HoMM Olden Era 0.82: The New Attack/Defense Damage Formula Explained

In Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era, one extra point of Attack used to add 4.5% damage at the start of a game and less than 1% at the end. Unfrozen spells this out in the notes for update 0.82.06, which went live on the main branch on October 29, 2026. So the studio rewrote how damage is calculated, and the knock-on effects reach far beyond a single line in a changelog.

This analysis draws on the official patch notes, the October 15 beta announcement and press coverage. Nothing here comes from hands-on play: every figure is Unfrozen’s own.

What shipped on October 29

Unfrozen calls 0.82.06 the biggest balance update since the game entered Early Access. It first ran on a public beta branch opened on October 15, with saves kept separate from the main version. The studio, published by Hooded Horse, then layered in a batch of fixes based on beta feedback.

The update breaks down into five blocks: the damage formula, a rework of skills and artifacts, new alternative upgrades for creatures, a stronger map AI and two neutral creatures. Almost everything else flows from the first block. Once you understand the formula, you understand why Battle Magic and Battlecraft were cut down. It is also the biggest shake-up since the Necromancy rework that reshaped Necropolis.

Why the old formula faded out in the late game

Until now, the damage multiplier was (20 + ATK) / (20 + DEF). Hero stats are added on top of creature stats. The flaw is pure arithmetic: the more Attack and Defense a hero piles up, the bigger both sides of the fraction get, and the closer the ratio drifts toward 1.

Unfrozen shows this with a Troglodyte (Attack 2, Defense 3) facing a Waurm (Attack 20, Defense 20). With no hero bonuses, one extra point of Attack adds 4.5% to the Troglodyte’s hits. With 80 Attack and Defense on the hero side, that same point adds just 0.98%.

The second example lands harder for players. A thousand Troglodytes face 75 Waurms, roughly one week of growth for each. Early on, the Waurms deal 2.67 times more damage. With 60 points of hero stats, the gap shrinks to 1.24 times. The longer a game ran, the less reason high-tier creatures had to exist next to swarms of small units.

The new rule: only the gap matters

The 0.82 formula ignores absolute values and looks only at the gap between the attacker’s Attack and the defender’s Defense. The first point of difference is worth +4.00%, the second +3.96%, the third +3.92%. Each further point is worth 0.04% less. Past a gap of 100, stats stop affecting damage altogether.

If Attack is higher, damage is multiplied by that total. If Defense is higher, damage is divided by the same total. A gap of 17 is therefore worth 62.56%, and a gap of 18 is worth 65.88%.

The upshot is simple. Because the hero’s bonus is added to both sides in the same way, it no longer warps the balance of power. In the official example, Waurms deal 2.28 times more damage than Troglodytes, and that ratio holds for the whole game. A point of Attack is worth about 2%, on day one just as in month three.

What the formula changes in an actual game

The first winners are tier 6 and tier 7 creatures. An elite stack now keeps the edge its base stats give it, instead of watching it melt under hero bonuses. Building an army around a few heavy stacks becomes a defensible plan again.

The second winners are stat artifacts. Unfrozen admits they barely mattered late in a match. The update even adds twelve artifacts that combine two attributes, from the common Soldier’s Sword (+1 Attack and Spell Power) to the epic Archmage’s Hood (+3 Defense and Knowledge).

The losers are harder to spot. Tier 1 to 3 units get slightly stronger early on, but they no longer scale as much with the hero’s growth. The studio also lowered the stats of many creatures, since the same number now carries more weight than before.

Battle Magic, Battlecraft and First Aid

Since stats now matter more, the skills that handed them out for free were reined in. Battle Magic takes the biggest hit. Unfrozen notes that might heroes used it as much as magic heroes, which went against its original design. At max level, creatures now receive 60% of the hero’s Attack and 40% of their Spell Power, instead of 100% of the hero’s Attack.

For a magic hero, the trade is neutral or better. For a might hero who picked it by habit, it is a straight loss. Battlecraft follows the same logic: the stat bonus for waiting or skipping a turn drops from 20/30/40% to 10/15/20%.

The most visible addition is First Aid, a new skill open to every hero and every faction. After a won battle, surviving stacks recover 20, 30 or 40% of the creatures they lost. Its subskills add a cleanse for negative effects and a once-per-battle partial revival of a fallen stack. Julius, Leira and the Iron Master now start with it.

The Temple gets a new identity too. Its faction skill, Righteousness, no longer hinges on creatures dying or on a big stat bonus. Instead it grants three active prayers: Song of Wrath adds Pure Damage, Plea for Healing heals and can revive, and Hymn of Power extends positive effects. Their strength scales with the hero’s level.

An AI that retreats, and fewer absurd streaks

The second big project targets solo players. The map AI now has its main hero flee a battle that looks lost, then follow a dedicated plan to get back into the game. It learns high-level map magic at the Magic Observatory and uses the most useful map spells to get around. It also splits resources more sensibly between towns and recruitment, and picks artifacts and skills to fit each hero’s role.

Randomness gets a leash as well. A new mechanism prevents unusually long streaks of Morale and Luck, good or bad. Unfrozen’s example is a stack with 5 Morale that never gets a bonus action while an enemy on 1 Morale triggers one almost every turn. That situation should become “practically impossible”.

On the interface side, the initiative bar is easier to read and faction active skills now have their own panel. Favorite Spells lets you flag three combat spells for quick casting. Finally, two neutral creatures join the map: the Mummy at tier 5 and the Kitsune at tier 7.

What to watch next

On paper, 0.82 fixes a real design flaw: a stat system whose value quietly drained away without the player noticing. It also moves Olden Era toward a rule that is easy to read mid-battle. The risk lies in the transition. Tier lists and guides published before October 29, including After Strategy’s own, rest on the old formula, and their advice on low-tier creatures deserves a second look.

Three things are worth tracking. First, the new Battle Magic: will might heroes drop it or find another combination? Second, the Temple’s prayers in ranked play. Third, AI difficulty: an opponent that retreats and comes back could make some PvE maps noticeably longer. Unfrozen says further tuning will follow, based on data and player feedback.