Empire of the Cosmos Societal Trait

[Lemonpie]

When choosing Empire of the Cosmos societal trait, the description says tier 3 tomes do not have affinity requirements. But when i plan it in the AI tome path in the create faction screen, it seems that the only tomes that do not have affinity requirements are multi-colored tomes. The mono-colored tomes are not available for selection if i do not meet the affinity requirements.

Is this a bug or is this how Empire of the Cosmos supposed to work and the issue is with the description? Does this not-applying to mono-colored tomes also happen in game or does it only affect the AI tome path?

[blackhand_lost]

It's an issue with the tome path editor that doesn't recognize the trait's effect correctly. The trait is working as intended in game when you're playing, but you can't make the correct research path you want for the AI

[Nanashi]

Read the Trait:
It says your tomes have no cost requirements if you meet the affinity requirements of having 1 point in each of the six affinities (Order, Chaos, Nature, Shadow, Materium, Astral).

I can imagine the AI planner might get confused with this and its legitimately a bug, I'm not quite sure about that.

About hybrid tomes:
Hybrid tomes have reduced requirements to select by nature of them having two affinities. So instead of 3 of its respected affinity you only need 2 of one of its elements. This trend continues into the higher tiers as well making these quite easy to unlock.

Now Empire of the Cosmos in actual play and strategic use:
It is not that great of a trait as it encourages weird research paths for what is relatively small rewards, that is until you reach the final tier of it, +20 Imperium is huge and not that easy to get elsewhere. However having 3 points in every of the six elements of magic is very late game and to get there you probably have more low-tier tomes than you want to and they don't synergize that well together.
Here are some ideas to get to the got stuff faster:
Play Architects, that's probably what the trait was intended to. Your monuments grant you affinity, so you don't have to nerf your tome path into the ground.
Be a dragon lord, Dragon Lords gain one additional affinity point making it theoretically possible to have a faction that already starts with tier 1 of this trait active immediately without having to make too many compromises.

Generally Empire of the Cosmos is one of these traits that seem interesting but the opportunity costs are simply too high for what it offers. A regular empire starts the game with 6 affinity and usually gains 2 affinity points per tome after the first one. So mathematically it is possible to start with the trait giving you +20 mana from the start, but the next tier requires 2 point in every affinity so 12 in total meaning you reach that one earliest upon unlocking your 4th tome (Which is your first Tier 3 one) so you get a flat +20 research. And the final tier requires another 3 tomes after that with 18 affinity points total, which at the earliest point is your second Tier 4 tome for +20 imperium income. By that point the next tome is your Tier 5 and your affinity chart is all over the place, you are nowhere near the end game empire tree, and you probably have a tome combination spanning all the DLCs because you will pick hybrid tomes exclusively to fulfill the requirements.
It is doable but why would you submit yourself to such a playstyle if you could just follow one or two affinity paths that naturally synergize into each other? Hence I personally think this trait is almost exclusively useful only on Architect Factions.

[Coelrus]

The thing about the tome path is that it can't assume you completed the requirements in the actual game to decrease the affinity cost or increase your affinity from a nontome related source. When playing something like architects for example it can't assume you've completed a monument in the game by the time you got to that tome choice. In that case it makes sense that it doesn't work. However for something like the cosmos trait I'd say it's an oversight on their part since you can clearly see what tomes you have and what the trait is supposed to do.

[Arngrim]

It seems to work as it should in game at least.

[Lemonpie]

Originally posted by Nanashi:

Read the Trait:
It is doable but why would you submit yourself to such a playstyle if you could just follow one or two affinity paths that naturally synergize into each other?

I dunno. I've accumulated more than 2000 hours in this game.. so i guess it tickles my funny, lol.

Anyway, i've always toyed with the idea of mono-colored factions and rainbow-start factions. I remember when Primal culture and Tome of Tentacles was release, i was excited both times for the possbilities of a rainbow start. But the build got kind of nerfed when the devs changed the empire tree to require more points for the first passives.

With Empire of the Cosmos, there is an actual reason to stay rainbow through most of the game instead of just starting off rainbow.

Then this recent expansion; i read that there is a Tome of the Cosmos or something like that. I don't quite know what's in it, but i thought, it's time to revisit the rainbow faction. Um.. i mean Cosmos faction.

The problem with Architect culture is that they are two of the same colors. So you can't start with all the colors if you don't play the dragon.

[Arngrim]

Originally posted by Lemonpie:

Originally posted by Nanashi:

Read the Trait:
It is doable but why would you submit yourself to such a playstyle if you could just follow one or two affinity paths that naturally synergize into each other?

I dunno. I've accumulated more than 2000 hours in this game.. so i guess it tickles my funny, lol.

Anyway, i've always toyed with the idea of mono-colored factions and rainbow-start factions. I remember when Primal culture and Tome of Tentacles was release, i was excited both times for the possbilities of a rainbow start. But the build got kind of nerfed when the devs changed the empire tree to require more points for the first passives.

With Empire of the Cosmos, there is an actual reason to stay rainbow through most of the game instead of just starting off rainbow.

Then this recent expansion; i read that there is a Tome of the Cosmos or something like that. I don't quite know what's in it, but i thought, it's time to revisit the rainbow faction. Um.. i mean Cosmos faction.

The problem with Architect culture is that they are two of the same colors. So you can't start with all the colors if you don't play the dragon.

I unlocked the tome yesterday starting as achitects with a dragon lord, focusing mostly on support.

The Unit and buff you get from tome of the cosmos are extremly powerful, but it took so long to get there I don´t know if it´s possible to do in a reasonable timeframe that is worth it.