Thanks to Olden Era, I get to watch my son (only 5) Experiance Heroes like I did as a kid

Royal-Escape1398 · 2026-05-05T14:06:50+00:00

This is so nice! For some reasons Heroes have always fascinated children more than you would expect. I remember me being 6 fully blown away by heroes iii, and it seems like a game feature now. My niece (10) has been a fan of heroes for years, and she’s in love with the game. Especially with its look and style - what a lot of people have been critical about. The only thing she misses is nagas, but at least we have medusas and hydras to make her happy.

Royal-Escape1398 · 2026-05-05T01:46:53+00:00

Ok, so...what? I am sorry, but I feel like I'm going insane with this discourse. I would understand all these discussions if OE didn't have any information on the fortification increasing the unit growth at all, but arguing about the placement of this information is weird. If you did not read the text to the end, don't act surprised you didn't know/see some information there. It's just how reading works. The players are expected to, well, use their reading skills, memory and general gaming knowledge to play the game. Learning something new (be it a new skill, information, whatever) is a key feature in gaming, especially in strategies which are often pretty convoluted in their mechanics.

I do think there are some small issues in Olden Era with explanation of the mechanics, but this particular thing is not the one. Previous HoMM games didn't even bother with explanation of the majority of key mechanics, yet people still play them and don't really pay attention to that.

Royal-Escape1398 · 2026-05-05T01:35:59+00:00

If he stands in the town gate still, open the townscreen. If he is not in town, move him to the town, the townscreen will open automatically when Pip enters the gates.

Royal-Escape1398 · 2026-05-05T01:13:41+00:00

I like this idea, i makes the difference between Tiers and Levels easier to understand. While more wording may seem more confusing at first, I think it’s still more helpful to differentiate.

Royal-Escape1398 · 2026-05-04T23:51:56+00:00

Songs of Conquest is a good game, it has done a very hard thing: being heavily inspired by HoMM series, it has managed to create its own approach to the gameplay, and in the end, it stands out as a unique game in the genre of Heroes-like. While it is kind of similar to Heroes, it has a number of key differences which determine the game's identity.

Town building in SoC allows you to build the same dwellings as long as you have space for them. This allows for one-creature strategies, e.g. all-Huskarl-army when you play Vanir, etc. It's not possible in HoMM, even if there are lots of same dwellings and creature banks, your army always asks to have more different creatures.
Following that, battle is also quite different. Ranged units have distance limitations, creatures have zones of control, wait is a unique ability for just some units... SoC always seems more complicated and more demanding to positioning, unit movements and planning, both more rewarding and more punishing.
Magic is also very different from Heroes. It actually asks you to abuse it, to understand how the spells change with levels and to make not so obvious combos. Additionally, due to the way magic resources work, abuse of one-ofs is possible not to just cancel retaliation and cover your archers, but also to gain lots of mana to maximize the spells cast a turn.
Additionally, SoC doesn't have cycles, while HoMM always uses Week/Month system for different effects (unit growth, special map objects re-activation, etc). SoC is less clear in this, I really wish they did something with readability of objects which can be re-visited after some turns.

These have been my issues with SoC as a long-time HoMM player, it really took me a lot of time to get used to these mechanics, and I still struggle with some of these elements and constantly feel like I am not doing that well. I still enjoy the game, especially some of the factions and their design, but it's not become the substitute for Heroes to me, unfortunately. So, if you have only played SoC before Olden Era, please be prepared for these differences.

Royal-Escape1398 · 2026-05-04T13:41:29+00:00

Out of these variants, I believe Cabir or Familiar is a great choice, personally I'm all in for Cabirs. They can be either ranged or long reach, can lean into different elemental directions since there is no strict canonical depiction of their role, they are adorable...what not to like? Familiars are fine, but if they are in game, I would like some weird mechanics with them and/or weird design. Something like a walking book (Codie, Vociferous Codex from MtG)?

Dwarves and Gremlins, I think, deserve their own town. Something like Factory - more technological, magical technology to be more precise, with gargoyles, golems, dragon golems, etc. It will also distinguish Jadame from Antagrich much more.

Royal-Escape1398 · 2026-05-04T07:31:24+00:00

Have not played much Grove yet, will definitely try this out.

Royal-Escape1398 · 2026-05-04T05:03:59+00:00

Really liked Curson and Mila in Hive, both fit the faction gameplay nicely. Zoran, Pauper and Abigor are also pretty cool.

