Suggestion to autocasting search spells

[DrPraetorious]

I agree with thejeff 100%.

The only requirement is that the site-searching algorithm should be good-enough that you don't bother by hand.

I'd propose "priority score" like (4 - sites found) * (4 - level in this path searched)^2, and never searching anything with a score of 0.

The issue with non-standard terrains is that, *I BELIEVE*, they have a linear effect on the site frequency.

If the site frequency is 75%, it's 65% in farmland and 85% in swamps, *I THINK*, and who cares?

OTOH, if the site frequency is 30%, sites are twice as frequent in swamps and that makes a big difference.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Hmm... interesting. With that priority score above...

0/0 = 64
1/0 = 48
2/0 = 32
3/0 = 16

0/1 = 36
1/1 = 27
2/1 = 18
3/1 = 9

0/2 = 16
1/2 = 12
2/2 = 8
3/2 = 4

0/3 = 4
1/3 = 3
2/3 = 2
3/3 = 1

#/4 = 0
4/# = 0

So, the very lowest priority is hunting for ultra-rare level 4 sites. Fine, that. I don't like the rest of it because its not very intuitive. But I do like the results, even if I can't predict where it'll search easily. But the auto searching isn't about predicting anyways. The way the numbers fall is fine enough by me.

I would put in a few additional variables. For Dark Knowledge, for instance, I would heavily favor land provinces over water provinces, though there are a few possibilities...

As there are currently zero underseas blood sites in the game, I'd set the priority to something like 1, (if I boosted all other scores by one, so this would be the lowest). This would allow mod-sites to be found eventually, while keeping in mind nothing will likely ever be found underwater - and they'd be searched dead last.

[DrPraetorious]

I don't want it to get too complicated, but yeah, we could have a priority score modifier for terrain, sure:
Farmlands, x0.9
Mountain, x1.2
Mountain + Earth, x2
Forest, x1.2
Forest + Nature, x2
Swamp, x1.2
Swamp + Death, x2
Wasteland, x1.2
Wasteland + Fire, x2
Ocean + Water, x2
Coast + Water, x1.5
Ocean + Blood, x0.1

Something like that?

[thejeff]

That would be nice, though unlikely to happen. You could tweak the values and calculate the exact chances of a site in a particular path. (And then the chances of VoT or AR if some paths have already been searched?) If I understand the Bayes argument correctly, the chances go up if you've already searched other paths and found nothing, so add that in.

I'm still going to override it to not search provinces I think are vulnerable. And I'm still going to try to search everything I expect to hold.

So I really see this as fiddling with the details of something that remains basically broken. The important part is letting it search provinces with 2 sites and not searching capitals. My next priority would be searching paths that have been partially searched. Order comes a long way after that.

[Lord_Bob]

It's more obvious if viewed as two marble bags. You have three marbes, 2 black and 1 white. You put one in one bag and two in another. There is a base chance of 33% of the white marble being in bag one and a base chance of it being in bag 2 of 66%. But then you take a black marble out of bag 2(which you will obviously be able to do). Now there is only one marble in each bag. So reaching in will pull only that marble out. But the BAG PROBABILITIES HAVE NOT CHANGED.