Using "Acashic Record" to Find Gem Sites?

[Frostmourne27]

Graeme is correct - although he hinted at it, it is in some way NOT random. That is, a mage with the strands that is N7 always has the same max search using it, although it is a random amount up to that number every turn, in every province. IMHO it's a pretty crappy spell - by the time you get it, you should have site searched almost everywhere. Especially if the fix the site search algorithms.

[Graeme Dice]

Frostmourne27 said:
Graeme is correct - although he hinted at it, it is in some way NOT random. That is, a mage with the strands that is N7 always has the same max search using it, although it is a random amount up to that number every turn, in every province. IMHO it's a pretty crappy spell - by the time you get it, you should have site searched almost everywhere. Especially if the fix the site search algorithms.

The only time I've used it in multiplayer was in a game as R'lyeh where I had hoarded a little more than 100 clams, and needed as much defense against the four or five people that swarmed me as possible. I was using it more for defense against mages than as a site searcher, though it tended to find a few sites every turn.

[dirtywick]

Frostmourne27 said:
Graeme is correct - although he hinted at it, it is in some way NOT random. That is, a mage with the strands that is N7 always has the same max search using it, although it is a random amount up to that number every turn, in every province. IMHO it's a pretty crappy spell - by the time you get it, you should have site searched almost everywhere. Especially if the fix the site search algorithms.

I agree, it would be much more useful for site searching if it was a lower level. I'd like to see it seperated from the global mind duel and put into Thaum at 7 or something.

I guess though you really would be using it for global mind duel with a high astral mage instead of site searching anyway.

[Edi]

Strands does site searching according to the magics of the mage who cast it and won't find sites from paths the mage doesn't have. That's how it seemed to work in Dom2 when a friend of mine used a Pythian Arch Theurg to put it up. Thoroughly useless for site searching if you have set up dedicated radar teams or have the gems to blow on Acashic scanning.

Edi

[GamerMan12]

There is a lot of suffering from Dom2 syndrome here - in Dom3 Strands of Arcane Power works as advertised, it does a level 9 search in all paths in all provinces with friendly dominion. I was playing on the 480 province map, with high dominion and after the massive first turn was getting 6 to 10 provinces per turn discovered to have magic sites.

GM12

[Nerfix]

GamerMan12 said:
There is a lot of suffering from Dom2 syndrome here - in Dom3 Strands of Arcane Power works as advertised, it does a level 9 search in all paths in all provinces with friendly dominion. I was playing on the 480 province map, with high dominion and after the massive first turn was getting 6 to 10 provinces per turn discovered to have magic sites.

GM12

!!! Ye Umors! I must cast that spell soon!

[thejeff]

Why were you getting 6-10 new provinces with gem sites a turn?

That many (plus) switching to your dominion/conquered?

I assume it only works on provinces you own?

[FrankTrollman]

If it works at all like it did in the past, it would be because each province has its searched numbers go up randomly each turn. So one turn a province would be searched at Nature 1, the next turn it might be searched at Nature 2.

So with a big empire, the strands will continue to trickle in magic sites for a long time. In Dominions 2, this only wrked if you happened to be a Rainbow God (or someone who had wished for "Magic Power" but apparently in Dominions 3 it just works.

-Frank

[Frostmourne27]

GamerMan12 said:
There is a lot of suffering from Dom2 syndrome here - in Dom3 Strands of Arcane Power works as advertised, it does a level 9 search in all paths in all provinces with friendly dominion. I was playing on the 480 province map, with high dominion and after the massive first turn was getting 6 to 10 provinces per turn discovered to have magic sites.

GM12

Ummm... nowhere in the manual or in game does it say it does level 9 site searches. (Spell desription in maual is on page 217) so if it's doing level 9 searches, it is most definatly NOT doing what it should. That said, having it do level nine searches actually seems reasonable. Maybe have it do like d8+(domstrength/3) level nine searches in each province you control?

[FrankTrollman]

I'd prefer a d(dominon) searches in each province you control each turn.

Which may actually be what it's doing now.

-Frank