[Calahan]

One thing to bear in mind though with early site searching is that it can paint your lands as a very nice early/first target to any aggressive or powerful neighbours you might have. I know if I had the choice of two target of equal power to attempt to rush, and one of them had done a lot of early site-searching resulting in a good gem income, then I'd mostly always pick that one to attack as the rewards for conquering them would be that much higher due to the gem income I'd pick up in the process (and the added bonus of not having had to use my own gems and mages to find those sites)

So if you are a powerhouse nation yourself, then getting the gems flowing early is mostly always a good idea. But if you are one of the weaker nations, getting a big gem income asap might not be such a good idea if you can't hold on to it, and it can even be a potentially bad idea if doing so makes you the most attractive target around to attack.

But it's all situational as Micah says, and all depends on what nation you are, and what neighbours you have. Although I would say it's probably a good idea not to site search until you have found a few, or most of your neighbours. As I find it is usually more difficult to balance early research/site searching ratios without knowing exactly who your neigbours are.