[Trumanator]

Well, #1 your expansion parties were pretty overkill considering normal indy settings, you should aim for 15 provs by late winter year 1. Also, you don't need that many mages searching in one group, since it gave you a lot of overlap. Take a sorceror with a 2 in all his paths + an N2+ mage and search with them. switch to remote searching after you have some gem income.