[FrankTrollman]

Usually I send at least one top-tier national mage with each early expansion army. That means that an expanding Man army gets a Crone, and an expanding Machaka army gets a Sorcerer (or Black Sorcerer). This way I can search each newly conquered province for sites as soon as it comes available.

In almost all cases, my research mages are the minor national mages - Daughters of Avalon, Dryads, Witch Doctors, Initiates of the Deep. The high class mages search for magic sites, and that means that they might as well be with the army while it moves forward.

A classic Man army, for example, contains a Castelan and a Crone, and a huge pile of Longbowmen. The Longbowmen sit in the back in several piles and shoot stuff. There is also a small group of piles of riff raff that holds and attacks in the front to confuse indeps. You take a province, the Crone searches, the Castelan patrols, you set taxes down to about 80%, and you buy whatever crap the province can build. The next turn you set taxes up again, you fold the lousy troops you just bought into your army as a skirmishing farce and you move on. Each army takes an indep province every other turn and you maximize your income of Nature, Air, and Gold from the get-go.

Home researchers should be evaluated in terms of gold to research efficiency, so there's no reason to use a Norna or a Deep Seer when a Seith or an Initiate will do. The searching, however, needs a big mage, so the mage may as well help out however she can in the main army at the same time.

-Frank