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[jhxmt]

I played my first ever (tutorial) game of this the other night, having picked it up in the Steam sale.

I already love this game.

[BFEL]

So I only have the 3rd in this series, but since they are so similar I was hoping someone could give me some tips on strategy?

Specifically I want to know how you guys deal with the whole "searching for magic sites" thing. I have the bad habit of simply NEVER DOING IT and thus end up being left floundering magic-wise outside of LA Ermor games.

So what would you guys suggest to break me out of this stupid thing I (don't) do?

[Criptfeind]

I dunno if this is the same in dominions 3, but in 4 the hotkey to select your next commander who doesn't have orders is 'N'. I find that using that was super helpful to get me to check for magic sites more, since my big issue there was I might assign guys to it, but forget to order them around every turn. If you do the same thing then hopefully that can help you.

[USEC_OFFICER]

So what would you guys suggest to break me out of this stupid thing I (don't) do?

...

Search for magic sites more? Not sure how I can put it less obvious, but... yeah. Maybe 12~ turns in, rename one of your mages to 'Searcher' and site search with them? The name makes it obvious what they're supposed to be doing in case you ever are confused, and since you already have one site searcher running about you'll probably remember to get some more running about too. That's the best I can suggest.

[E. Albright]

If you're really lazy about searching, and especially if you're playing Dom3 where rituals don't have range limits, use "M" to set a couple of mages on infinite sitesearch spellcasting duty. It's zero effort even if it's only one path at a time and costs more than manual searching.

[Kagus]

Yeah, and some mages are just better searchers than others.  Like, if you're playing MA T'ien Ch'i, pop an imperial alchemist out really early on and just have him sniff around all the provinces your expansion parties have taken over.  Wide magic spreads like that are dreams when it comes to securing an early gem income, even if they are "just" low-level in each field.

But yeah, I like to use site search spells a lot...  Part laziness, part impatience.  Takes a minimum of two turns for a mage to first travel to the province and then search it (frequently more), while remote searching is just the one turn.

...unfortunately, it also has a nasty habit of burning a lot of the resources you hope to gain from doing just that.  Unless it's Voice of Tiamat.

[Frumple]

If you're really lazy about searching, and especially if you're playing Dom3 where rituals don't have range limits, use "M" to set a couple of mages on infinite sitesearch spellcasting duty. It's zero effort even if it's only one path at a time and costs more than manual searching.

Echo this for D3. Usually a pretty good use for indie mages, even, if you've got floating boosters that aren't seeing more productive use. As noted, bit more expensive gem wise, but it's usually significantly more efficient mage-time wise, which has its place.

Also can hope you luck upon a conj. site, then spew akashic knowledge or whatever that is all over the place. Or get clams rolling and do that anyway, since you'll be drowning in pearls... pretty sure vanilla D3 never got around to limiting gemgens. Spell's usually ridiculously inefficient, gem wise, but if you've got a bunch of spare pearls and nothing better to do with 'em...

[Kagus]

No such thing as spare pearls.  Still though...

Yeah, pretty sure Dom3 ran on the same unlimited system as the predecessors.  At least clams were changed to 3W1N, rather than the hilarious 2W Lesser Magical Item they were in the first game.  Ahh, Dominions 1...  So much hysterical bullshit.  Also in Dom3 I think Akashic Record (the site search was called Record there, they still had fully open score graphs) only cost 10 pearls, rather than the 25 it costs in Dom4.

[Frumple]

Nah, it's 25 in D3, too. I would know, I've spammed the thing enough as LA Ermor or whatev'. It's actually pretty gem efficient to use if you're playing a 75% magic site game >_>

[thepodger]

No! Do NOT use site searching spells.  You will waste HUNDREDS upon hundreds of gems and mage turns doing that.  A level 1 mage will find almost every site in the game--astral is the only exception.  Astral you can argue that its optimal for level 2 mage to site search.  But never, ever, cast site searching spells.  The only exception to this is Hinomnomnomom.  It may be worth it for them since all their mages are two path.  Still a gigantic gemsink.

Think of all the summons and battlemagic you could cast with that entire game's worth of site searching.  How many more mages you can front if two mage turns is turning out four path searching.

It's a horrible waste and its the first step on the path toward winning a game of Dominions.
Site searching spells are the crack cocaine of the Dominions universe--terrible end game and hard to stop once you start.

^^
lol

[Il Palazzo]

Pfft. The first step to winning in Dominions is becoming a perfectionist. How can you call yourself one if you don't make sure you've searched for all possible sites in every province you own?

[E. Albright]

No! Do NOT use site searching spells.  You will waste HUNDREDS upon hundreds of gems and mage turns doing that.  A level 1 mage will find almost every site in the game--astral is the only exception.

Actually, a level 1 will only find around 60% of sites, and that's pretty uniform across paths. A level 2 will find around 90%.

As to whether you're burning mage-turns or just gems, that mostly comes down to your national paths. If you don't have a lot of mages with multiple low paths, you'll be sending multiple mages out to search so the mage-turn argument breaks down. The gems argument is not as clearcut as it first seems either, as it takes at least twice as long to search for a single path with roving mages instead of spells, and those extra turns you'll not be gaining income from whatever sites you find. So while the spells are expensive, they're effectively less expensive than the list price because of their speed. They also don't require you putting your mage at risk to search, so for rare mages that's a major point in their favor. They also can be handy when an event suggests a hidden site is lurking in a particular area.

Generally, I'd not recommend going as crazy with site-searching spells in Dom4 as in Dom3, particularly for nations with mages boasting multiple low paths. But the sitesearching spells have their place, and their uses. And as Il Palazzo points out, if you don't use them, then how will you know when you've found everything?!?!?!?

[Culise]

I agree.  1 is usually enough, but 2 is best, and 3 or a site search spell can be a really good idea if you see a province with odd scales that don't match the local dominion and haven't found anything with the lesser path searchers.  Quite a few sites have extra scale effects that are active even when hidden, as anyone who's walked into a Well of Pestilence by accident will be unfortunately reminded.

[Criptfeind]

Are thrones more likely to have magic sites by the way? Specially high level thrones?

[thepodger]

As long as each mage has more than two paths, the mage turn argument is valid. Every three path mage searches three paths every two turns.  Every site search remote spell searches one path every turn.  The more 3+ path mages you send out searching, the larger the more turns saved.  You're not thinking.

There's a good breakdown of why site searching rules and how to make the most of it right here:
http://www.desura.com/games/dominions-4-thrones-of-ascensions/forum/thread/site-searching-by-path-level-an-empirical-study

Are thrones more likely to have magic sites by the way? Specially high level thrones?

I haven't done a test but it sure seems that way.  If you're gonna exhaustively search a province, it's probably most worth it to remote search those.