Tip Looking for advice on site searching

Edi · #1 March 24th, 2008, 07:02 AM

Quote:

Kristoffer O said:
There might be a list of sites somewhere in the modding threads. I don't think it presents rarity, but might display path requirements.

Dom3 DB. Has a full list of sites, including level requirements, rarity and what terrain they appear in.

Out of the 709 sites, 149 are national start sites or sites that only appear by event, special script or in special scenarios, so they can be disregarded. That leaves 560 sites that can appear randomly.

All paths have at least one lv 4 site. Astral has 4, Holy, Fire and Death have 2, Nature has 3. All told there are 17 lv 4 sites out of 560 possible random sites and all lv 4 sites are rare. Meaning that if they get rolled on the first try, the site is rolled again and if you also get it on the second try, only then will it be placed in the province. In actual games I've found 10 of them all told and that's including all of my Dominions 2 games.

There are 66 lv 0 sites (meaning automatically visible), 16 rare (3 unique), 22 uncommon (8 unique) and 19 common (0 unique) and 16 of them are unique.

There are 252 lv 1 sites, 65 rare (9 unique), 119 uncommon (35 unique) and 68 common (1 unique).

There are 158 lv 2 sites, 70 rare (29 unique), 86 uncommon (25 unique) and 2 common (1 unique)

There are 68 lv 3 sites, 42 rare (30 unique), 18 uncommon (17 unique) and 7 common (no unqiues). The remaining one is a special site with special defenders and appears very rarely if it gets selected for in the determination of special provinces.

Another note about unique sites is that they can only appear once on the map, no matter their frequency, unless they are scripted in the map file, because map file scripting is run only after random site determination has been done.

Kristoffer O · #2 March 24th, 2008, 07:19 AM

Nice break down.

Edi · #3 March 24th, 2008, 08:14 AM

I'll post a breakdown by magic path later. Right now I've got to go.

Edi · #4 March 24th, 2008, 04:07 PM

Okay, here's a breakdown of sites by path and level within each path. Startsites are excluded and so are The Desert Eye and Throne of the World because they only appear in that one scenario.

574 sites, around 560 of which are truly randomly determined. There is no analysis of what sites appear in what terrain, that would require a separate crosschecking against the DB and is much more work than I care to do. Effective number means that special sites (frequency 5, appears from event or invalid locmask) are not included.

FIRE, 56 sites (54 effective)

Level 0: 5 sites, 1 common, 2 uncommon (1 unique), 1 rare, 1 special scriptable (Desert)
Level 1: 29 sites, 7 common, 12 uncommon (1 unique), 9 rare, 1 special (36 Oleg's Alchemical Device)
Level 2: 17 sites, 0 common, 12 uncommon (4 unique), 5 rare (2 unique)
Level 3: 3 sites, 1 common, 1 uncommon (1 unique), 1 rare (1 unique)
Level 4: 2 sites, rare, unique (180 Prison of the Desert Sun, waste; 533 The Sun Below, waste, cave)

AIR, 57 sites (56 effective)

Level 0: 4 sites, 1 common, 1 uncommon, 2 rare (2 unique)
Level 1: 31 sites, 7 common, 13 uncommon (4 unique), 11 rare
Level 2: 14 sites, 0 common, 11 uncommon (3 unique), 3 rare
Level 3: 7 sites, 1 common, 2 uncommon (2 unique), 3 rare (2 unique), 1 special (22 Bolivar's Tower of Reflections, no locmask)
Level 4: 1 site, rare, unique (213 Palace of Dreams, plains only)

WATER, 89 sites (87 effective)

Level 0: 11 sites, 4 common, 2 uncommon, 4 rare, 1 special scriptable (561 Tundra)
Level 1: 45 sites, 13 common, 25 uncommon (8 unique), 6 rare, 1 special (26 Starke's Ice Cave)
Level 2: 25 sites, 0 common, 9 uncommon (1 unique), 16 rare (6 unique)
Level 3: 7 sites, 1 common, 1 uncommon (1 unique), 5 rare (4 unique)
Level 4: 1 site, rare, unique (245 The Sea Underneath, any land)

EARTH, 111 sites (102 effective)

Level 0: 19 sites, 9 common, 4 uncommon (2 unique), 4 rare (3 unique), 4 special (28 Hoburg, 21 Mine of the Cyclops, no locmasks; 508 The Desert of Ptah, unique, waste; The World Pillar, unique, mountain), 4 event-based (68 Copper Mine, 69 Iron Mine, 67 Silver Mine, 66 Gold Mine)
Level 1: 36 sites, 16 common (1 unique), 9 uncommon (2 unique), 11 rare (1 unique)
Level 2: 29 sites, 1 common (1 unique), 15 uncommon (5 unique), 12 rare (4 unique), 1 special (37 The Deepest Cave of the Province, provided by event)
Level 3: 12 sites, 1 common, 2 uncommon (2 unique), 9 rare (4 unique)
Level 4: 1 site, rare, unique (The Factory, any land but cave)

ASTRAL, 58 sites (57 effective)

Level 0: 3 sites, 0 uncommon, 3 uncommon
Level 1: 24 sites, 4 common, 11 uncommon (1 unique), 8 rare (2 unique), 1 special (20 Surakid's Tower, no locmask)
Level 2: 16 sites, 0 common, 10 uncommon (3 unique), 6 rare (3 unique)
Level 3: 11 sites, 1 common, 1 uncommon (1 unique), 9 rare (8 unique)
Level 4: 4 sites, rare, unique (314 Library of Time, any land but cave; 535 The Endless Field of Cubes, waste; 530 The Mountain of the Past, waste; 494 Throne of Enlightenment, mountain)

