The value of site searching rainbow pretenders

[Strages Sanctus]

Does it really make sense to use a rainbow pretender for site searching?

I have a 4 across the board pretender and searched 10 provinces in 10 consecutive turns and found 4 sites.

Those 10 turns = 390 research which is the most basic (obvious you can get in to ritual casting and forging too) which seems far more valuable than a handful of sites that will generate a few gems a turn for you.

[Shovah32]

Well using a 4 all round pretender for searching IS a bad idea imo, use him to research and forge/cast things. A 2 or 3 allround pretender on the otherhand makes a good site-searcher.

[Edi]

That depends on the site frequency used and the types of provinces you have. Searching farms with the pretender isn't too good, swamps, forests and mountains are a better idea. But I'd rather use him for research and lesser mages burning gems on radar spells like haruspex, augury etc to find sites. If you use a high site frequency, the pretender may be justified going out every now and then but generally that kind of magic stays home at work instead of spending half the time twiddling his thumbs (moving from place to place).

Edi

[Strages Sanctus]

ok, that makes much more sense to me. Thanks!.

So most sites are found at much lower levels of magic?

I have seen posts to that effect. I guess I should look in the manual to see if it has anything about the number of sites that can only be found at x level of magical ability.

[Shovah32]

Almost all sites are lvl 2 or below.

[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.

[Strages Sanctus]

Some great info, thanks!

[NTJedi]

Strages Sanctus said:
Does it really make sense to use a rainbow pretender for site searching?

Depending on the magic site frequency and current actions/distance of your neighbors a rainbow pretender can be quite useful. Searching with a rainbow pretender almost provides the same value as casting Ashaic(sp?) Record which costs 25 astral for one spell. Sometime during midgame it's better to return the rainbow mage to a lab where all future time is spent casting spells, forging items and summoning creatures.

[RamsHead]

I like rainbow pretenders. Like others here have already said, they pay off in the long run. They are useful as site searchers, but they can also research, forge items, summon creatures, and cast artillery spells. You will always have a rainbow pretender doing something important.

[Turin]

If you go for a rainbow mage, don´t put anything in the paths covered by your national mages. It´s usually much cheaper to bring a mage or two along for the sitesearching than to spend the designpoints on raising those paths.