questions (and is there a FAQ anywhere?)

[merlinme]

Yes I realise that the "Any Land" Nature sites can appear in mountains. However if (as I assume) the game compiles a weighted list (allowing on rarity) for each site in a province, then the chances are significantly lower of getting a Nature site in mountains. If we just look at Common frequency sites, then in a mountain province you would have a chance of 3 Nature sites, one of which doesn't give gems so is fairly useless. So that's two Common sites giving a Nature gem. There are 21 Any terrain Common sites which don't give a Nature gem, and 15 other Common sites which can appear on Mountains. So, if a mountain province has two sites, the chances of one of them giving you a Nature gem are (very approximately) 1 - (36/38 * 36/38). Which I make to be about 10%.

In a Forest province there are 5 Common Nature sites which give a gem, and eight other Common Forest sites. So the chances of getting a Nature gem casting Haruspex are (very approximately) 1 - (22/29 * 22/29). Which I make to be about 42%.

Obviously the maths is all very approximate and I'm sure there will be some errors there, and it depends on the exact formula. But the fact remains that if you check two Forest sites in Dom2 using Haruspex, the chances are you should get a Nature gem, whereas you can check 6 mountains provinces using Haruspex (as I did) and still only be about 50/50 to find a Nature gem.