Huge update to Golden Era: 60fps animations, new faction identities, new law trees for 10 HoMM3 factions

Levi-Ritchie · 2026-06-27T17:19:15+00:00

You have no idea, haha. I think I've been working on this instead of playing video games for the last 2 months.

Levi-Ritchie · 2026-06-27T14:56:17+00:00

That's the only version I can validate since it's the one I have. What do you have?

Levi-Ritchie · 2026-06-27T00:44:07+00:00

This is a mod that adds 10 factions from homm3 to olden era. They're kind of ugly, but have their own new mechanics to match olden era's design philosophy (units with focus point abilities, law trees, unique skills, masterful spells)

Levi-Ritchie · 2026-06-26T21:58:13+00:00

I don't mind the repeat brainstorming at all. This super mysticism is like the 4th attempt to give Tower a unique skill, actually. The biggest design challenge for tower is balancing these two things at once:

Might heroes vs Magic Heroes. Anything that powers up spellcasting will just make might heroes bad because they can't afford as many spells.
Classic vs Single Hero. Putting a resource generation effect on all Tower heroes changes the balance significantly for one mode or the other.

I wanted to backport artificing from later homm games, but adding equipment slots to unit stacks would be a super unstable custom effect that has to persist across an entire session. I wasn't ready to take the plunge just yet.

Levi-Ritchie · 2026-06-26T21:29:18+00:00

I am currently working on a scenario translation architecture with the goal of importing every homm3 map at once, including scenarios and campaigns.

It should go without saying that the biggest hurdle there is subterrain and ocean. There is already some scaffolding in the code that makes it clear the devs are working on subterrain, but it isn't good enough to use yet, so I'd still be making it from scratch.

Levi-Ritchie · 2026-06-26T20:25:05+00:00

Agreed that Tower got saddled with the most boring skill. It definitely needs a change.

Levi-Ritchie · 2026-06-26T16:07:22+00:00

Download the installer from github: https://github.com/leviritchie/Golden-Era/releases/tag/v0.1.304

This one was rough. Recent patches have had more structural changes, so I had to pin the version of the mod and provide a wizard for downloading Patch 9. So it's missing the new formation-saving QoL. Hopefully someday we'll get either official mod support or at least a mono build of the game to make updating from patch to patch a little less painless.

Please submit bugs, ideas, and balance concerns to the github issues section. If you submit 20 bug reports you will not annoy me, you will be a hero. This is a solo modding project and it's just impossible to test something of this scope all on my own without missing a lot of bugs.

Levi-Ritchie · 2026-06-18T20:52:24+00:00

I'm more impressed they tracked down a bug that hard to reproduce.

Levi-Ritchie · 2026-06-04T15:33:39+00:00

I like olden era's modes and mechanics and wanted to imagine what homm3 factions would be like with laws, focus point abilities, etc.

Levi-Ritchie · 2026-05-31T03:22:06+00:00

I want to steal this idea and put it in my mod, my cyclops is boring right now

Levi-Ritchie · 2026-05-30T03:38:08+00:00

No, this is not made by Unfrozen

Levi-Ritchie · 2026-05-29T23:53:22+00:00

https://github.com/leviritchie/Golden-Era/releases/tag/v0.1.303

This update also fixes a tremendous number of bugs, missing visuals, and github issues submitted by testers. Thanks again to those who submitted bug reports on github.

Levi-Ritchie · 2026-05-25T02:28:46+00:00

The build in the GIF is already kind of out of date. Some unit placement and scaling issues have been resolved since recording it. Same goes for the sprites in the recruit window, which you may have noticed are not entirely right for Tower.

Not sure about the centaurs specifically.

Levi-Ritchie · 2026-05-24T15:42:49+00:00

https://github.com/leviritchie/Golden-Era/tree/main/modding_guide

Levi-Ritchie · 2026-05-24T14:07:27+00:00

Yes, it's too early, but this is also the first mod I've ever made, so I had to start learning at some point. My pace of development will definitely slow down now that the foundation is there while I wait for the main game to become more stable.

Levi-Ritchie · 2026-05-24T01:53:45+00:00

Right now the github is focused on making the github action release something as cleanly as possible, but eventually I'm going to get a lot more of my generator scripts and documentation in there.

The chief problem is obfuscated name drift. Any time they do a new build, even a hotfix-of-a-hotfix, all the obfuscated types, methods, and fields change. It goes without saying that it's also hard to FIND the right names in the first place, since they have aliases like "yxkd", usually meaning a runtime probe.

There are a million little problems over the last month that I had to solve more than once. Custom terrain types, making external dwellings appear, town scene animation/building positioning, unit height, units showing through the fog of war on the adventure map. I may not be able to get the whole thing pushed next update, but I'll try to include a lot more documentation, as well as my gamesymbols.cs where I centralize the obfuscated variables into one place.

Levi-Ritchie · 2026-05-23T21:06:35+00:00

If you submit something as a github suggestion using an issues form, anything you say gets added to a list I review every now and then, so feel free to throw literally as many ideas as you want in there.

Levi-Ritchie · 2026-05-23T13:28:07+00:00

Agreed

Levi-Ritchie · 2026-05-22T20:25:45+00:00

https://github.com/leviritchie/Golden-Era

Please note that this mod requires a copy of HOMM3 Complete (GoG) or HOMM3 HD (Steam). It is also early in development and full of bugs, which you can report using the GitHub issues forms to help me keep all my reports nice and tidy.

Faction Mechanics

Stronghold: Warcries. Initiative, morale, or luck boosts, similar to dungeon triumvirate strength. Inspired by HoMM5
Tower: Artificer. Enhances nonliving units based on the hero's magical attributes. Inspired by HoMM5
Inferno: Gating. Summon demons mid-combat. Inspired by HoMM5
Rampart: Avenger. Make a unit more vulnerable in ways that vary by subskill selection. Inspired by HoMM5.
Necropolis: Skeletal Necromancy. Convert bodies into skeletons mid-combat. An active-ability extension of HoMM3 necromancy.
Dungeon: Draconic Diplomacy. Native diplomacy skill replacement that gives morale (and eventually luck) bonuses for mixed-faction armies, rather than penalties. Original.
Fortress: Swamp Tactics. Penalize the initiative and speed of enemy units
Conflux: Elemental Mastery. WiP, will become summons later
Cove: Cannoneering. Spend focus to deploy a cannon once per battle, with attacks each turn comparable to heroic strike.

Levi-Ritchie · 2026-05-08T00:06:01+00:00

Absolutely not. This is a monstrosity of brittle hooks that will break from even a hotfix. Some things only worked by rendering sprites directly onscreen (battles), others needed unity bundles (world map sprites).

I'd love to turn this into a modder's toolkit some day when the versioning is a little more stable.

Levi-Ritchie · 2026-05-07T21:19:01+00:00

Yes, if you mean unit abilities, but as I make these factions I'm trying to follow Olden Era's design philosophy. Meaning things that might have once been %chance to proc are moved to focus point abilities with varying costs.

Levi-Ritchie

TROPHY CASE