Olden Era Beginner Guide: First Week Strategy, Hero Types and Early Game Basics

What this guide is about

This is a general beginner guide for Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era. It explains the basic logic of the first week: how to choose your hero direction, how to build your town, which fights to take, when to upgrade your army, and why Day 7 is one of the most important moments of the early game.

The goal is not to give one perfect build for every faction. The goal is to help you understand the basic rhythm of the game.

Your daily schedule:

• Day 1 - Assess area, search for wood, ore, gold piles and easy fights. Build core dwelling upgrade if it boosts you, e.g. ranged attack, swift strike, good ability. OR build a next tier dwelling if upgrade doesn't boost you. OR build economy buildings if you have enough of easy and normal fights around you.

• Day 2 - Continue looting free resources and taking easy fights. Avoid risking your army for early losses, especially against any ranged armies. This day will identify if you need higher tier dwelling to fight neutral armies around you, or you can expand your economy tier. Check Law points - think of economy or creature investment here.

• Day 3 - Take fights and usually this is your economy building day, because you are already too far from town and already invested in own army. Scout even more and plan your movement. Next day you might want to make a home run if your fights went wrong. Check law points - think of creature investment like power or growth.

• Day 4 - Get higher tier dwelling from home town to win even more fights, OR make a calculated trade for map objects, such as super gold boost or creature dwellings. Remember that creature dwelling increases city growth that is super usefull for your Week 2 start.

• Day 5 - Plan your end of week here, you need to have enough gold to buy your core unit stack at Day 8. Remember you dont need to purchase all creatures from buildings, only those who increase your power stack or really boost you like some tanky higher tier units. This is a good day to build Economy building as it will reinvest till Day 8

• Day 6 - Higher economy buildings will not return your investments on Day 8 if purchased now. Consider them only if being lucky on gold piles and map objects. Usually to focus on Mage guild, Marketplace or core higher creature dwellings. Check of Law points - think of creature growth investment.

• Day 7 - Build the highest tier creature dwelling to guarantee enablement of a new power stack to replace or advance your previos lower tier stack (e.g. 10+ minotaurs and 70+ troglodytes). Avoid spending money on upgrading here (you can upgrade on Day 8). Make sure you know what guard you want to fight with a weekly city growth. Final check of Law points for creature growth.

1. Hero types: Might or Magic

Most heroes can be roughly divided into two broad categories:

Might heroes

Might heroes rely more on army strength, attack, defense, tempo, and efficient battles. Your stacks can one-shot or higher tiers can survive counterattacks not losing a single unit. They usually want to preserve units, snowball early fights, and win through stronger creature stacks.

Might heroes are usually easier for beginners because their power is more straightforward: better army, better trades, better map tempo.

Magic heroes

Magic heroes rely more on spells, mana, spell power, control, and specific combinations. They can sometimes win fights that look impossible for a Might hero, but they are also easier to misplay if you waste mana pool.

Magic heroes often require better understanding of spell value, mana management, positioning, and timing.

Simple beginner rule

If you are new, start with a hero or faction that can fight reliably with army strength. Magic can be extremely powerful, but it usually becomes stronger when you already understand the flow of battles and the map.

2. The general first-week plan

The first week is about tempo. You want to reveal and assess the map, collect resources, build your city correctly, gain hero experience for leveling up, and prepare for the first important creature growth to break zone.

A simple first-week plan looks like this:

Day 1–2: Scout and assess area, identify resources for easy collect, e.g. gold piles, chests, wood & ore.

Your first goal is to collect free resources and fight only easy battles. The default UI shows the fight complexity with easy, normal, hard, make sure to keep this setting ON. Do not lose or risk important army stacks early for small rewards.

Focus on:

• wood and ore
• gold piles
• loose resources - usually each Faction sticks to single specific resource like Dungeon for gems. You can identify it by looking at your Law points 2nd row, the Tier 7 unit building requirements.
• nearby chests - the quick XP gainer or quick gold bumper
• easy creature banks or guards
• scouting roads and key objects

Day 3–5: Build your fighting base

By the middle of the week, you should start turning your economy and town into real power. This usually means building corecreature dwellings, preparing upgrades, and choosing which army stack will carry your early fights. Think of having about 70-100 T1 creatures, 30-50 T2 creatures, 20-40 T3 creatures.

You should also start identifying which fights are worth taking and which ones should be delayed. Rule of thumb is avoiding many ranged fights, especially those versus ranged T3 units.

Day 6–7: Prepare for the weekly power spike

Day 7 is important because creature growth happens at the start of the next week. Your town development before the week ends affects how strong your next week will be. You might want to finish your end of Day 6 in the castle to restore mana, replenish army and start new week with maximum movement points.

Your goal is to enter Week 2 with:

• important dwellings built
• atleast 1 core dwelling upgraded
• prepared for 2nd or 3rd core dwelling upgrade
• enough gold to buy new units at Day 8
• main hero ready to continue clearing the map

3. City build order: what matters most

There is no universal build order for every faction, you can check detailed Fraction guides later. But the logic is usually similar.

