[OG_Gleep]

The site searching spells search with a power of 9, it will find any sites for that particular path. There are a couple of other spells, an Astral 3 spell that will find all sites in a provence, including holy sites. There is another spell that will find all elemental sites in a provence.

They all take gems, so you will either have to alchemize, or do some manual searching to find them.

To get a good feel for magic, you might want to try a Rainbow pretender in your next game. Any pretender that costs 10 per path will do, then take 2-4 in every path that your national mages don't have access to (try to get 3 astral). Put Magic sites on 75% and have a ball.

I typically use castles in two ways. As a forward recruting stations, and as speed bumps for opposing armies, placed in tactical positions (borders/chokepoints/ports etc.). If you plan to use it as a forward recruiting station, placement is important. The higher the admin, and the more resource rich provences around it, the more resources you will get access to.

As PK said, boosters are very important. Boosters can turn a Sage useless sage with 1 death, into a Wicked crazy sage with 8 death (absolutley not advisable, but its possible). Its useful to know what your options are, as you can instead use items to boost your pretender, and save a lot of points during creation.

3. I didn't see anyone mention PD. Have you figured out how to use Provence Defense? In the top right corner, you will see the word defense and a number. You can raise this by spending gold. The higher the level, the more troops will be available for defense should anyone attack it. There is a chart in the manual I believe that shows what each nation has for PD. They are not all created equally however. Having 11 PD for Jotun, and 11 PD for Citis is very different. At certain intervals, you gain certain things. I think recommended intervals are 1,11,21,31. The AI will normally go after the lowest PD provence when deciding its attack route. A strong PD is often enough of a detterant to keep the AI at bay. The great thing about PD is it doesn't cost upkeep, and as long as you retain the provence, you get fresh troops for each attack, and they can catch stealth units. I tend to put atleast 1 in PD for every provence. Getting to see the layout of the enemy army is well worth 1 g.