sitesearch atomatic provinse selection bug?

[militarist]

I have 4 not-searched provinses. And auomatically, my augry- caster had very strange choices..it's interesting, how it can be explained...

1. When 4 provinces were unsearched, he proposed the one, which was already searched by augry (I doublchecked), th eprovince where they were stationed. Maybe it's not a coincedence. It happened several times, when I retried.
2. after several tries, he proposed proper one, then the next sitesearcher in pool, again, proposed proper one. Then , when 1 province still left unassigned, all next sitesearchers (based in capital)started to propose to search capital for magic sites..
But it looks like 1 province was not assigned at all for searching..

What it can be? It sounds dangerous if it can happen. It wil be boring to double check all the time.

[Gregstrom]

Did the province in question already have 4 sites found? The target for a remote search spell will default to the caster's own province if no suitable target can be found.

[militarist]

>Did the province in question already have 4 sites found?

Only one was found. And this one is a fire site.

[13lackGu4rd]

is there any chance those provinces not searched for fire(in your case) already had 4 sites in them? cause that would mean there's 0% chance of finding another site(max 4 per province).

[thejeff]

I assume you're patched up to the latest version? Behavior changed a few versions back. Previously, searching would not target a province with 2 or more sites.

If so, then augury casters should target any provinces you own that do not have 4 sites already, have not been searched to level 4 or more in fire and possibly are not capitals.
If there is no such province the caster will default to the province he is in.

As far as I know that should be it.

[Edi]

Sometimes the search algorithm skips provinces. I notice this a lot, because I don't use automated monthly casting, preferring instead to use targeted selection. The automated targeting algorithm is still used to determine what province is suggested.

Most often the skipping happens when the provinces in question are very near the edge of the map (e.g. in Cradle of Dominion some of the southernmost provinces are almost always skipped), but I've seen it happen in the middle of maps too. And it's specifically provinces that should have been automatically targeted.

So yes, we're talking about a legitimate bug here. Investigation would require sending game files to Illwinter for analysis (preferably vanilla game files). But as bugs go, this is not a showstopper, so a fix may be low priority.

[thejeff]

I've never seen this.
Are you saying it skips them permanently? That is, doesn't target them at all, despite a lack of other targets? Or is it just delaying them for later, preferring to target a province with less sites or less searching done?
In SP, I rely on the auto monthly casting regularly and when I look through my provinces with F1 after the autosearch runs out of targets, I don't think I've ever seen skipped provinces. I haven't played on Cradle much, so if it's something map specific, I could have just not run into it. That would be a weird bug though.

[Edi]

Yes, it skips them permanently. They are never targeted despite being eligible. For the purposes of the site search algorithm, these provinces do not seem to exist at all.

It may be a combination of factors and related to how Dominions perceives province borders. Red color in borderlines helps it determine provinces more accurately and Jason Lutes's maps all use the white dashed lines for borders, so that could be an issue. I mainly play on his maps. In Glory of the Gods MP version (the one with fewer provinces) there is an area just northeast of the convergence of the mountain ranges, around the gap that allows access southeast from the central plains, where some provinces sometimes exhibit similar behavior.

Though admittedly I have not seen this behavior as much after the search algorithm was changed. Most of my observations were from earlier, but it's happened to me even after that.

[militarist]

My air saitesearchers skip water provinces also.. Is it normal? Is it needed to look for air gems in water?

[thejeff]

Auspex doesn't work on water provinces. There are some air sites in the water, but not many. VoT will find them or manual searching.