Why do you like Acashic Record so much?

[tinkthank]

With this question I am implying both that I don't get it and a second question:
Under "normal" site frequency conditions, what are the chances of a site being in any given province?

Back to the main question: AR costs 25 pearls; that means if you find 1 1-pearl site, it will pay for itself in 25 turns. It is hard to quantify what "payoff" means in other terms (how badly do you want earth gems vs. pearls, or other types of gems...?), but let's try. If you find 2 sites, say an 1-earth and a 1-pearl site, it pays for itself in 12 turns.
But I usually play "normal" site frequency maps and even with very decent searchers, I often turn up zero-site provinces. But how often do these occur? Does the "40" in "site frequency setting" mean that there will be a 40% that at least one site will occur? Or is some d6oe going on here?

[LordArioch]

I think that 40% sites means a 40% chance a site will be in each of the 4 site slots, so that there's an 87% chance that at least one site shows up. I'm not certain, but I seem to find more sites than seem right if its a 40% chance to find one site, a 16% chance to find 2, and so on.

[SurvivalistMerc]

I think the chances are much better at not getting a zero result if you limit your acashic records to mountain, forest, swamp, and wasteland provinces...no farmland or plains...until you have pretty much won the game.

At lest that's my strategy, though I'm no expert.

25 pearls is a lot, though. I always make sure I have a significant reserve before burning pearls in this spell. I don't want my having used acashic record to cost me the ability to dispel a nasty global.

[PDF]

AR is seldom if ever cast in MP- too costly... Players usually mostly make mage searches and some path-specific spells, not AR.
In SP you need to have a steady gem income and stock already . It speeds up searches a lot, but is usable only relatively late in the game.

[Torvak]

By the time i start using AR most of my researchers have 2 clams each and i have at least one gem generating enchantment up.

[Arryn]

I'll let my AAR speak for me regarding using Acashic ...