On August 25, 2026, HotA version 1.8.1 was released. Three things worth paying attention to right away:

  • In addition to script edits, in—game training has been updated - now you don't need to access the printed manual out of the box with the game.

  • Some of the fixes for critical bugs from the list below have already come before through HD mod updates - if some of this sounds familiar, you don't think.

  • There is still no Kronverk campaign in this update — wait for it in the next patches.

The main thing from the update

  • Dalton's specialization has been weakened: the bonus for the hero level divided by the target level has been reduced from 10% to 5%.

  • Ergon's specialization, on the contrary, has been strengthened: an additional reduction in the movement penalty has increased from 5% to 10% — now it goes along soils with a small fine as on a dirt road.

  • The nwcneo cheat code has been expanded - you can specify a specific number of levels, for example "nwcneo 20".

  • Cyclopes can no longer attack the fortress walls if they have run out of shots.

  • 5 new maps have been added: The Cursed Legions, The Noble Enemy, In the Thick of Reason, The Taming of the Shrew, To the rescue!

  • Added templates Conquest and Sapphire.

Download the update

You can download the update and HotA itself on the official website.

HotA bugs

  • Fixed incorrect specialization of Biarma (there was Shooting instead of First Aid)

  • Fixed a bug where Biarma and Gaugir were simultaneously available by default

  • Fixed a problem with rune bonuses: they were not reset at the death of the squad, which is why after resurrection they could be accumulated beyond the maximum

  • The synchronization of the construction of the Rune Altar in the online game has been fixed — previously, information about its presence could vary among players, which led to out-of-sync in combat

  • Fixed an out-of-sync bug in an online game related to Lightning Rod damage: it manifested itself during an attack on an inactive player who built the Grail building on the same day

  • Fixed performance issues that were most active on the battle screen

  • Fixed a bug in generating water zones on random maps, due to which they were often created without objects

  • Bug fixed: Kobolds in mines and garrisons brought gold to all players

  • Fixed a bug of the Angel Alliance effect: morale decreased when mixing Kronverk creatures with creatures of good or neutral factions

  • Kronwerk heroes are banned from Factory campaigns and some Dargem campaign missions

  • Bug fixed: objects with non-standard settings (for example, Pandora's Boxes with an arbitrary amount of experience) were not generated on random maps when they were displayed in templates

  • Fixed bugs removing artifacts from the hero's inventory, as well as bugs related to the removal of artifacts and scrolls from the hero

  • Fixed bugs with incorrect values of primary skills when receiving them from Pandora's Box, if the hero is wearing artifacts that give bonuses to these skills

  • Fixed a bug with looping AI when using a Mana Vortex

  • Bug fixed: when switching between campaign scenarios, creatures were sometimes incorrectly transferred

  • Fixed a crash related to the Seafaring Academy that occurred when too many skills were disabled and Runes and Necromancy were turned on — forbidden faction skills will now be turned on in such cases

  • Bug fixed: in SoD maps, banning a Shipyard in a random city led to a ban on the Factory's Mana Generator

  • Fixed bugs related to incorrect debugging of the prerequisites of some buildings (or lack thereof) through campaign bonuses and the event system

  • Fixed the bug of regeneration of Spirits and Ghosts: under the influence of First Aid, they did not restore their health completely if their maximum health reserve exceeded 50

  • Bug fixed: on someone else's move, the online game showed the attendance of the Canopy by the opponent, and not by the viewing player

  • Fixed issues with displaying images with primary skills in the event system

  • Fixed an issue with checking the hero's empty army in the garrison after launching a city event of the event system

  • Event system: correction of mechanisms for triggering silent events

  • Event system: correct accounting of the value of AI artifacts has been added

  • Fixed a bug in the event system: The Gate of the Task missed heroes without visiting in cases where visiting would reset the completion of the task stages — now in such cases the Gate is visited

  • Fixed a bug in the event system: now, when completing a Task Gate Task, the first hint of this Gate is set in the extended event

  • Event system: added a reset of the log entry when completing the task steps if "create record" is specified in the action settings

  • Overflows have been eliminated when changing variables of the event system: now their values (as well as the values of expressions) are limited by limits from -2 to 2 billion.

  • Bug fixed: the learning ability was issued incorrectly in the actions of the event system

  • Loops in the event system now return the previous value to the counter variable after execution

  • Fixed the random number mechanism in the event system: previously, the same numbers could be generated in events of neutral cities

  • Fixed a crash when a hero is defeated by neutrals if the " Defeat a certain hero" condition is set in the event system

  • Fixed crashes related to incorrect processing of Pass Guards when deleting events in the event system and when visiting an empty Pass Guard

  • Fixed the logic of issuing creatures in a message with a reward in the event system: if there is no place in the hero's army, additional joining dialogues now contain 7 creatures being added at once instead of a separate dialogue for each

  • Fixed the bug of issuing creatures to the garrison of the city through the event system if there was a hero in the city

Gameplay

  • The cost of the Fair has increased: 1000 gold, 5 wood → 2000 gold, 10 wood

  • Fighting Mammoths: Fight Value and AI Value have been raised from 1601 to 1672, the number in the standard Pandora's Box has been reduced from 15 to 12

  • The 2sm2c(2), Skirmish(M) and Nine-day Wonder templates do not allow Glace (" Learnability" specialization)

  • The gosolo command is now equivalent to using a cheat code and is disabled in an online game

