Inspired by the excellent guide made by "Kirinith" originally. This further expands the treasury around the specializations of Cosmos Adept, and Master of Cosmos added in the combined material of Shadow Realm Expansion and Wasteland Expansion. As a service to players, I compiled a guide on how they play and how they are helpful. I will go into greater detail about each spell included in the Cosmos library of magic and who would benefit most from it.

Feel free to add your own experience if I have missed out on any details.

In general, Cosmos, in the previous instalments, was focused on an arsenal of anti-magic spells and introduced ways to become an all-around magic user by granting something from other elemental schools. You could get different elemental spells but not the powerful magic from the mastery section. So mastering magic in Age of Wonders Shadow Magic could still be more powerful, granted that someone specializing in Cosmos has access to weaker spells in general.

Cosmos in Age of Wonders 3 has been divided and is more present as generic spells in the "Avatar" section, where all classes have tools at their disposal. The Sorcerer also conducts some of the old Cosmos magic legacies. In my opinion, the Sorcerer class is as close as we get in the vanilla game to establishing the old Cosmos wizard from the Age of Wonders Shadow Magic.

However, Cosmos introduced in the mods is defined for its utility and follows the same tradition as the other specializations. Cosmos Adept and Master of Cosmos to be in a group that synergizes well with other elemental spheres but has a good arsenal of spells and empire upgrades to stand on its own.

Cosmos controls all elements of magic and supplement the holders with magical banks of energy, enchanted weaponry, drainage of rival power and the ability to control nodes.

Introduced in the Wasteland Expansion, initially as an independent mod and got further expanded in the Compatibility Patch between Shadow Realm Expansion and Wasteland Expansion.

Cosmos Mana Capacity Bonus

Tier I Empire Upgrade, Free
All Cities gain an additional +50 to mana capacity

A passive that generally increases the amount of mana one can store throughout the game. Since mana is capped at 500 in the beginning game, it can favour a spellcaster or summoner that's often limited and handicapped because some mana production goes to waste every turn due to the mana cap. It may add up early to mid-game as players acquire more and more cities. In a long game, it may not make a massive difference since mana is getting harder and harder to spend every turn with limiting factors such as lack of casting points things to spend mana on. Useful situationally, especially for Sorcerers and Arch Druids expanding cities quickly and depending more on mana banks.

Cosmos Adept provide the utility of various city enchantments that generally boost income or combat advantage to produced units.

• Defensive empire bonus towards shielded units
  
• Has synergy with other Elemental mastery spheres
  
• Strong focus on City Enchantments and Empire Upgrades

Alter Node

Tier I Strategic Spell (Instant), 60 research, 60 Mana
Transforms any Mana Node into an element of your Mastery, which provides an additional +5 Mana and +5 Research into your element.

Alter Node – As an independent skill in combination with any of the other six elemental masteries. (Mastery of Air, Creation, Destruction, Earth, Fire or Water)

Alter node has two different versions and changes depending on the choice of other specializations. A leader that, for example, takes both Air Adept and Mastery of Air as their choice, together with Cosmos Adept, will be granted the ability to transform any node into their respective element. This is handy since you are not restricted to finding standard Mana Nodes to transform only. It essentially even outs the penalty from opposing elements in your domain with this spell.

Alter Node Empire Bonus

Tier I Empire Upgrade, 60 research
Alter Node provides an additional 5 mana coming from any of the Nodes available inside the domain.

The other version of Alter node, independent from the elemental mastery branch, is a plain additional extra 5+ mana from any of the nodes in your domain. Which again is handy for races or classes heavily dependable on mana usage.


Tier II Empire Upgrade, 120 research
Infuses all units that have a shield with magical Protection, making shielded units tougher by providing an extra +2 in resistance against non-flanking attacks. Units with Sun Shield and Water Shield are not affected.

