Might & Magic Era of Chaos Beginner’s Guide With the Best Starter Tips and Tricks
Might & Magic Era of Chaos is the latest entry into the Might & Magic series, a popular franchise that had some of the most popular tactical RPGs in the late ‘90s. The game is based heavily on one of the most popular entries in the series, Heroes of Might & Magic III, which is considered to be the best strategy game of its time by many gamers. In fact, Era of Chaos almost feels like a retelling of the original game since it features the same characters, units, buildings, and factions.
If you’re a fan of the HoMM series, you’re definitely going to enjoy this new entry, if only for the fanservice. In fact, we recommend taking a look at our review if you want to learn exactly how this game compares to HoMM 3. This time around, however, we’re going to teach you how to get started in Era of Chaos, and give you some awesome tips and tricks for beginners.
Welcome to Erathia
The very first thing you’ll see as soon as you start in Era of Chaos is the kingdom map. Erathia is quite big and full of evil invaders and all sorts of interesting things. However, you’ll need to cut a path through swathes of enemies before reaching your destination. In other words, you’ll be spending most of your time in this game fighting against many different types of enemies. Luckily, this works in our favor as the combat system in this game is quite intricate and fun, at least once you get the hang of it.
Aside from the combat, you’ll also need to unlock different units to add to your formation, and heroes for leading your armies. There’s a lot to consider when it comes to fighting in Era of Chaos, so let’s get started.
The Formation Screen
Before every battle, you’ll find the formation screen where you can arrange your troops how you see fit. The formation is important as it will determine who gets attacked first, as well as which enemies your units will focus on. Moreover, depending on the types of units you’re deploying on the field, you’ll be limited to assigning them to specific slots in your formation.
The different types of units in Era of Chaos fall into these categories:
- Offensive: Strong fighters that stand in the frontlines. Can only be deployed in the two front rows.
- Defensive: Fighters with superior HP and defenses. Can only be deployed in the two front rows.
- Charging: Units that run headfirst into battle with reckless abandon. They usually have unique effects for when they first clash with the enemy. They can be deployed anywhere in the formation.
- Ranged: Attackers that fight from a distance and that can deal increased damage to casters. Can only be deployed in the two back rows.
- Caster: Ranged attackers with superior magic resistance. They can only be deployed in the two back rows.
While the specific stats and skills vary per character, the positioning within your formation will always come down to the different types of units you’re looking to add. Keep in mind this information as it will allow you to keep your powerful attackers safe from the enemy for long enough so they can wipe them out.
Heroes and Spells
Your heroes, unlike your units, don’t directly attack in combat; they’re content to just chill in the background while your lesser minions do the heavy lifting. However, you heroes are also quite important as they will determine the spells at your disposal. Moreover, every hero has a unit specialty which can provide passive benefits to certain units, increasing their effectiveness in battle.
Every hero you unlock also contributes to your total Hero Attack, Defense, Intelligence, and Knowledge. These stats affect your performance in combat in the following ways:
- Attack: Increases your unit damage.
- Defense: Decreases the damage your units receive in combat.
- Intelligence: Increases the damage of your spells.
- Knowledge: Decreases the damage that your units receive from enemy spells.
While every hero has different skills and passive that make them suited for a wide variety of situations, the simple act of unlocking them will increase your power. In this sense, try to unlock as many of these characters as you can.
Your spells are active skills that you can use in combat to various effects. These spells vary according to your hero, and include abilities that can deal damage, weaken the enemy, or buff your units. A hero’s ultimate spell is usually very powerful, though it costs lots of mana to cast. Mana is a resource that generates automatically in battle and that is used for casting all your spells. Proper management of this resource is vital for using the right skills at the right time.
Unlocking New Units
Along your travels, you’ll come across different units that you can add to your formation. There are a couple of ways to unlock new units, including collecting their fragments and assembling them, or by summoning them from the altar.
You can find unit fragments in several ways such as by progressing through the main story levels and completing side battles, as well as from purchasing them from the marketplace. Meanwhile, you can also find more fragments by summoning them from the altar using silver and golden keys. The silver keys are easy enough to find as you can get them from your first completion of every level. The golden keys are more difficult and are usually rewards from completing tough missions, participating in events, and from purchasing them from the store using diamonds.
The type of summoning you perform will affect your results, with the silver summonings awarding mostly unit fragments, while the golden variants have a good chance of giving full units. It’s important to perform as many summonings as you can as you’ll need to unlock 2 if you want to complete the toughest challenges. If possible, we recommend rerolling until you get a strong SR unit in the beginning as this can make it significantly easier for you to progress for the very beginning.