  • The maximum number of events and Pandora's boxes on random maps has been increased to 10,000

SoD Bugs

  • Fixed a bug with the AI's assessment of the value of the Teleport: the AI could teleport a detachment, which then did not attack a nearby target — the bug was most clearly manifested in the teleportation of Yetun-Voivodes

  • Bug fixed: when teleporting in battle, the AI did not take into account that quicksand would not interrupt the course of the squad

  • In the campaign scenario selection window, the difficulty level is no longer reset when the same region is selected again

  • For neutral player cities, resources and revenues are no longer shown in the cheat menu

  • Cyclopes can no longer attack the fortress walls if they have run out of shots

  • Fixed a bug of campaign bonuses: buildings were rebuilt without the construction of buildings-prerequisites

  • Fixed a bug due to which AI versus AI battles did not lead to checking the completion of the quests " defeat the hero" and "defeat the monster"

  • Bug fixed: campaign scenarios with starting bonuses-heroes could lead to departures (or incorrect flags of players) on the map of regions screen due to incorrect determination of the player's color with an unselected bonus

Graphics

  • Added a set of Ice Formations for snow, as well as Crystal, Gold and Abandoned Mines to it

  • Ice Blocks have been renamed, their graphics have been updated to better match the new Ice Formations

  • Fixed high saturation of Glaciers and their mines

  • Fixed the display of Stables on top of the Resource Storage in the Castle

  • Fixed the outline and the hover area for the stages of building the Lock and Resource Storage in the Interface

  • Noise has been eliminated in the background areas between the flags of the improved and non-improved Arena, as well as between the animated parts of the City Council, Prefecture, Municipality and Capitol in the Castle

  • Corrections of the Kronverk Puzzle map

  • Minor corrections of graphics and animations of Mountain sheep, Argali and Yeti

  • Fixed the palette and animation of drinking from a horn for a Jotun in battle

  • Fixed the outline and the guidance area of the Mountain Embassy Street

  • Corrections of portraits of a Satyr and a Leprechaun

  • Corrections of portraits of Sniper and Wyvern Monarch

  • Fixes for the Azure Dragon icon

  • Eliminated black pixels on portraits of the Phoenix and the Serpent

  • Factory Siege Graphics Fixes

  • Disabled mirroring animation of runes in battle

  • Graphical fixes for the corners of the Turquoise Player's Adventure Map frame

Map Editor

  • Increased the limit on bottles/signs from 128 to 255

  • The limit on 500 local events and 500 Pandora's Boxes has been removed — now the total maximum number of Pandora's Boxes and local events is 20,000

  • For Seer's Huts, Pass Guards, and Quest Gates, you can now customize the text displayed after the time has elapsed

  • Names can now be assigned to Seer Huts

  • Previously, scrolling with the mouse wheel on the map caused the list of object palettes to scroll. Now, when you hover the cursor over the map or object palette, the corresponding area scrolls

  • Fixed crashes when errors occur during text import

  • Fixed a crash when checking the map related to shipyards of cities near the edges of the map

  • Fixed incorrect class indication in the description of the Shaman Doll

  • Fixed bugs related to displaying Bins and Burial Urns in the tree of buildings

  • Bug fixed: in the city interface, not only forbidden buildings were marked in gray, but also buildings inherited from forbidden ones

  • Fixed an event system bug: there was no support for random monsters in the " Monster defeated" condition and in the log images

  • Fixed a bug in the event system: crash when choosing a random hero in the condition " The hero is defeated"

  • Fixed a card verification bug: event system errors are now taken into account

  • Fixed a bug in the event system: incorrect conversion of "If— Then— Otherwise" actions to "If — Then— Otherwise-If"

  • Fixed an event system bug: the "Cancel event" action terminated only the current sequence cycle

  • Event system: improved window resizing and moving/reducing dialog elements on low-resolution monitors (1366×768)

  • Event system: correcting the position of some elements in dialogs

  • Event system: Now, when creating new actions, expressions, creating a copy of actions/expressions, and creating "If-Then" branches, the focus moves to the created element

  • Bug fixed: standard text was saved in events (global, urban, on the map) and Pandora's Boxes with an extended event, which could then be exported

  • Fixes the drag-and-drop mechanism in the event system

  • Event system: revised image display conditions for the " OR " condition — if the condition has only one child branch, its images are displayed; if there are several branches and the lists of images match, this list is displayed; otherwise, the images are not displayed

  • The logical expression "Hero Affiliation" is divided into two expressions — "Hero affiliation" (checking whether the specified hero belongs to the selected player) and "Current hero" (checking whether the current hero is specified)

  • The allowed event types for the "Current hero identification" condition have been changed

Campaign Editor

  • Fixed an issue with incorrect verification of special buildings and hordes, due to which they were removed from bonuses when updating the map

  • Missing Level 1 hordes from Inferno and Pairing have been added to campaign bonuses

  • The Spirits of the Forefathers that were absent from Kronverk have been added to the list of bonus buildings

Template Editor

  • Gaugir and Biarma are added to the list of heroes in the default accessibility settings

Interface

  • Fixed shifting of icons for switching between map levels

  • Corrections of spell icons for the window with information about the hero in HD mode

Other things

  • 5 new maps have been added: The Cursed Legions, The Noble Enemy, In the Thick of Reason, The Taming of the Shrew, To the rescue!

  • Added Conquest and Sapphire templates

  • Multiple corrections of the event system

  • Corrections to maps, campaigns, and texts