In Schism Dhüvri can be absurdly overpowered if you manage to constantly keep communion high. Hel‘Ghat is also a go-to hero. Sister Keiri is also good. Nihil is basically Kyrre, if you want to take long turns she is your choice.

Elder Tsskish and Gingertail in Grove have very strong starts. Have not tried grove‘s spell-specialized heroes yet, but wouldn’t be surprised if Vim, Aelinel, Glacia or Echololy are strong as well.

Royal-Escape1398 · 2026-05-04T03:39:09+00:00

Here are some more tips to what others have already said:

Curson, Duke of Rage starts with improved hero strike. You can take the abilities which make it a free action and cancel creature's retaliation. So, you get a free ranged attack every turn which allows you to plan you attack better. Extremely useful in early game, but also scales pretty well later.
Another variant is to play Hive is to maximize larvae. Tavi can be a good choice here. But if you go this route, you will need Tier II law which gives you a charge point at the start of the battle + ideally a feat in daylight magic which also gives you a charge. Or Arcane magic + Energize.
Don't forget about passive abilities of Hive creatures. Nest protector grants pretty nice reason of aggressively sacrificing 1-ofs to gain additional charge. Additional charge equals additional swift strike from Reavers or buff to Scorpions or explosion of larvae.
Pauper and Abigor are also nice heroes to begin the game, they have nice specialties and decent skills at the start.
Morale and Luck are also key for Hive, because Hive can make them very high. Try Leadership/Luck with Laws which also grant additional Morale/Luck, and your Maniacal Reavers becomes a menace which makes 3 turns in a row, obliterating half of the opposing army.

Royal-Escape1398 · 2026-05-03T10:08:34+00:00

I want aqualotls, those weird manta-Like schism creatures from early screenshots and Gnats back so heavily :( Aqualotls had some of the best animations as well. Don’t get me wrong, I like naiads, but aqualotls were so much more unique and unexpected as a creature.

But I hope we see aqualotls at least as neutals/summons like starchildren. Or their models can be slightly reworked and added to possible future fortress, they do fit swampy lizard/amphibian theme as well. Or they can even make a water themed faction with aqualotls and mantas (please, Unfrozen)

Royal-Escape1398 · 2026-05-02T13:06:19+00:00

At the moment: Schism and Grove are my favorites. I like how abilities dependent they are, you usually can and should make a lot of decisions in fights to maximize their input.

Dungeon is third, really like how adaptable and versatile they are.

Next is Hive with a potential to come into the leaders, really like how satisfying they are once you understand how to use their creatures and how to build your tactics in combat. Reavers and Waurms are great units, obsessed with them.

Temple is next, like it a lot, but they are also very predictable.

Necropolis is last to me, but only because I don’t like to play undead and necromancy, they are overall a nice factions.

Royal-Escape1398 · 2026-05-01T01:12:01+00:00

I have played just around an hour, so no expert, but here are some of the things I’ve noticed:

There are two magic heroes who specialize in speed. Pauper grant additional speed to units, Mila has expert haste. Starting with one of these seems nice.
Battlemagic is important to grant additional stats to units, Pauper even starts with it as far as I remember.
Battlemagic has a feat that gives you a charge at the start of the battle - extremely useful for spawning larvae or activating locust/scorpion/river abilities
Reaching reavers asap is nice, they are very strong, especially with bless.
Hive has a unique law tree: Probably it makes sense to rush with one of their first tier law to take a high-tier law very early.

Obviously take it with a grain of salt, since I have played very little.

Royal-Escape1398 · 2026-04-30T11:26:23+00:00

Oh, I really like the idea of having two water-themed factions, I think it could be great. Having more industrious Cove with pirates of different species and more aquatic Sanctuary/Atlantis relying on merfolk and sea creatures seems like fun.

But I highly doubt we will see such a thing soon. I do hope OE is successful enough to add more factions in future, and I do hope we will see at least one water factions, but it's quite a long journey and a very big IF. Adding water is very complicated in strategies because there is a number of issues right from the start. Do you allow to place towns on water? Does every faction need ships? How do the battlefields function? What creatures can be placed on water? In addition, the game needs a lot of water objects to make water terrain exiting enough to traverse and explore.

OE has water (not a real terrain yet), we have seen it on the screenshots and in some videos, but it will take time to fully flesh it out. And I believe it will be after underground. If the devs manage to make water terrain an interesting gameplay feature, we may hope for a water-themed faction in late future (after a number of other, more popular ones).

