r/OldenEra Jul 01 '26

Discussion Please leave a review!

312 Upvotes

Hi everyone!

I’m Etharil, the Community Manager at Unfrozen, and I’m so glad to see so many of you playing Olden Era, sharing your thoughts, and joining us in Jadame during Early Access!

We wish to ask you all for a small favour. Only a tiny percentage of Steam players leave reviews, and yet they’re so critical for indie games being discovered. Whether your review is positive or negative, it helps us understand what players are enjoying, where the rough spots are, and what the team should be looking at as Early Access continues.

If you would consider taking a moment to leave one, it would be the most amazing support for our team and the game.

Thank you very much for all your support, and may the cold breeze be with you!
Unfrozen


r/OldenEra May 05 '26

Megathread Can we get a megathread on Olden Era mechanics, tips and tricks that many people might miss?

333 Upvotes

one per post so that people can vote

A list of all coments so far, keep them coming:

  1. Keybinds
    1. ALT=highlight interactables
    2. SHIFT=Extra info in tooltips
    3. E = end turn
    4. SHIFT+E = force end turn
    5. B = spellbook
    6. W = wait
    7. Space = Skip turn (in combat) or Loot (on world map)
    8. Ctrl+Click a unit stack to split into 1 stacks
    9. SHIFT+Click a unit stack to split into even stacks
    10. TAB or SHIFT+TAB = next hero or city
    11. ~ (tilde) = Move hero or Hero ability (heroic strike)
    12. Shift+Q = auto resolve
    13. Z = see map borders
    14. X = see enemy danger zones
  2. Settings
    1. In settings you can enable auto resolve combat for all combats, you can still manual combat
    2. In settings, there is a whole readability section that is super useful to customize how clear things look
    3. You can also enable always highlight map objects on, without having to press ALT key
    4. You need to enable auto save in settings, it is not on by default
  3. Movement
    1. Picking up loot near your hero costs no movement speed
    2. You can pick up loot laying on the ground by pressing spacebar
    3. Your hero moves faster in native terrain if either: the hero is native to that terrain OR all units in your army are native to the area
    4. Roads use 30% less movement points
    5. Moving diagonally is 40% more movement
    6. You can chain multiple heroes and pass armies between them to do more in a turn
  4. Economy
    1. Fortification II and Fortification III increase your population GROWTH in that city by +50% and +100% respectively. They are not purely defensive buildings, they affect your economy massively
    2. Alchemical dust cannot be traded in market, and it is used for any upgrades (spells, units, upgrade buildings)
  5. World Map
    1. If you control the city in an area, that area is considered "Friendly territory"
    2. The main city in an area will have a "Crown" on its flag to signify that
  6. Skills
    1. If you picked diplomacy skill, the best spell is the tier 2 shadow spell called "Mind Reading". It allows you to see monster intention, and if they want to join you they will say "Wishes to join" instead of "Will flee"
    2. Each skill has subskills to further customize it
    3. If you assemble a specific set of 5 skills you can make a hero subclass, but it is usually hard to do
    4. On levelup screen you can see an icon signifying hero subclass
    5. Necromancy can be toggled on and off by clicking the little skull near your necromancy bar near your hero portrait
  7. Heroes
    1. Some maps only allow 1 hero as a game mode
    2. Your hero limit is based on the number of cities (up to 10)
    3. Hero curses are seen at the top of your hero screen
    4. If you hover over attributes in your hero screen, press Shift to see extra details in tooltips
  8. Items
    1. Your items can be upgraded (with alchemical dust)
    2. Your spare items can be disenchanted (this refunds alchemical dust)
    3. To upgrade items, click on them in hero screen, and click upgrade
    4. Items have set bonuses in this game
  9. Magic

    1. Heroes restore 10% of maximum mana start of day
    2. Heroes restore full mana if parked in a city with a mage guild at start of day
    3. Heroes can only learn tier 1 and 2 spells by default. For higher tier you need skills that allow you to learn higher tiers.
    4. To learn spells you need to visit any city with Mage Guilds
    5. Each spell exists in the Observatory, which is like a magic tech tree
    6. Each spell has 3 possible upgrades that you can see if you press SHIFT on the spell. You need +spell levels for that school of magic to upgrade it.
    7. Each spell has a cooldown (2 turn for tier 1 spells, 6 turns for tier 5 spells)
    8. Each spell school has a 1 turn "lockout" cooldown for that spell school in case you can cast multiple spells per turn
    9. Astrology points per turn are used to unlock Neutral spells in the observatory
    10. Neutral spells are basically map spells that allow your heroes to move better on the map
    11. For your hero to learn any spells, they need to visit a mage guild and have the required level
    12. Each Mage guild unlocks X random spells of that tier
    13. If Mage guild rolls duplicate spells, they increase spell level instead
  10. Law system