In the first week, your build order should answer three questions:

1. What gives me more core army?
2. What lets me take more fights safely?
3. What do I need before Day 7?

A common beginner priority:

Priority 1: Core creature dwellings

You need units. Without units, your hero cannot clear the map efficiently. Early creature dwellings are usually more important than greedy economy buildings.

Priority 2: Key upgrades

Some units become much stronger after upgrade. If an upgrade changes the unit from “average” to “main carry”, it should be prioritized. Prioritize any units that transform from melee to ranged.

Good upgrades usually give:

• ranged attacks
• more initiative
• no retaliation
• better survivability
• stronger damage
• useful abilities

Priority 3: Economy, but not at the cost of tempo

Economy is important, but too much greed can ruin your first week. If you build economy while skipping the army you need for clearing, you may actually become poorer because you cannot take map rewards.

The best economy is often the economy you can actually defend and convert into tempo. Think of having 3 creature dwellings. 1 creature upgrade, and 3 economy buildings

4. Key army upgrades

Not every upgrade is equally important. Some upgrades are nice, but not urgent. Others completely change how your faction fights.

When choosing upgrades, ask yourself:

• Does this unit become my main damage dealer?
• Does it help me take fights with fewer losses?
• Does it help against ranged stacks or fast melee enemies?
• Can it tank or retaliate effectively without loosing stack?

Beginner advice: upgrade the unit that helps you clear the map with the lowest losses. Early snowball is more important than having a perfectly balanced army.

5. Why Day 7 matters

Day 7 is the last day before new weekly creature growth. This makes it a key planning point.

Before ending Day 7, check:

• Did I build the important dwellings?
• Can I afford to buy next week’s army?
• Is my main hero positioned well for Week 2?
• Did I avoid unnecessary losses?
• Am I ready to break into a richer zone or take stronger fights?

A common beginner mistake is reaching Week 2 with gold but without enough dwellings, or with dwellings but no gold to buy units. Try to balance both.

6. Choosing fights: easy, normal, and dangerous

Not every fight is worth taking immediately.

Easy fights

These are fights where you expect minimal or no losses. Take them early, especially if they guard resources, chests, or important map objects.

Sometimes if you face big ranged T1 stack you can let them run - this will save your army power stack from losses.

Normal fights

These are fights where you may lose a few units, but the reward is worth it. These fights are acceptable if they help your tempo. Think of having a Pandora Chest, Core artefact, creature dwelling or many resources that you really need at the moment.

Dangerous fights

These are fights where you risk losing your main stack, key units, or too much tempo. Skip them until you have more army, better spells, or an important upgrade.

Special warning: ranged stacks

Ranged enemy stacks can punish beginners hard. They deal damage immediately and can force losses before your army reaches them.

Against ranged stacks, it is often better to delay the fight, bring more army, use spells, or accept that the fight is not worth it yet.

Sometimes you can let them run totally saving possible army losses in exchange of lacking some XP gained.

If the fight goes badly and the losses are too high, escaping can be better than ruining your entire first week, not acceptable for Single Hero mode tho.

7. Laws points

Laws points are an important long-term progression system. Beginners should not choose them randomly. Beginners MUST choose and invest them.

When selecting Laws, think about your current plan:

• Do I need more early tempo?
• Do I need stronger fights?
• Do I need more economy?
• Does this choice support my hero type?
• Does this help my faction’s main strength?

During Week 1 you can choose to invest in those that increase army growth and creature damage. There are 2 economy boosters that grands gold, wood and ore.

As a beginner avoid situational choices and stick to creature growth, creature strength, economy boost and core mechanic boost like Necromancery, Morale, Luck, etc.

8. Astrology points

Astrology points are another important layer of progression and planning. Like Laws, they should support your strategy instead of being picked randomly. Beginners MUST choose and invest them.

The rule of thumb here is invest into Second Wind spell which will grant you a movement points in exchange for some mana.

Common mistake driven by lack of experience and UI - you can actually upgrade them even more, just click icon and you will see how much astrology points needed.

Astrology should make your plan stronger, not replace the plan.

9. Simple beginner checklist

By the end of Week 1, you should ask yourself:

• Do I understand whether my hero is Might or Magic focused?
• Did I build enough army production?
• Did I upgrade at least one important unit or prepare to do so?
• Did I avoid bad fights against dangerous ranged stacks?
• Did I use Laws and Astrology to support my strategy?
• Am I ready for Week 2 creature growth?
• Is my main hero positioned to continue clearing or break into a better zone?

If the answer is mostly yes, your early game is probably on the right track.

Final advice

Olden Era is a tempo game. Beginners often lose not because of one big mistake, but because of many small delays: bad fights, wrong build order, skipped dwellings, wasted movement, or random progression choices.

Your first goal is simple: build enough army, take efficient fights, preserve your key stacks, and enter Week 2 stronger than your opponent.