Tip: Looking for advice on site searching

[Edi]

To answer an earlier question, the limit of four sites per province has always been there, ever since the days of Dominions PPP. It may not have been stated anywhere in the manual, but it's one of the things that has so far been set in stone, in triplicate.

For the sake of completeness, site determination mechanics, courtesy of KO from the days of Dominions 2:

MAGIC SITE FREQUENCY
Kristoffer O posted 03 April, 2004 10:46

Not sure of the exact numbers.
(I'm not sure of the specifics. Waste might be 30, swamp and mountain 20. 'just a guess.)
I guess it works like this:

Magic: (site freq) + 30
Waste: (site freq) + 20
Swamp: (site freq) + 20
Mountain: (site freq) + 10
Forest: (site freq) + 10
Farm: (site freq) - 20

Only the most beneficial counts.

If site: Check what site. Random.
If site not possible: Reroll.
If site unique and already in the game: Reroll.
If site possible and rare: Reroll once.

Many nature sites are common but restricted to forests etc.

Unique sites are also rare or common. Inkpot end is unique and common. Crown of Darkness is rare.

No blood under water IIRC. Indeed, there are no underwater blood sites ~Edi

[Endoperez]

Once again, great compilation! I wonder when owning actual Dominions isn't necessary because Edi's "Dom Database 40 000" includes a turn-by-turn walkthrough of just how you lost.

[vfb]

It's a bit inconvenient that Bowl of Blood automatic searching targets water provinces, when there aren't any blood sites in water. It would be nice if it skipped water provinces.

[thejeff]

Haven't looked at this in the database, but I assume the Era tag only applies to capital-only sites and is intended to distinguish between capital sites of the same names that have different cap-only units and/or produce different gems in different eras.

National sites do not appear randomly. Each nation gets one or more in it's capital.

[Bastiat]

One more question. Edi's 'SiteMasks' have fields like "any land but forest, swamp".

Let's say you are trying to figure out if some MagicSiteX can spawn in a province. The MagicSiteX is tagged with "any land but forest, swamp". If the province you are searching has Farm and Swamp site features.

Does that mean that MagicSiteX CANNOT spawn there because it violates the "but swamp" condition?

...or, CAN it spawn there because the province has Farm, which meets the "any land" condition?

[thejeff]

It definitely does not. (Even if it did, unless it also took into account initial placement it would pretty much be a wash in any but the smallest games.)

Observer bias as rdonj said. You're also most likely searching more completely in the paths you're strongest in. It's really only fair to compare income in paths you've searched completely ... and subtract any capital income.

I've definitely had very bad luck with national path sites in some games. One MP as Man, I think I'd found maybe an extra 2 Air gem income, but had found Necromancers and was swimming in Death gems. MA Man as a death power, not where I was planning to go... Then I got stomped by Ermor.

In general, I think I tend to find more Nature and Death than others but it varies.