Tomes and Affinity

[Josh-Sothoth]

I created a faction of evil voodoo elves, and I went with Dark culture, which I know is all about Shadow affinity.

I’m all about focusing on the necromancy tomes, but I’m not crazy about the cryomancy. It just doesn’t fit my voodoo vibe.

I’d rather focus on something demonic (Chaos) or nature-based, but I’m worried I’ll screw myself out of the benefits I get from high Shadow affinity as a Dark culture race.

If I wanted to focus on Tomes related to Chaos and Shadow, instead of just focusing on Shadow, am I putting myself in a bad position — is it still possible to access the highest tier Shadow tomes if I replace Cryomancy tomes with something else?

[Gilmore]

You can use whatever you want. Just be aware that you can only pick one tier 5 tome.

[アゼム]

As far as I know affinity only exists to unlock tomes and passives, so if you have at least 8 affinity you can max out your dark tomes. More affinity = faster unlocks in the passives tree. So you can definitely do a hybrid

[Flushing]

Originally posted by ZestyPeanutChew:

I created a faction of evil voodoo elves, and I went with Dark culture, which I know is all about Shadow affinity.

I’m all about focusing on the necromancy tomes, but I’m not crazy about the cryomancy. It just doesn’t fit my voodoo vibe.

I’d rather focus on something demonic (Chaos) or nature-based, but I’m worried I’ll screw myself out of the benefits I get from high Shadow affinity as a Dark culture race.

If I wanted to focus on Tomes related to Chaos and Shadow, instead of just focusing on Shadow, am I putting myself in a bad position — is it still possible to access the highest tier Shadow tomes if I replace Cryomancy tomes with something else?

Not at all. In fact you can do that with multiple tomes without issue.

One of the Strongest combos is Dark + Mystic Affinity because of the synergies in the empire upgrade trees.

[Flushing]

Originally posted by TaquitoBurrito:

More affinity = faster unlocks in the passives tree. So you can definitely do a hybrid

I find this matters a great deal if you go pure chaos because of the Balrog access.

[アゼム]

Originally posted by Flushing:

Originally posted by TaquitoBurrito:

More affinity = faster unlocks in the passives tree. So you can definitely do a hybrid

I find this matters a great deal if you go pure chaos because of the Balrog access.

Balor is a fantastic unit but not necessary to get enjoyment out of chaos

[Gilmore]

Originally posted by Flushing:

Originally posted by TaquitoBurrito:

More affinity = faster unlocks in the passives tree. So you can definitely do a hybrid

I find this matters a great deal if you go pure chaos because of the Balrog access.

You can get unlimited Balrogs with the tier 5 Chaos tome.

[ethorin101]

I mean... the special Balrog is kinda very special potentially on a map with enough stuff for you to feed to it...

One of these days Imma do a Regenerating Infestations Megacities and just see how buff a Balrog can be.

[sarg]

Nature works with anything, it's crazy powerful.

There's an Imperium nature unlock that gives an animal unit every time you add a province.

There's a spell that causes a city to turn a province to grassland each turn (it even will cut down mountains to do so), which makes food ridiculously plentiful. About the only way you don't want this is if you're going for the Demon/desolation route, but that unlocks significantly later.

Finally, the major and one of the minor transforms straight up add HP to units. While most transforms are nice, HP is about as non-situational as you can get. There's also a Tier I tome transform that adds damage and critical chance.

[Central]

Originally posted by Gilmore:

You can use whatever you want. Just be aware that you can only pick one tier 5 tome.

dont forget that you need 6 points of affinity in that field for a tier 4 tome and 8 affinity for a tier 5 tome.

Originally posted by sarg:

Nature works with anything, it's crazy powerful.

There's an Imperium nature unlock that gives an animal unit every time you add a province.

and nature has synergy with that ability with some tomes.

tome of the beast:

• animal kinship, minor transofrmation, gives extra dmg and crit chance when next to an animal
  
• pack leader, passive hero support skill, animals and cav have crit hit chance and flanker
  
• wildspeaker support unit, can summon animal and buffs animals

*pack leader works well with "mark as pray", also a tome of beasts skill, it gives a target distracted, which makes all attacks against the spells target count as flanking attacks. with pack leader all animals deal extra dmg on flanking attacks.
**pack leader also works well with "exhilirating pollen" from the tome of paradise, this has a base chance of 90% to all enemies to become distracted, again making all attacks against it be flanking attacks. sadly this can be resisted by enemies.

tome of vigor:

• empowered beasts, unit enchantment, extra dmg, hitpoints and gives demolisher
  
• animal handler, passive hero support skill, animal and cav are immune to mind control and have extra resistance
  
• totem of wilds, combat spell, summons a t1 animal every turn for 5 turns.

