[Jazzepi]

I believe that the sites are all rolled up randomly by the generation mechanism for each map. When it is created all the sites are already distributed. That being said, let me try to give some insight as best I can. I'm not good with probability, Ich is, so hopefully he'll respond.

1) AFAIK, sites are only related to one particular magical type. A sight that produces both earth, water, fire, and astral gems will only be a site of one type. This means that searching all the nature sites to level 4 will not reduce the chances of finding an astral site that also produces nature gems.

2) It's useful to look at the # of sites in a distribution along the levels. There are more level 1 sites then level 2 so on and so forth with their being more level 2 sites then level 3 and more level 3 than level 4. Literally 95% of sites are level 1-3 which is why I always advocate that rainbow site searching mages take level 3, not 4, of a given magic path if all you care about is finding sites. You'd have to actually bring up Edi's open office spread sheet with every site in it, organize it by a given type, and then count the # of sites of a particular level to figure out the probabilities.

Suffice it to say, I don't consider a province fully searched until I've done so up to at least level 3. I would never site search, unless I was desperate, with a level 1 path mage. I would site search with a level 2 in multiple paths like EA Ten'Chi's flying capital only mages, or with a mage in 3-4 in a single path.

Hope that helps.

Jazzepi