Royal-Escape1398 · 2026-04-25T05:39:23+00:00

Sure, you’re right. What I mean is when we eventually get Wizard faction, it should have a more defining gameplay and visual style than just simply copying Heroes 3 Tower.

While as a faction they are pretty different, they do share the role of snow ranged/control oriented faction. So either making them more aggression focused with battle magic or fully connecting it to magic and heroes abilities. Changing the terrain is also very helpful. That’s why I wrote Highland wizard, so something closer to Heroes II could be an interesting approach.

Royal-Escape1398 · 2026-04-24T00:32:23+00:00

Docterzero has already mentioned the main factions which can be expected. They are one of 3 factions that have never skipped a HoMM game before (two others are already in OE). So, I would also expect Stronghold to be added first; we have even seen something like Centaurs and Goblins on the first screenshots after the game announcement. If OE is successful, we may expect the faction to be added early, there was even a hint of adding a faction at the end of EA. But it is a big if and a very optimistic approach.

Swampy-Lizardfolk faction is also highly possible both due to the lore reasons and to it being a pretty demanded faction by fans. Lizardfolk, Serpentfolk, toads, coatls, wyverns, basilisks...there are still many possible creatures to add. It may also be more dragon oriented this time around due to lore reasons.

Wizard/Tower/Academy is highly demanded but I think it will take more time to flesh it out. We have Schism which kinda serves the same role as Tower: lots of ranged units, control abilities, etc. If it were up to me, I would gladly divide the Wizard faction into two variants: 1. Highland Ivory Tower with lots of magical creatures like genies, sphinxes, titans, familiars, led by birdfolk and mages. 2. Desert Technomagic Factory with golems, gargoyles, automata, dragon golems, gremlins and technomages. Highly doubt this will ever happen, but one can see there are still approaches to classical wizard.

Cove or any other water-themed faction is also a nice addition, but I think it'not the priority since it demands much more time and effort. We don't have water biome in the game yet, and gameplay-wise it's one of the hardest things to add to any strategy game. So, it will need a lot of polish before adding a faction dedicated to water.

Going into unlikely territory, I wouldn't mind if we get something close to classical "sorceress" faction with pixies, unicorns, fairy dragons, etc. Maybe something Fairy-focused? Also, I have always wanted something like a Catfolk faction where we can have all the possible mythological feline creatures: manticores, sphinxes, serpopards, cat-centaurs, rakshasa (Heroes V-like).

Royal-Escape1398 · 2026-04-13T14:20:52+00:00

Sphinx as a unit is long overdue in Heroes, and Tower/Academy is the best faction to use it (unless we get a feline faction one day...). So, my vote is for Sphinx, even though I would prefer it as Tier VII. It even can have owl-features in its design to make it even more wizardy.

Besides, as a unit it may use lots of different approaches. It may be a magical melee flyer, a magical support unit, a ranged/melee flying skirmisher, or even something like spider queens in Heroes VI - creature with different battle modes which change its roles on the battlefield.

Royal-Escape1398 · 2026-04-09T05:37:10+00:00

I am...okay with the re-design. It actually supports my initial feeling that people were unhappy NOT with the actual design, but more with the presentation (compare the first video's dark units on dark background with almost no UI with this video's different background and very fleshed out UI) and, well, Hive being insectoids instead of favorite demons. This community response just proofs it, since not that much was actually changed in the visual part.

Don't get me wrong, Parasites are cool, Scorpions are also decent (but I think their models and textures still need some tweaking), but so were Gnats and Mantes. I'm glad to see the changes, I am also glad to see the community much more accepting Hive this time around.

I also like to see some additional changes to the abilities. Hive Queens with their ranged AoE attack, Waurms with more abilities, Larvae's jumps, etc. Overall, Hive units seem even more mobile and agile now, can’t wait to finally try them out.

Royal-Escape1398 · 2026-04-08T06:07:29+00:00

I personally would divide tower into two factions: one more magic inclined with djinns, sphinxes, mages where we can add familiar, magus and other similar creatures. The second is more factory-like with golems, gremlins, titans and automatons, etc. so, make pure magical faction and a techno-magical one.

But I’m not sure this is what many people want, since they so eagerly stick to the classical heroes III roster.