This empire upgrade has a great synergy with units that uses a shield. It will significantly beef up strong defensive units already, to also gain a better defence against magical-oriented attacks as well. However, the caveat is that units with Sun Shield or the Water Shield are unaffected by this upgrade since they already inherently have enough resistance on their respective shields. Choosing Cosmos adept for this empire upgrade alone is not a bad choice if you often tend to be a turtle player going up against elemental damage.

Domain of Shadow

Tier III Strategic Spell (City Enchantment), 180 Research, 60 Mana + 20 per turn
Target Friendly City and Units within its domain now like Shadow Land Terrain. Machines, Undead, and creatures of Magical Origin are unaffected.

Considering that Shadow Realm is lethal for almost all races except Draconians or Shadow Elves. This spell provides all cities and their domain with a large morale bonus making settling new cities for other races a breeze on Shadow Land terrain. Of course, if this spell is not used mainly in the Shadow Realm, it has no effect since Shadow Land terrain is not available in the Underground or Surface layer.

Enchant City

Tier IV Strategic Spell (City Enchantment), 500 Research, 70 Mana + 10 per turn
All units summoned in the affected city's domain or produced by the city gain Enchanted Weapon and have Enchanted Protection.

Unlike city enchantments tied to alignment or those related to the terrain of different types, this one provided by the Cosmos adept is different. It boosts your units randomly with additional elemental damage and protection at the same time. It works similarly to Spiritual Freedom giving units Meditation, but it provides extra elemental damage and protection at the start of each battle instead. All units that gain Enchanted Weapon will randomly acquire two different sources of +1 elemental damage, while Enchanted Protection provides a random source of 20% protection against any of the five different elements available. The caveat comes with randomness, and sometimes, you can get lucky by getting a lot of similar damage against units weak against particular elements. The main advantage will start to ramp up when combined with heroes or leaders with particular skills like Charged Army, Poison Knowledge and Sacred Arms that quickly can turn whole stacks into a big source of different kinds of magic damage. Another good reason is particularly for races that invest heavily in physical damage to have other sources of elemental damage at their disposal.


Overall, Cosmos Adept is a useful all-around specialization, making it ideal for pairing with other specializations focusing on magic usage since it does not bring any damage spells for tactical battles. Its main selling points come with the versatility of empire upgrades and city enchantments to increase the unit's capacity to damage others with magic and its resistance against magic.

Notable Synergies:
• Dwarves (Dwarves are, by tradition, durable in combat and shielded units are quite a thing when reinforced their resistance with Magic Barrier. Units like Dwarven Crusader, Dwarven Phalanx, or even the Dwarven Manticore Rider with its unique shield became even scarier to face in combat with an additional +2 resist)
  
• Orcs (Considered to be the staple of physical damage dealers and is by far the race that gets the most bang for the buck with the Enchant City spell by boosting the elemental damage they often tend to lack otherwise)
  
• Arch Druid, Sorcerer (Increased potential of utilizing the mana more effectively when stockpiling mana. Since Adept of Cosmos increases mana capacity for every city, it is natural that classes that heavily invest in mana spending get additional benefits in early to mid-game to effectively not waste mana by being capped. It may not matter in the late game, but early on, +50 mana capacity for every city makes quite an impact)

Cosmos Mastery has perhaps set out to distinguish itself from the Cosmos Adept by going up with more tactical spells for damage and putting pressure on units of magical origin with buffs. However, a strong emphasis on global magic control by limiting the usage of the enemy's spellcasting can often hamper them entirely and bring them to your mercy.

X Eliminate weakness in the Shadow Realm
X Powerful single-target unit buffs
X Focus on anti-magic spellcasting and global magic control

Cosmos Affinity

Tier I Empire Upgrade, Free
All your cities have 10% Mana income.

Increasing the general income may not be substantial at first glance. Since mana is relatively scarce, an additional income of 10% adds to your total city income. This includes every structure in your domain and structure built in your city. So a Shrine, Temple, Grand Temple and Forbidden Sanctum with a net worth of 60 mana would yield an extra 6 mana per turn. This ramps up quite quickly with the right circumstances and the right amount of luck around your cities.

