early game expansion tactics

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Andy:
so what viable options are there for exploration/magic site discovery if I don't use my pretender?

I know there are spells that do the job, but they each seem to only cover one affinity which equates to a LOT of spells if I want to check every province in my empire.

Acashic Record, Conjuration level 5, requires Astral-3 to cast, will search the entire province and reveal all sites. Using this will require a good source of gem income, though, since it's 25 astrals per pop. If your nation has an astral gem source as part of its home province, you're well set. Otherwise, you can try the cheaper single-affinity search spells to try to expand your gem income, and then do the Acashic Record for a much more thorough sweep of anything left.