only seen it in the wiki.

Personally I suspect that if you take the number of holy sites + number of astral sites = the average number of elemental sites. So if you are interested in astral pearls for some unknown reason, it could be a good idea to send a lvl 2 priest to look around a bit.

Re: Are there holy sites?
 

you can still find level H4 with either a H4 summoned unit(there are a few) or a H3 prophet(turns into H4). probably not worth the trouble and that unit will have better things to do than manual search your empire for 1 measly site, but it's not impossible ;)

Re: Are there holy sites?
 

Or of course with Acashic Record. Not really worth it, of course, but if you've got gems to burn.

I'll often do some site searching with my prophet and whatever other pure priests I have around after expansion and between wars.

Re: Are there holy sites?
 

Actually, by impossible, I meant that it was rare. It has a rarity of 2. Now, I don't know exactly what that mean but there are plenty of rarity 2 sites in the wiki that I have never seen even after using site searching spells. Most magic paths have 5-7 sites that are rarity 2, that you could potentially find if searching. Holy has just one, so its much less common to find one.

Rarity 2 is the least common site type, after rarity 5, witch are national sites and can not be found at random at all.