[curtadams]

If you've got a 2 all-around pretender 1 turn moving and 1 turn searching will (ignoring blood) save you 7x2 = 14 gems, and, assuming you're getting five research from each search caster, 35 research. Said pretender only generates (7x2+3)x2 = 34 research in those two turns. So you're gaining 14 gems and 1 research point for the cost of missing level 3 and 4 sites. Generally speaking, that's a pretty good deal.

Of course you can't really use those gems until you have some research, and researchers are very limited at the start. So it generally makes sense for your rainbow pretender to research for a while - but after you've got good research going he's an efficient searcher.

In general manual searching is more efficient that spell searching. Manual searching spends gold (the cost of the searchers or their replacements in the case of a rainbow) but saves gems. Cost varies with your research cost, but it's usually a better deal than alchemizing. However, it's a LOT more work and not really worth it for most people -although out of habit I use search squads.