Must confess to being a fan of getting a mage out searching very early on. As long as he's got two paths on him he gets booted out the door. Sooner you find the sites, the sooner you profit from them. (Cue Max Wilson and one of his South Park Gnomes analogies
). He can even lead an expansion party, and have an Indy commander meet him to take over expansion duties while he gets to work.
And this counts double for me with Earth mages, since hitting a gold mine or two within the first 10 turns can do wonders for your economy.