Best method of hunting magical sites?

Carcaroth · #1 April 25th, 2007, 07:11 AM

I've recently gotten hooked on this game, and read through the forum guides I could find and the strategywiki. I've managed to win a few games across the ages in SP, but it always seems like my gem income is low. It's especially telling in my current game as EA Abysia, where I've got maybe 20% of the map (Aran) and found no sites whatsoever, possibly because I've been busy fending off Sauromatia and Yomi. Should I be expanding more slowly so that a battlemage can search each site, or try researching up and setting a low level mage to burn gems on the spells? Any help getting my magic up and running would be appreciated.

Edi · #2 April 25th, 2007, 07:27 AM

It's highly dependent on the particulars of a situation. I tend to use the searching spells a lot and usually always research thaumaturgy 2 and evocation 2 quickly. You should use mages to search for sites early on. Later you can use the searching spells, especially if you have low gem income for those types.

If you're playing with a low site frequency, the spells are less useful because it takes longer to get back the gems you burned searching. If you have mages who have several paths. those are always good to use, because they search many paths at the same time.

Sandman · #3 April 25th, 2007, 07:34 AM

EA Abysia is, IMO, one of the weakest nations for searching. Generally speaking, you want to site search with mages with lots of paths, which the Abysians don't have. Blood magic sites are pretty rare, and in my experience, fire sites aren't easy to find either.

Your Warlocks can cast arcane probing... but you'll need to find astral gems first. You could transmute fire gems, but it's a very wasteful process.

Meglobob · #4 April 25th, 2007, 07:51 AM

Another way of getting alot of gems is the luck-3/turmoil-3 combo, this gives you lots of gem random events.

You could always save up your fire gems as Abysia and reserch upto and cast eternal pyre.

Other than that search like mad and cast as many remote site searching spells as possible. Keep a eye out for any indie mages who have magic unavailable to you as well. It can be worthwhile sometimes to for example recruit indie druids and empower to lvl 2 so you can cast Haruspex.

Juzza · #5 April 25th, 2007, 09:27 AM

Two words Acashic Record, this is a 5th level conjuration spell, you need 3 astral magic to cast it and it cast 25 astral gems, this spell reveals all magical sites in a province, holy, blood, everything, it cost alot of gems but once you get a few provinces done, your getting alot of different gems that you can convert to astral gems, however early age abysia might not be the best nation for this strategy.

quantum_mechani · #6 April 25th, 2007, 10:32 AM

The core of almost any search strategy is the 2-3 gem search spells. Manual searching and acashic record can supplement this, especially to get the initial gems flowing, but single search spells should always be the first choice if avialable.

Meglobob · #7 April 25th, 2007, 10:39 AM

Quote:

quantum_mechani said:
The core of almost any search strategy is the 2-3 gem search spells. Manual searching and acashic record can supplement this, especially to get the initial gems flowing, but single search spells should always be the first choice if avialable.

This is 100% correct but if you have a powerful recruitable mage with 2 or more lvl 4 paths (with path boosting items) then it can be worth having him wonder around site searching.

Nations like EA Atlantis, Marverni etc...can do this. You effectively save 4/gems+ per province then, as opposed to site search spells. More if a path is death.

quantum_mechani · #8 April 25th, 2007, 10:45 AM

Quote:

Meglobob said:

Quote:

quantum_mechani said:
The core of almost any search strategy is the 2-3 gem search spells. Manual searching and acashic record can supplement this, especially to get the initial gems flowing, but single search spells should always be the first choice if avialable.

This is 100% correct but if you have a powerful recruitable mage with 2 or more lvl 4 paths (with path boosting items) then it can be worth having him wonder around site searching.

Nations like EA Atlantis, Marverni etc...can do this. You effectively save 4/gems+ per province then, as opposed to site search spells. More if a path is death.

Some mages certianly do make great manual searchers, but I don't think I'd ever use boosters for the purpose of manual searching. It completely eats up any profit margin by not doing remote spells. I mean, you do get the booster back when you are done, but if it was a booster you needed you probably had to forge an extra one, and if it wasn't one you otherwise needed it was an extra expense as well.

Dedas · #9 April 25th, 2007, 10:59 AM

EA Ulm's Antlered Shaman are excellent for site searching nearby provinces to your starting castle. They are both stealthy, have wilderness and mountain survival, N2, E2 - and sometimes even more.

Arralen · #10 April 25th, 2007, 11:22 AM

The big question is - where to hunt (first)?

This is from Dom2, but still holds true in Dom3:

Quote:

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.