Dominions 5 – Magic Sites
Magic sites are not buildings per se (although there are some sites which are buildings, such as the Firbolg Fortress and Jervellan Wall) but rather locations within a province that possess some special attribute, like magic gem production, unique unit recruitment, or other benefits. A province may have multiple magic sites, (max 8), not all of which may be visible at once.
Magic sites are more likely to be found in mountain, forest, swamp, waste and cave provinces than in those with farmland or plains. Magic sites do not necessarily appear when you capture a province. Instead, the sites must be discovered by searching. There are four levels of difficulty. A mage must have skill in the magic path of the site equal to the difficulty level of the site in order to find it when using the Search for Magic Sites order. Thus, a level 3 Nature mage will find any difficulty 1, 2 or 3 sites in a province when he/she searches, but will not find a difficulty 4 site. When searching, level 4 in a path is the highest level ever required to find a site. There are spells which will automatically reveal all sites of a given path in a province (for example, Haruspex reveals all Nature magic sites), or even all magic sites, period (Acashic Knowledge).
Magic Sites
Some sites (like the Void Gate) allow certain types of units to enter them for certain benefits. Entering such sites is a movement order available to eligible commanders.
Sites which permit the recruitment of national units (such as the Forest of Avalon) only grant this ability to that nation (in this example, Man). Enemy players who capture such a site will still collect the magic gems produced by it (if any) but will not be able to recruit the special units.
There is no guarantee that a site will be usable to a player when found. A Cave may allow a Blood mage to recruit demons, but if the player has no Blood mages, he will not be able to use it.
A magic site may have some additional requirement before it becomes useful. For example, the Library allows the recruitment of sages, but not until you build a laboratory. The role-playing reasons for this should be obvious.
Not all magic sites have beneficial effects. Some are sources of chaos, death, or other negative powers. These may cause unrest or other ill effects, and will happen whether or not the magic site causing the trouble has been discovered.