Tome of Nature's wrath:

• summon horned god, world summon spell, horned god makes all animals fearless
  
• nature's avenger, active hero support skill, animals and plants in 2 hexes become 5 strengthened

[Drake]

Originally posted by TaquitoBurrito:

As far as I know affinity only exists to unlock tomes and passives, so if you have at least 8 affinity you can max out your dark tomes. More affinity = faster unlocks in the passives tree. So you can definitely do a hybrid

They also serve as stat check for certain quests and events related to affinities.

[アゼム]

Originally posted by Drake:

Originally posted by TaquitoBurrito:

As far as I know affinity only exists to unlock tomes and passives, so if you have at least 8 affinity you can max out your dark tomes. More affinity = faster unlocks in the passives tree. So you can definitely do a hybrid

They also serve as stat check for certain quests and events related to affinities.

Yeah true, though I'll be honest. In 60 hours of play I have never been given a single stat check that wasn't a 100% success

[MrLuckless]

You can still go hard into shadow, with a dabbling of chaos. The thing is, if you want to get to tier 4/5 tomes you have to go heavy into a particular route over the other. At 12 I think is the cut off for unlocking tier 4 before you can unlock tier 5. So being evil necromantic Elves with a side hustle in demonic fire magic can still work.

[Gilmore]

Originally posted by Central:

Originally posted by Gilmore:

You can use whatever you want. Just be aware that you can only pick one tier 5 tome.

dont forget that you need 6 points of affinity in that field for a tier 4 tome and 8 affinity for a tier 5 tome.

Originally posted by sarg:

Nature works with anything, it's crazy powerful.

There's an Imperium nature unlock that gives an animal unit every time you add a province.

and nature has synergy with that ability with some tomes.

tome of the beast:

• animal kinship, minor transofrmation, gives extra dmg and crit chance when next to an animal
  
• pack leader, passive hero support skill, animals and cav have crit hit chance and flanker
  
• wildspeaker support unit, can summon animal and buffs animals

*pack leader works well with "mark as pray", also a tome of beasts skill, it gives a target distracted, which makes all attacks against the spells target count as flanking attacks. with pack leader all animals deal extra dmg on flanking attacks.
**pack leader also works well with "exhilirating pollen" from the tome of paradise, this has a base chance of 90% to all enemies to become distracted, again making all attacks against it be flanking attacks. sadly this can be resisted by enemies.

tome of vigor:

• empowered beasts, unit enchantment, extra dmg, hitpoints and gives demolisher
  
• animal handler, passive hero support skill, animal and cav are immune to mind control and have extra resistance
  
• totem of wilds, combat spell, summons a t1 animal every turn for 5 turns.

Tome of Nature's wrath:

• summon horned god, world summon spell, horned god makes all animals fearless
  
• nature's avenger, active hero support skill, animals and plants in 2 hexes become 5 strengthened

True, but it only takes picking one shadow tome from each tier to be able to get the tier 4 and 5 tomes.

[Flushing]

Originally posted by Central:

dont forget that you need 6 points of affinity in that field for a tier 4 tome and 8 affinity for a tier 5 tome.

I have seen posts about affinity requirements everywhere, and I scale my research resource very high early game, but I have never experienced an issue where I came up short after completing research at one Tier, and then was locked out of the next Tier. I have never been locked out of the tier 5 tome that I needed. How does that even happen?

I guess this issue only comes up, if you never invested anything in a particular school of magic, but then you want to opt for the Tier 4 or 5 Tome in that school at the end of the game? Is that essentially what happens?

I just want to understand this dilemma, when I choose to scale a character next game

[Flushing]

Originally posted by MrLuckless:

You can still go hard into shadow, with a dabbling of chaos. The thing is, if you want to get to tier 4/5 tomes you have to go heavy into a particular route over the other. At 12 I think is the cut off for unlocking tier 4 before you can unlock tier 5. So being evil necromantic Elves with a side hustle in demonic fire magic can still work.

How do Empire upgrades impact Tome access?

I've been going Dark and Mystic affinity on the Empire Ugrade Tree because they both amp up the other.