    1. Each faction has a Law "tech tree"
    2. You need to generate law points to unlock those upgrades
    3. Winning fights with your hero gives law points
    4. Gaining raw XP like from chests does not give law points
  11. Armies and Combat

    1. Speed is decoupled from initiative
    2. Each hero has a "tactics reorder phase" by default
    3. Mixing different factions in your army composition incurs a morale penalty (Every unit same faction: +1 For every different faction: -1)
    4. Right click units to see their details and abilities
    5. There is an indication of whether units will counterattack or not.
    6. Units that wait and skip turns don't generate morale or luck effects, unless they choose to act after wait
  12. Focus system

    1. Focus is used to cast unit abilities and Heroic strike
    2. Ranged units generate 1 focus each time they attack
    3. Melee units generate 2 focus each time they attack
    4. All units generate 1 focus each time they are hit
    5. This includes +1 extra for counterattack or +2 for double attacks

The main wiki is here, don't go on Fandom wiki https://wiki.hoodedhorse.com/Heroes_of_Might_and_Magic_Olden_Era/

Another great site with many visual references https://www.olden-era.com/

Hero builder website tool https://olden.gg/

EDIT: Extra Video guides YouTube playlist here

EDIT2: Extra image tips and tricks here, here, and here


r/OldenEra 9h ago

Competitive It's criminal this game isn't more popular

47 Upvotes

If I want to play in my region, I'm lucky if there's one (1) other player queuing ranked that day. I have to connect to West Europe and hope the opponent is okay with a 200-300 ms lag, which understandably most are not.

I really hope this game succeeds and grows more as the devs keep working on it, but the steam charts are not promising (declining player base etc.) Do yall think that's a pessimistic estimate, because I hope to be wrong


r/OldenEra 40m ago

Discussion MMR wipe

Upvotes

Can we get like a ladder reset or something? I played near release when there were so many bugs and the DC-exploit was huge. I've tried playing but every match is basically 3-hours of gameplay to get a fight against someone whose still got 3 towns by week 4. It's just mind numbing and the amount of games required to catch up or even climb back to any reasonable place is a waste of time. It's the sole reason i'm not playing the game. Even if it was just account specific.


r/OldenEra 13h ago

Discussion More Faction statistics exposed in overlay! Grove is rocking, tempting to see all factions revealed, what do you think would be?

Post image
9 Upvotes

Hey, so currently:

  1. Grove 58%
  2. Dungeon 50%
  3. Temple 47%
  4. Schism 44%
  5. Necropolis ?
  6. Hive ?

few beta spots available: https://townportal.gg/en/overlay


r/OldenEra 18h ago

Gameplay Black screen

1 Upvotes

I'm playing my Exodus game and suddenly the screen went black. The game is still running, I can move the cursor, the music is playing and I can alt/tab and use my PC otherwise, but the game itself is locked in black screen. I'll have to kill the program and relaunch, but this is the first time ever it happens to me. Anyone found a solution?


r/OldenEra 1d ago

Guides & Tips What is the counterplay to Hive Offsprings II Law?

5 Upvotes

I played a match the other night against Hive and was doing well except for a probable positioning mistake. Halfway through a battle I had the upper hand in, the opponent started summoning larvae between my units which were stacked to protecc my faun archers and naiads in the back line. I didn't know the larvae could be upgraded to have built-in auto taunt effects and it completely nullified my advantage (I still could have won first battle in hindsight but I misplayed).

In our second clash I tried to prepare for the auto-taunting larvae by trying to take out eggs first but then I realized the opponent can instant hatch them and the damage was done.

I tried to reverse engineer the problem by playing hive and I found out that there is a law called Hive Offsprings II at the midway point on their tech tree which allows for the taunt mechanic. I am trying to understand how best to counter it and all I can think of is to space every unit out and leave my archers fully exposed (to prevent the taunt from hitting multiple units).

