Every HoMM: Olden Era Faction Explained! Which Fits Your Playstyle?

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]You know how whenever you get into a huge fantasy game, there's that moment where you're staring at factions, overthinking which one to pick? Like, what are these supposed to be and what do they represent? But once you understand the basic faction themes, everything else starts clicking.

[00:00:13]I'm going to very quickly show you the vibes of each faction, and Heroes of Might and Magic veterans, please don't get mad. This is a perspective from someone who hasn't played old titles, but I still want to make this approachable to new players. Let's start with an easy one.

[00:00:27]Temple. This is essentially the classic human faction. It is very similar to human kingdoms you can see in other fantasy RTS games.

[00:00:36]For example, like Warcraft, which really defined this archetype for a lot of players.

[00:00:41]So, they have disciplined armies, fortified cities, and organized expansion. Everything about this faction represents order, stability, and coordinated warfare. They're holy, righteous, and of course arrogant.

[00:00:54]Gameplay-wise, Temple plays as a highly balanced faction with strong economy and fast development. They rely on the righteousness system that rewards well-planned combat, [music] while their faction laws allow for extremely rapid town construction. On the battlefield, Temple combines durable frontline units, range support, and powerful flying creatures into flexible armies that can adapt to almost any situation.

[00:01:18]Thematically, the closest rival to this group of humans who are worshipping the Church of the Sun is Necropolis.

[00:01:28]Necropolis is your undead faction, built around death, decay, and the transformation of fallen enemies into new armies.

[00:01:36]This perfectly fits the classic undead fantasy archetype, where death is not the end state, but resource to be controlled and reused.

[00:01:45]They thrive in the world of prolonged suffering, a world where armies do not disappear, they raise back from the dead. Their gameplay revolves around necromancy system that raises or converts defeated units into undead, grinding down opponents over time, which makes them the great end-game faction.

[00:02:01]They have some really cool units like vampires and death knights, which prioritize self-sustain through vampirism and healing abilities to maintain their numbers through long drawn-out engagements.

[00:02:13]As a faction, they don't rely on a single flashy strike, but rather on an inevitable creeping pressure.

[00:02:19]While they are the true commanders of the dead, the faction is very well balanced by the existence of necromancy energy mechanic. Thematically, this represents the finite nature of dark magic. It acts as a soft cap that forces players to carefully manage their resources, rewarding those who know when to initiate a fight and when to conserve the energy for more advantageous moments.

[00:02:41]As a third faction after Temple and Necropolis, we have Grove.

[00:02:46]In the demo version, this faction was called Sylvan, so they already managed to change the name. Honestly, we can just call them elves because the Grove faction is deeply rooted in the nature-themed and forest guardian aesthetics combined with elemental magic.

[00:03:00]They bring a unique tactical play style to the game. Their units rely on ability timing, utility effects, and positioning rather than raw durability or direct damage.

[00:03:10]Their main unique gameplay mechanic revolves around the focus and murmuring systems, [music] which generate resources to fuel abilities and spell casting. A lot of their units specialize in utility and disruption and repeated actions rather than just brute force.

[00:03:24]Together with strong magical scaling and strategic mobility tools, Grove excels at maintaining momentum through positioning, timing, and layered ability usage, which perfectly fits the agile magic elves theme.

[00:03:36]As a perfect opposition to natural surface life, we have a subterranean faction built around underground civilizations and dangerous creatures like hydras, minotaurs, and dragons.

[00:03:46]This is a dungeon faction, and compared to more balanced factions, Dungeon emphasizes brute force aggression and tactical flexibility. This is an alliance between different mythical creatures forged in desperation and for some reason it really reminds me of the whole horde super faction from Warcraft universe. From a gameplay perspective, the faction mixes fast high damage units like infiltrators and onyx dancers which excel at slipping past enemy defenses together with very durable frontline creatures like minotaurs and hydras. So they feel like a huge powerful empire beneath the world, dangerous, intelligent, constantly evolving.

[00:04:23]These four factions complete two perfectly designed thematic pairs. We have light versus darkness and then we have peaceful nature versus underground destruction.

[00:04:34]The last pair of factions take all of this and amplify it to the much crazier level.

[00:04:40]The next faction is hive. Hive is an insectoid swarm faction that feels more like a living infestation than a traditional kingdom. Everything about this faction revolves around mutation, sacrifice, and biological evolution. I think thematically they're the closest to zerg faction from Starcraft and their faction lore is very similar to the burning legion from Warcraft.

[00:05:01]I know I presented all the previous factions in pairs, but one perspective could be hive versus everyone else. As an unstoppable demonic force, they are a threat to everyone and everything living and non-living. From a gameplay perspective, hive specializes in speed, pressure, and swarm tactics. Some of the signature mechanics allow players to spawn eggs and larva directly onto the battlefield and create disposable units that can block movement, bait attacks, and explode for damage.

[00:05:27]Many hive bonuses scale based on the army diversity. So the faction is rewarding coordinated swarm compositions over individual elite units.

[00:05:36]Ultimately, hive is a challenging high skill faction that emphasizes managing relentless growing swarm and utilizing board control to overwhelm opponents through sheer numbers and tactical sacrifice.

[00:05:51]The last faction, Schism, moves the goal post from an unbelievable and unstoppable swarm of hive to a completely reality breaking theme.

[00:05:59]Schism faction features a dark cosmic horror aesthetic that is reminiscence of the eerie terrors from other worlds that could be found in classic Lovecraftian tales.

[00:06:10]Centered around manipulative reality bending themes.

[00:06:14]Their design and lore create a feeling of strange forbidden knowledge and biological corruption, making them an extremely powerful mysterious force in the Olden Era universe.

[00:06:24]Gameplay-wise, the faction excels at scaling through abysmal communion, a mechanic that grants temporary unit reinforcements after battle victories, allowing them to overwhelm enemies with superior numbers.

[00:06:36]They are a highly tactical faction that relies on powerful range units, effective crowd control, and unique manner replenishing tools that enable them to cast potent spells consistently throughout long engagements.

[00:06:49]This was just a super quick rundown to quickly show you which factions exist and how they feel. Tell me which factions from other video games you think inspired these, and I'm very curious to hear what you think about my Warcraft comparisons. Subscribe to support my small gaming channel.