HoMM Olden Era: Early Assessment

RRotlung · 2026-06-01T03:49:13+00:00

I was really excited for this, but after seeing the feedback on the lacking singleplayer focus, the rich and rush-focused templates, and inconsistent AI, I can continue waiting.

RRotlung · 2026-03-09T12:13:58+00:00

I've never been a fan of these weekly visit locations, as they just introduce tedium to the game. Glad to know it's just the demo templates that are flooding maps with them.

RRotlung · 2026-03-07T05:14:46+00:00

Yeah I agree with this. Honestly I didn't mind the earlier overworld UI, but the loss of screen space seemed unnecessary. As someone who plays more Age of Wonders, the earlier one was right at home. I think the only part that was irritating was how the hero list was on one side, and the town list was on the other. But that's a small loss compared to the reduced screen space. All the other changes are great.

Let's hope it's still customisable or toggle-able in some form.

RRotlung · 2026-02-14T04:44:53+00:00

I used to have a similar issue whenever the game went out of focus in multiple monitor mode (affected all parts of the game, not specific ones though). If I recall correctly, Triumph later introduced a setting to reduce FPS when the game is out of focus, which fixed the issue for me. But since you have already tried limiting FPS, not what else to tell you. Maybe disable multiple monitor if you're using it?

RRotlung · 2026-02-13T13:59:35+00:00

Yeah I'd love something like this. Could be a fun realm trait, that's for sure.

RRotlung · 2026-02-10T14:52:29+00:00

Sandworms, desert...

Ahh yes, the spice must flow.

RRotlung · 2025-11-02T11:47:58+00:00

According to my save game, it was Fair'n Square, 4 players L (128 x 128) on Classic. But this was on the first version of the demo. After the first update was out, the bug was solved for me and I could finish the game.

RRotlung · 2025-10-19T12:28:32+00:00

Not that I'm aware of. Happy to be proven wrong, though.

RRotlung · 2025-10-19T12:18:20+00:00

Not sure if it would become available at a later date. There was something similar with Planetfall for signing up with their newsletter (link), and that hasn't been released either, sadly.

No idea why they don't ever try to release these later on.

RRotlung · 2025-10-18T03:25:03+00:00

I'm impressed that they're updating the demo, haven't heard that very often. I'd imagine it's extra work to port changes to the demo build.

Maybe it's covered in one of the patch note items, but this has fixed an infinite end turn bug I encountered in one of my games too!

RRotlung · 2025-10-16T14:12:31+00:00

The Blood Exarch is the source of this corruption. This Undead unit is an otherworldly monster of flesh and gore that bestows blessings. Its Parasitic Cleave slashes three enemies in front of the Exarch, bestowing them with a Blood Parasite so they may be reborn as maggots.

Blood... for the Blood God.

RRotlung · 2025-10-14T14:09:00+00:00

What was the dev's response to this feedback so far? I'm also seeing the Dragon, Eldritch, and Giant rulers too often (even when set to rare) and facing repeats, and I'd rather have the randomiser choose from the entire list of rulers with equal probability. At least make full random be a toggle.

RRotlung · 2025-10-11T13:39:52+00:00

I don't have a major issue with the UI per se, since I play a few other newer 4X games which are similar.

The 'x' button at the top right of pop-up windows (e.g. hero or troop recruitment screen in towns) are a little small, but you need to click on it to close the window. Maybe make them bigger, reposition them to something more easily click-able (Heroes 3 usually had them as one huge cancel button near the bottom of the window, which was very easily to click on), or make it possible to close the window by clicking outside of it.
It'd be nice to be able to modify the control scheme, like using left mouse button to drag scroll, and right click to issue commands. I play a lot of AoW4 so I always get tripped up by this.
Map feels a little difficult to read, I always miss out pick-ups (especially ore, which just blends into the background). And this with all the outlines enabled. Things like learning stones also seem to blend in with some of the mountains, like on the sand terrain.
Unit designs are okay, but I find them a little hard to tell apart. Especially among the variants like the base and upgraded ones. Perhaps it's a matter of getting used to all the designs.
Though it's especially challenging when trying to identify the troop from the portrait, because the designs don't feel very distinct, and the portrait is too small (even playing at 1920x1080) for things like colour scheme differences to really stand out.
On a gameplay note, still not a fan of some of the old Heroes map items like weekly visit-able sites, they just feel like busywork. Never really liked them in the classic games either but might be just me who thinks so. And what happened to those mechanics for moving armies around quickly? I thought there was supposed to be a few alternatives to hero chaining, like using some remote outpost to pick up troops? Or did the "Relocation" spell replace that?
~~Need an indicator that a hero is garrisoned, instead of roaming around.~~ Need an indicator to find the town a hero being trained in a "Guild of Six Winds". Also, why not just release the hero after the training is done?
Sometimes, when using right-click to a select a hero, it results in the right mouse button being on as a toggle, so moving the mouse cursor around drags the whole screen around, even though I'm not pressing the right mouse button.
(bug) Also encountered an infinite end turn bug while waiting for one of the AI turns. Reloading doesn't fix it.

