The value of site searching rainbow pretenders

[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!

[Caduceus]

Not that I am expert, but your 2-3 leveled pretender who is searching in friendly dominion is also more protected, if he has a small army with him, as this will increase his HP which can be a bit dicey earlier in the game.

[Taqwus]

Hmmm. Perhaps I've missed something, but you CAN'T search ten provinces in ten consecutive turns with the same pretender.

It should be noted that Arcane Probing and Dark Knowledge only require a single point in the relevant magic paths, making them particularly good candidates for remote searches. Even a Lizard Shaman can find you all astral sites this way without items or empowerment, and a Revenant does the same for death.

[Saxon]

Hmm, 50 out of 400 is about 12.5% and they tend to be the richest of the bunch. While I agree that the radar spells are great, I do find hitting level four for the bless and a chunk of the gem sites useful. Level 3 is what I find questionable.

[Edi]

Some of them are the richest, but a lot of them are either rare or unique or both. That means that betting on finding them is uncertain at best and results in lots of idling for a powerful researcher/forger.

I do have a good handle on which sites are unique based on both the Dom2 Site DB and names, but the problem is that uniqueness is also tied to the location masks (it's one more value for the mask).

I can divine most of the masks and frequencies from the old DB, but I need either the source code or somebody reverse engineering the masks out of the game somehow for the rest of them.

Edi