Gravity

Tier IV Tactical Spell (Instant), 500 research, 20 Mana
Gravity will pressure its foes with magic and pull down flying units to the ground. Deals 10 Shock damage and 10 Spirit damage to all units in a 2 hex radius around target location.

This spell covers a large radius and can easily be spammed with its low mana cost of 20 mana, although not so impressive damage. However, it is still surprisingly helpful since it also has the additional effect of locking down flying units to the ground. It helps to nail down those fast-flying units in the battle like an annoying Dragon.

Shadow Realm Advantage

Tier V Empire Upgrade, 750 Research, 70 Mana + 10 per turn
Cosmos makes all units gain Shadow Walker to become immune to Shadow Sickness in the Shadow Realm. Additionally, Archer, Infantry, Irregular, and Pikemen gain Shadow Running.

The Shadow Realm is relatively annoying and challenging for all races except Draconians and Shadow Elves, who naturally are immune to its negative side effects. In general, being immune to Shadow Sickness is quite nice, but faster units are also quite a thing for the slowest units in the game. On the other hand, this makes it not useless for races immune to Shadow Sickness who get at least something out of the skill.

Contrary Augments

Tier V Tactical Spell (Instant), 750 Research, 15 Mana
Infuse a unit with atmospheric energy in order to counter enemy units with connections of magical affinities. Target friendly unit gains Discharge Magic and Disrupt Magical Form. Additionally, unit gain 20% Protection from all elements available.

The ultimate anti-magic unit destroyer. Say no more! We got you covered with this single-unit buff spell to increase its capability to counter magic units. Discharge magic will increase shock damage by +4 against Incorporeal, Summoned, Support and Undead units, which is quite lovely. The Disrupt Magical Form can cause units like Elementals, units of Magical Origin and Undead to be inflicted with a -20% physical weakness which also is great. Since this spell also works for ranged units, this can be handy when the archers are inflicting physical weaknesses onto enemies, and the cavalry comes in for a cleanup. The +20% protection from all elements is also excellent as all-around protection. The downside may be that it's a single-target spell, so it will target every unit on the battlefield.

Power Leak

Tier VI Strategic Spell (World Enchantment), 750 Research, 150 Mana + 50 per turn
Drains the Power from all enemies. Power Leak will take away -50% of mana income and -50 if casting point. The spell will not target allies or yourself.

Sorcerers may still survive Power Leak since they have a lot of casting points and mana production. But a Warlord may suffer considerably severely since they are not generally a caster. Halving their mana income, as well as their casting points, can turn the little amount of mana upkeep they have initially had into a disaster.


In general, Cosmos Mastery is the great magic suppressor against anyone utilising spells. It is also handy for races that, by tradition, suffer from the effects caused by the Shadow Realm. Adept of Cosmos and Cosmos Mastery is considered the jack of all trades, heavily emphasising an anti-magic counter. Since its synergies well it almost anything, it’s a good option for nearly every race or class.

Notable Synergies:
• Draconians (Often, the Draconians are the typical Sorcerer's race with their inherently +3 mana income. With the Cosmos Affinity's additional 10% mana income, this becomes even easier to skyrocket the mana income with total % income increased per turn)
  
• Halflings (Halflings being the most morale-dependent race as well as the one race being dependable on what terrain they step on. They get the most out of the Domain of Shadows and Shadow Realm Advantage. Settling in the hated terrain becomes far easier if they also can neglect the weakness of being there)
  
• Dreadnought (It may be seen as unlikely at first, but regardless the Contrary Augments fit right onto any machine available. Whether you like it or not. The machines just got better with a fantastic advantage since cannons could potentially utilize this spell. Granted that the units have long-range, it is possible to blast all the summoned units or incorporeal to smithereens and put the pressure on early while safely staying from a distance. Since dreadnoughts are often physically oriented, it's a no-brainer that this combo works. Oh, and don't forget that Dampening Field can completely block your enemy in the tactical battle when Power Leak is up on the world map)

Special thanks to Kirinith making the original guide of The Age of Magic - A Guide to Specializations.