DEATH, 73 sites (72 effective)

Level 0: 6 sites, 0 common, 4 uncommon (2 unique), 2 rare (2 unique)
Level 1: 33 sites, 8 common, 17 uncommon (6 unique), 6 rare (2 unique), 1 special (27 The Queen's Galley, no locmask)
Level 2: 20 sites, 0 common, 14 uncommon (4 unique), 6 rare (2 unique)
Level 3: 12 sites, 1 common, 3 uncommon (3 unique), 8 rare (6 unique)
Level 4: 2 sites, rare, unique (482 Crown of Darkness, mountain only; 346 The Shadow Furnace, any land)

NATURE, 86 sites (83 effective)

Level 0: 13 sites, 3 common, 5 uncommon (3 unique), 2 rare (1 unique), 2 special (542 Lyfjaberg, unique, mountain; 505 The Primal Forest, unique, forest), 1 special scriptable (560 Rain Forest)
Level 1: 37 sites, 11 common, 18 uncommon (8 unique), 8 rare (2 unique)
Level 2: 24 sites, 1 common, 12 uncommon (3 unique), 11 rare (5 unique)
Level 3: 9 sites, 1 common, 3 uncommon (3 unique), 5 rare (4 unique)
Level 4: 3 sites, rare, unique (387 Soul of the Wild, any land but cave; 532 The Previous Forest, waste; 493 The Vale of Unicorns, forest)

BLOOD, 39 sites (38 effective)

Level 0: 2 sites, 1 common (388 Arena), 1 uncommon (390 Academy of War)
Level 1: 20 sites, 1 common, 14 uncommon (5 unique), 5 rare (2 unique)
Level 2: 12 sites, 0 common, 1 uncommon (1 unique), 11 rare (7 unique) (one of the rare sites, 634 Bloodshade Glen, cannot be found because it has an invalid locmask)
Level 3: 4 sites, 0 common, 2 uncommon (2 unique), 2 rare (1 unique)
Level 4: 1 site, rare, unique (405 Hall of Flayed Skins, any land but cave)

HOLY, 11 sites (10 effective)

Level 0: 2 sites, 1 rare, 1 special (506 Holy Crypt of Anre, any land but cave, unique)
Level 1: 2 sites, 2 common (1 any land, one only in sea)
Level 2: 2 sites, 2 uncommon (1 unique)
Level 3: 3 sites, 3 uncommon (2 unique)
Level 4: 2 sites, rare (410 Temple of Time, any land, non-unique; 414 The Ward, any land but cave, unique)

Dedas · #5 March 24th, 2008, 04:34 PM

This is really useful! Should be added to the strategy index pronto.

sector24 · #6 March 24th, 2008, 05:09 PM

I have not yet encountered a single level 4 site in my 7 months of play.

Edi · #7 March 24th, 2008, 05:31 PM

Quote:

sector24 said:
I have not yet encountered a single level 4 site in my 7 months of play.

Keep at it. Especially if you play with higher site frequency and religiously search for sites, you will see them sooner or later.

I've got to see if I still have the Dominions 2 small Faerun SP game around where I had IIRC 3 lv 4 sites in the same province. Yes, count'em, 3 level 4 sites! Searched in one of the waste provinces and the place came up with The Sun Below, Prison of the Desert Sun, The Sea Underneath (all lv 4) and The Sea of the Tears of Men (lv 2 rare). Or then I had that lot in two adjacent provinces. I did have all of them in the same game and the gem income from the province was absolutely ridiculous.

Unfortunately I do not seem to have that game anymore.

Saxon · #8 March 26th, 2008, 06:26 AM

Well, I make 66% of 70% to be 46%. That is not bad for those indies. You can always trade or alchemize the gems you don't need, but it could well be worth it.

Thanks again Endo

Edratman · #9 March 26th, 2008, 11:53 AM

The best way to site search is a recurrent thread that I have followed for more than a year.

There has never been any consensus or decisive determination of the best technique because of the limitations that are the backbone of the game.

Everyone acknowledges that level 4 search finds all sites, in that path, which is preferable to lower level searches. The problem is that no nation has the wherewithal to check all the 8 paths (not counting blood) at level 4, either with manual search or site searching spells. Everyone has path limitations, gem limits, etc, which define boundries to searching abilities.

Thus I have concluded that the correct answer to site searching is to do the best you can with the available resources combining manual and site searching spells. If a province already has 4 sites, don't search it anymore. If you have searched at level 1, it is worthwhile to search again at level 2 to 4. If you have searched at level 2 or 3, a level 4 search is only practical if you have the resources available and no other pressing need for them.

Of course, if you have 2 or 3 mages with all 9-paths at level 4 or better, a manual search is recommended.

vfb · #10 March 30th, 2008, 09:06 AM

I hadn't played water nations much until recently, except for some subbing, and I think I've been pretty inefficient in my site searching.

From Edit's DB it looks like sites are pretty sparse in the oceans. No blood of course, and:

In Sea: Code:



Path    Highest level

----    -------------

B       None

HF      1

DN      2

AWES    3

In Deep Sea: Code:



Path    Highest level

----    -------------

BHA     None

FDN     1 *

W       2

ES      3



* According to DB, should be "none", but is at least 1.

I really should have done this about 20 turns ago

.

Edit: Took a look at my game, and I think there are more deep sea sites than the DB suggests. Update coming soon...