The value of site searching rainbow pretenders

[curtadams]

It's a tough call on what to do with national paths. You will be able to get strong magic in national paths eventually, but unless you can get level 4 nationals your rainbow pretender can cast and search for your national paths better. Since you get bonus gems in your national paths - and generally can best use gems in your national paths - 4 in national paths can have big benefits in the early and midgame. Of course there's also bless benefits. People ignore the small benefits because they seem so wimpy compared to the level 9 blesses, but if your sacreds are worth getting anyway, +2 attack/defense/+afflictions/etc. is a pretty nice boost.

[Strages Sanctus]

Ermor ashen empire so my early game is fragile already.

I have no idea how to build SCs...

[Saxon]

One thing to mention about taking level four in the paths you are expecting to search. That can play into a bless plan. If you have decent sacred troops and they have five or six minor bless effects on them, while you are able to search early on and then retire to the lab, it might work out.

If you are thinking of going down this route, look closely at the special site frequency in the game set up. If you put it low, you might want to avoid this plan, but if you crank it up, it becomes more powerful.

As a comment, I use the "radar" spells as heavily and as early as I can. The sooner you get the site, the sooner you start getting more gems. You have to invest to make money as they say...

[Endoperez]

I usually build my rainbows around path boosters. If I have to choose between Air 3 or Fire 3, I have Fire at 3 to have access to Flame Helmets. If I can afford one path at 4, and my nations has Air mages, getting the Air boosters is well worth the cost. I might take E1 for a MA Ulm rainbow, just to be able to give her Earth Boots and then make Crystal Coins. As Ulm I'd also take Death and Fire for those Flaming Skulls; Fire at 3 to be able to do a Fires from the Sky if it's needed, and Death no lower than 2, to let me start with Skull Staff.

[Edi]

Just a quick note on site levels: Of the 563 sites in the game, roughly 120 are national sites or reserved empty slots. Of the remaining 400-odd sites, there are maybe 50 sites above lv 2 and that's with lv 3 and 4 sites put together. Perhaps a bit more than that, but I'm at work right now and can't access the site DB.

So using a rainbow pretender with values over 2 across the board for site searching is a complete waste of time. It's much better to research Thaumaturgy 2, Evo 2 and Conjuration 4 to get access to all the radar spells.

Edi