Searching? Searching for Magic Sites?

[rsolow]

The manual states on page 44, "....a level 3 Nature Mage will find any difficulty 1, 2, or 3 sites ina province when he/she searches"

Will the nature mage only find Nature magic sites? Or ANY magic sites -- even Astral, Earth, Fire etc.

[Teraswaerto]

Only nature sites, you need a fire mage to find fire sites, etc. The spell Acashic Records finds all sites.

[rsolow]

Teraswaerto said:
Only nature sites, you need a fire mage to find fire sites, etc.

That is what I would have guessed, but I am playing a game now and I have managed to find two "Wild Forrests" (each of which produce one Nature gem per turn)....and I do not have any commanders with Nature skills. My Pretender (immobile and still dormant at this point) has Nature-10 -- could that have something to do with it?

[Teraswaerto]

Some magic sites are level 0, they are always visible.

[Peter Ebbesen]

That is what I would have guessed, but I am playing a game now and I have managed to find two "Wild Forrests" (each of which produce one Nature gem per turn)....and I do not have any commanders with Nature skills. My Pretender (immobile and still dormant at this point) has Nature-10 -- could that have something to do with it?

The path of a site does not determine the gems it produce.

There is a connection: It will most often produce gems of the same type as the site but it is not always the case. Some sites produce gems of several types and some produce gems of another type than the path needed to discover them. (And e.g. Holy Sites often give astral) This is good, as it opens up for a broader variety of strategies and allows - if you are lucky - access to gems in paths of magic your nation is weak in.

Also, some sites have path requirement 0, meaning they'll be found by anyone.

[rsolow]

And one more question....

If there are only 4 levels of difficulty for finding magic sites (page 44), why does Acashic Record (page 209) peform "level-9 searches" ....wouldn't a level 4 search reveal all magic sites in a province since there are only 4 levels of search difficulty?

Put another way, what is the advantage of a level 9 search when a level 4 search is all that is required to find even the most well hid magic sites in a province?

[Teraswaerto]

No advantage really, except that if sites that require more than 4 levels appear in a patch or mod or something, Acashic Records will be sure to find them too. All the other path-specific searching spells also search at level 9.