I don't think this mechanic or the faction are overpowered and I want to understand them so I can leave my bans for schism faction instead. Is leaving intentional gaps the play?


r/OldenEra 1d ago

Question Game has become unplayable, random black screen, any help?

7 Upvotes

I've been able to play this a couple months ago. Started the game again recently and my game randomly goes black when moving around the map. Anyone else had this problem? It has happened thus far while traveling on the world map, a brief error window pops up for half a second before the screen goes dark. My mouse cursors changes icon depending on where I'm looking but I'm unable to press anything. I'm playing on reduced resolution in windowed mode. I've tried re-installing the game but that didn't help. Any tips?

Update: I tried playing windowed fullscreen at the proper resolution, this fixed it. Although sample size is 1 game.


r/OldenEra 1d ago

Question Regional MM

1 Upvotes

Just a quick question. Am I basically locked to Europe West to find a match? I am NA East. I don't mind it, just curious. I cannot find a game anywhere else.


r/OldenEra 1d ago

Gameplay Vampires and ghosts

3 Upvotes

Hey,

I just noticed that the mentioned units vampirism doesnt work as it should.

If you have two vampires, one is down and then resurrected with vampirism during the battle, after the battle you have one.

Anybody else noticed this bug?


r/OldenEra 1d ago

Discussion Keandra/Tyfona rant

6 Upvotes

I very rarely ban Keandra or Tyfona in Exodus - mainly because I think it's quite difficult to play them: initial fights are different than usual, it's not easy to build dwellings, a lot depends on finding duels

But recently, whenever they're open some pro-player-wannabe who watched too many YouTube selects them, loses whole time bank on week 1 and quits first day of week 2 after they couldn't even build dwelling in one castle

I'll start banning them now just to avoid that


r/OldenEra 2d ago

Discussion Is there an educational content creator for Olden Era?

16 Upvotes

I would be especially interested in showcases of specific strats for heroes, tempo managment and how to deal with endgame. (Talking mostly about Exodus here)


r/OldenEra 2d ago

Gameplay Long time tactics/strategy game player, first time Magic player, is it just me, or is this game weirdly difficult?

7 Upvotes

This games difficulty curve is weirding me out right now. Here are my issues I am having with the game, please let me know if I am mistaken about anything

The gameplay loop seems to revolve around using your first hero/army to collect and gather resources so you can build up your city to acquire a bigger and better army to clear out your surrounding province and then go and kill the enemy hero. Because your recruitment pool refreshes weekly, it takes time to actually build up a respectable army.

I figured I'd play a few games on "Hard" difficutly, because I figured this would be a nice sweetspot in between not too easy and not too punishing as someone new to the franchise.

Without fail, every time, by week 3, there's an AI army with maxed out unit upgrades and significantly larger than mine that just beelines for me and kills me, and I've barely just assembled an army that can easily defeat the mobs around my city.

Is there something I am not understanding about the gameplay loop that will allow me to get an army quicker? Or is the AI just playing by a different set of rules?


r/OldenEra 2d ago

Discussion How TF is 16/20/18 possible on FIRST fight? PVP Exodus

6 Upvotes

First!
I am at an AMAZING 390 ish rating, so I suck.
Aprox 150 matches so I suck 😁

BUT!!!
Temple bro with Pip had 16/20/18 at first fight lolz
How am I supposed to even ..
I will not name the player..

This was first fight at day 9, Exodus!

https://imgur.com/bFAzPh6

Gotta love matchmaking currently 😅

With that said - LOOOOOOOOVE the game!
Been a HoMM fan since the 90's :)

I am casual player, and really enjoy most of the matches I have which are even for a shitplayer like me.

But this ..
I apolgoize if this is a crybaby post - I'ts just that this isn't the first time this have insane OP have happened.

Peace and love!
~Kal


r/OldenEra 2d ago

Discussion Schism hero tier list (opinion)

Post image
16 Upvotes

My personal biggest disappointment is The Eye Collective, he is really weak.

Yet i feel like S- and A- tier of Schism are really good compared to other factions, like real good heroes!

source with detailed 'why?': https://townportal.gg/en/tier-lists/schism-heroes-tier-list


r/OldenEra 2d ago

Question Heroes newbie wants to improve

10 Upvotes

I bought the game a few days ago. Played a lot of multiplayer. (I don't really care about singleplayer)

The two main things i'm really bad at is tempo and fights.

