[Edi]

I use single path spells all the time, typically when I can afford it, I designate a group of mages that contains most (sometimes even all) of the required magics as a radar squad and when I get a new province, it gets hit with everything.

I'm almost religious about site searching whichever way I can get it done, because it directly impacts on survivability.

Astral and death are easiest to get, you need just one magic to get lv 9 search and you can do it every turn. Nature is also easy (as long as you find druids if you don't have it natively). The elements are generally rather difficult to get if you don't have native mages who can do the searches. Of course, it's possible to find a site with indie mages who can give you some capability, but most of those are already lv2+ elemental sites, or nature (Enchanted Forest, Flowering Forest etc, N### Enchantresses will eventually produce radar mages).

Edi