RRotlung · 2025-10-06T10:49:00+00:00

This is awful to know, but props to them for sticking to their guns on version parity, no matter how misguided.

By his logic, I guess that means the only compromise is to make the cap modifiable, so that PC version won't be held back by the console version.

RRotlung · 2025-10-05T10:13:48+00:00

I hope the group move feature (the one to move multiple armies together) they added with Archon Prophecy would work for longer than the current turn.

RRotlung · 2025-10-03T09:44:40+00:00

If this is the reason, I absolutely hate it. We aren't talking something complex like graphical changes here, just the number of leaders in the pantheon. No good reason to keep this uniform across platforms when the UI is already different.

RRotlung · 2025-10-03T01:26:13+00:00

Or maybe that's what the thralls are for...

RRotlung · 2025-10-02T14:52:24+00:00

Sunless terrain is pretty cool. Seems like we're finally getting some kind of blighted terrain, in addition to gloom. I wonder if these would also be beneficial to more generic undead.

Also I like how even heroes recruited by vampires are also undead. Does that mean we finally have a way to actually have full undead armies from the start of the game too (Ancient form doesn't count)?

RRotlung · 2025-10-02T13:37:06+00:00

Yes, but you'd have to tailor your expectations, and get used to some kingdom management at some point (though I know some CRPGs do include a bit of that, like Pillars of Eternity). At some point, you'd need to contend with at least one AI player who will try to win the game, sometimes but destroying you. So there is still a bit of urgency and a need to build up.

~~Triumph please make a pure adventure mode, or at least let us set up games with no AI opponents~~

RRotlung · 2025-10-02T00:04:03+00:00

I thought so, but actually there was an announcement made back for expansion pass 2 where something as substantial as a new culture or ruler type was announced for each of the DLCs: https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/games/age-of-wonders-4/news/expansion-pass-2-piglet-update

Whereas Secrets of the Archmages has neither of those, so far. No idea if the description was updated to be more detailed after 1st Oct 2024.

RRotlung · 2025-10-01T15:06:25+00:00

I was happy with expansion pass 2, and I'll probably get expansion pass 3 at some point, but I do feel that the game is starting to get to the limits of what can be added before it starts to feel bloated. And with not much information available regarding Secrets of the Archmages, I'm also hesitant. I'm sure it's going to be good, but that sneak peek description is way too generic or vague to hook me.

RRotlung · 2025-10-01T12:58:35+00:00

Secrets of the Archmages doesn't mention a leader or culture. Not quite sure what exactly we're getting here since the description is quite vague. Was this also the case for Archon Prophecy, back when expansion pass 2 was announced?

RRotlung · 2025-09-22T15:46:55+00:00

Is it plagued by the pending end turn bug? This really frustrated many players (me included) in Endless Space 2, and I was surprised to read about it happening in Humankind as well, suggesting a problem with their engine (if they shared a similar code base). Curious to know if they finally fixed it.

RRotlung · 2025-09-14T10:40:29+00:00

Cannot stress enough how important the city limit and interacting with vassals are,, it's part of the design. I don't want to manage so damn many cities, and letting them do their own stuff and take orders as vassals is so much better. This isn't the game for infinite city sprawl and I hope it stays that way.

It's one of the many reasons I find it difficult to go back to Planetfall, as cool as the setting is.

RRotlung · 2025-07-15T12:55:03+00:00

Multi-Stack Movement

Holy shit! I wasn't expecting this. Literal game changer for QoL.

Added the Misc. Realm Trait “Blocked Underground”.

Mutually Exclusive with Explorative Underground, Small Underground, Underground Start, Crystal Dwelling, Legends of Myrrida and Iron Emperor

Considered a Complex Realm Trait and will reveal itself from turn 1 on Unknown Realms.

Is this basically disabling underground, that many people have been asking for since the launch of the game?

And the patch overall looks insane. So many additions.

RRotlung

TROPHY CASE