[Huzurdaddi]

They are really unbalanced. It's painfully clear. Most nations who do not find them for one reason or another have horrible research. Those that do find them have good research.

You can somewhat insulate yourself from the horror of not finding mages by taking magic-3 scale and playing one of the nations who has decent base researchers ( woe to he who plays Abysia, Nieflehem, or Ulm and does not find Sages). If you find one or two of these sites early in the game you can rest assured that all other things being equal you will do pretty well in the game. If you have not found any by turn 30 well you had better be kicking *** in some other phase of the game.