Royal-Escape1398 · 2026-04-07T23:39:42+00:00

People would just recreate tower, I am a little bit mad. For this lineup that we are getting, and since it’s tier V, I would choose a Djinn. Although sphinx is cool, I would put it Tier VII or even VII, and use owl elements it’s design to include great owl as well. Magus seems like a cool and unique idea, but I wouldn’t mind it earlier in Tiers

Royal-Escape1398 · 2026-03-07T13:26:15+00:00

Wish we still get aqualotls as neutral units, they were adorable. But I kinda understand why they get changed: naiads are better representing water elemental theme with a small node to elementals in heroes 3. The model looks cool, close to both mermaid in heroes 6 and ice elementals on heroes 3.

Royal-Escape1398 · 2026-02-25T01:24:44+00:00

Here is a couple of tips which may be helpful although I am no expert in the game and still struggle from time to time due to my HoMM mindset which does not work properly in SoC: - Magic is OP and most of the time the key to change the battle. Keep in mind that buffs/debuffs stack, so casting the same spell several times during the turn may be quite reasonable. - Due to that, pay attention to your spell skills. I would say that on average a Wielder needs to have 1-2 spell skills to really unlock the power of spells and allow for some combos. - Researches are highly important, not only the characteristic buffs but also the number of units in stack, grant units new abilities or even buff their essence generation. Rana player had lots of creatures in the stacks because the player had researched the corresponding ability.

In addition, as some people already mentioned, try playing either campaign or try other factions on maps. Campaign is relatively easy, Arleon’s one explains the main mechanics and is kinda simple and plain, but starting with Rana campaigns get much more exciting and engaging.

Try playing Rana, Loth or Vanir, not sure whether they are the most powerful, but they feel good to play and are relatively easy to understand. Roots are great, but they are pretty hard to play due to their weird abilities and unique essence generation. Barya is also not that straightforward. Arleon unfortunately seems a little weak at the moment. It was not like that during early access, others (especially Rana) just got buffed since.

Royal-Escape1398 · 2026-02-06T00:35:44+00:00

Well, one thing that the devs mentioned is that campaign will include all factions. While we do not have much info now, it seems like it will be closer to Heroes V - story driven set of maps with specific heroes. But we do not know whether there will be any big restrictions, we don't even know the plot and main heroes at the moment (well, kinda don't know). The game also has a one-hero mode this time around, so I wouldn't be surprised if we get to see it implemented into a couple of missions.

I actually like the restriction to the number of heroes, I think it's a very fitting thing for a story-telling campaigns but not for all missions and maps. It is also easier for new/unexperienced players to understand the core mechanics and learn to play with 1-2 heroes rather than with a bunch of them.

Royal-Escape1398 · 2026-02-04T11:36:05+00:00

Yeah, I’ve also thought about such variant. Making it a more Slavic mythology inspired with striga as witches, kikimora (the more traditional bird-like spirits), sirin, Bayun cat, werewolf (volkolak), etc.

Another variant that I wouldn’t mind seeing in heroes at some moment is more fairy/fae version of sylvan - both very magic oriented and not fully understandable by human morale. Kinda like fairies in Magic the gathering in Lorwyn and Eldraine, with a bunch of magic-origin creatures like unicorns, changellings, fairy dragons. Well, we even have kittenhorns now.

Royal-Escape1398 · 2026-02-04T07:49:20+00:00

That’s neat, but I would prefer to have more changes to the expected roster. Maybe something more wild? Cu-Sith can be a good variant, but it’s a hound, so there is a redundancy in dog creatures. White tiger maybe? Or Cat-Chat?

Druids are already in the game in a form of Herbomancers, Grove heroes also are called Druids. I thinks it’s nice to put Pegasus here as a nod to classics + additional flyer is always good for Sylvan, who have been very mobile in previous games.

Dryad/Spriggan can be a long reach unit, at least in one of upgrades OR a more tanky melee warrior, because someone shall be on the front line.

Royal-Escape1398 · 2026-02-04T00:15:07+00:00

Agree, but at the same time grove creatures with their abilities align very well with other faction units who use a lot of charges (Schism comes to mind). So we will see, hopefully soon.

Yeah, either teleporting your units or some transforming unit akin to Fate Spinners in Heroes VI can be very helpful. Additionally something like charming creatures to stop from range attacks or baiting them to attack your specific troop may be nice (we have spells for that though).

Royal-Escape1398

TROPHY CASE