[Leblanc]

The problem seems to be that the physical world, in which we are people playing Dominions and the game exists as a series of commands on our computers, and the world of Dominions, in which we play gods, are not being thought of as seperate. If we are thinking of ourselves as inhabitants of the game world then yes, the sites probably existed before, as mineral deposits dont frequently appear out of nowhere (though they do sometimes I suppose). Since they are simply minerals, whether or not they are truly magic and thus dectectable by acashic recodrd could be debated, but that is missing the point entirely. The point is that the world of Dominions exists only in our computers. It was programmed by other people who coded certain commands that would occasionaly 'create' sites in capital provences. If we look at the code, the site did not exist before hand. We have the knowlage that it could cerainly, but it is not coded into the game that it exists at the begginning of the game. If we classify that as knowing a non-existent object then so be it.

Thats just my thoughts in the argument, but in the end Im wondering exactly why it is even being pursued with such vigor. As I attempted to say above, it is an argument purely of point of view and semantics and, further more, it is completely irrelevnt for any reason other than pointless pontificating. Unidentified sites do not exist in your starting province at the begginning of the game. Later, if certain things happen in the coding triggering an event, a site can appear that was not there before in strictly game terms. If we think as inhabitants of the game world perhaps the site was there.

In the end it hardly seems to matter much at all...