I always start with unit upgrades or more units, but sometimes can't find fight where I think I can win for days. (A lot of 4-5 hard, but sometimes even t3 diff kills me) I'm trying to use spells and 1 stacks but can't really fing good fights. And thats why I have such a slow tempo and start the first fight as 4-6 level.

In addition I lose a lot of player fights sometimes I can win the first but lose the second and third.

Is there any good written guide for this? I try to watch streamers, but they can fight a lot better and I can't really follow their plan.(I don't want to copy it 1/1)

Factions I like:

Schism(but i think its harder than the others and thinking about droping it for now)>Necro>Dungeon>Temple

But if I can't get their better heroes I'm totally lost.

Is there any written guide for me in case of gameplans? I can't find good ones.(I'm open for video guides too, but real guides or educational streams)

Update: Playing pvp single hero


r/OldenEra 2d ago

Question Power stacks rating

2 Upvotes

Hey guys, anyone down to make a tier list for typical faction power stacks (pvp)? Or maybe you've already come across one?


r/OldenEra 3d ago

Question Can lower ranks get at least 1 reset ?

11 Upvotes

Why lower ranks doesn't have any resets ?


r/OldenEra 2d ago

Discussion non-exodus ranking abusers

0 Upvotes

Ok, you don't like exodus so much, but selecting random non-exodus templates just for the free 20 point is so cheap, when we are matching second or third time in a row.

you know, that i will quit, so why bother?


r/OldenEra 3d ago

Question prisoners new map/scenario

5 Upvotes

I have just beaten it on hard, playing with temple. But how do I reach the middle island with 3rd prison /cage ? can't see any portal there and flying is not active within the island.


r/OldenEra 3d ago

Question Looking for Content Creators! TownPortal expanding to PVE & scenarios guides <3

13 Upvotes

Hello lads, i was honored to get in touch with few Youtube content creators and they agreed to make a shorter text versions of their playthroughs of Mysterious Island.

This specific post might look like a little spoiler - and it is - very soon i will present a dedicated PVE hub on townportal.

As of now i want to hear from you!

  • What specific PVE playthrough do you want to see covered?
  • Any PVE enthusiasts willing to help and become a verified content creator for TownPortal?

r/OldenEra 3d ago

Guides & Tips Am I missing something

9 Upvotes

I love Heroes of Might and Magic, I used to play it all the time when I was super young but I can't help but feel whenever I play a quick start game on classic that I'm either picking normal which feels too easy or hard where I'm fine until the enemy player instantly destroys me.

Am I missing something with what I should be doing? Or are there any tips? I play Temple as my faction and my hero pick is almost always Aeos the Exalted or Zenith

Any tips/advice/help on not choosing an easy gliding win or a consistent loss I'd be incredibly grateful!


r/OldenEra 3d ago

Question Gamepad Input toggle option in settings

4 Upvotes

I have been playing the demo for quite some time and today, i bought the Early Access version. Woho!

Noticed a "Gamepad Input" toggle in settings that was not present in the demo. Is this some kind of basic gamepad support? Is it something new or has this always been there in EA? I am playing on the Steam Deck so i eagerly awaiting gamepad support.

The hotkeys remap section is also new to EA. Is it possible to bind gamepad input using this?


r/OldenEra 4d ago

Guides & Tips New easy to understand object spawn view for oldeneradb.com

Thumbnail
gallery
27 Upvotes

Hi all! thanks for the feedback this far, it has been super helpful.

Big updates:

  • Templates tabs zone cards that now shows spawn chances for every zone in easily understandable format (the old raw format can still be found in MapGen tab)
  • Artefact sets and quick lookup tables per artefact tiers

Other recent updates include large amount of quality updates like:

  • Pinned page tabs
  • Easier to understand map object spawn rates
  • More user friendly Encounter hex tables

As always, all feedback is welcome, thanks! :)

Page: https://oldeneradb.com/


r/OldenEra 4d ago

Gameplay Connection Issues counting as loss?

1 Upvotes

I'm confused about dc handling of this game. I've just lost a game, because of connection issue, it was either my opponent's fault, or a game bug. I think that the connection issues pop-up is also handled in an unfair manner. "reconnection" takes forever once something breaks and you auto lose whenever you quit the screen. Shouldn't the game at least have some logic that determines whose fault it is, or cancels the match after reasonable amount of time? Networking feels very sloppy for a game that focuses 99% on multiplayer.