HoMM 3 ERA (Era, Era II, ERA III) is a platform for modifying Heroes of Might and Magic III, built as an extension of the In the Wake of Gods engine[1][2]. Its author is Alexander Shostak, known as Berserker or Bersy[3][2]. ERA turns WoG itself into a mod and lets other mods be installed and removed easily[4][5]. The core's source code is public on GitHub and still developed; its current version is 3.9.31[1][3].
History
- Era II grew out of Era 1.9, whose code was fully ported to Delphi[4]. Bersy opened the Era II thread on Heroes Community in February 2012[4], and in that thread described WoG as "an obligatory mod and the basis of modding"[4].
- Version 2.1 added SyDr's Mods Manager and Plugins Manager[6]. By mid-2013 Celestial Heavens counted 65 Era mods[7].
- The GitHub repository opens with version 2.55.1.0 in May 2014[1]. The last Era II release, 2.9.14, came out in June 2020[6].
- ERA III (3.0.0) was released in June 2020 as a bare core with "no more imposed mods": WoG 3.58's creatures and objects remain only as resources and mechanics that can be switched on, WoG campaigns left the package, and the WoG scripts became a separate mod maintained by igrik[8][9].
- Version 3.9.21 (January 2025) bundled LuaJIT[10].
Versions
| Version | Date | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Era 1.9 | before 2012 | fully ported to Delphi for Era II[4] |
| Era 2.1 | — | Mods Manager and Plugins Manager by SyDr[6] |
| Era 2.5 / 2.55 | 2 / 13 October 2013 | [6] |
| Era 2.9.14 | June 2020 | last Era II release[6][11] |
| ERA III 3.0.0 | June 2020 | bare core, no imposed mods; ERM 2.0[10][8][9] |
| 3.9.0 | 18 September 2021 | [12] |
| 3.9.21 | January 2025 | LuaJIT bundled[10] |
| 3.9.31 | September 2026 | current core version[3][12] |
Features
- ERM 2.0 (since 3.0.0): an extended precompiled form of WoG's scripting language with named local variables and global constants, enabled by a "ZVSE2" first line[10].
- Mod and plugin managers and C++ plugins through the ERA API[6][13].
- Compatibility with HD Mod[14][13], though HD Mod itself supports ERA only partly[15].
- WoG Options pages still control individual rules[8].
ERA Project
daemon_n maintains ERA Project, an all-in-one bundle that Berserker credits as the most popular Russian-language Era assembly[4]. It describes itself as a modern platform for Heroes III modifications, is published under the MIT licence and has its own version numbers (2.287 as of 1 October 2026), separate from the core's[13][16]. The Heroes 3.5 WoG Portal calls ERA a modernised continuation of WoG; the bundle needs the Complete edition[17].
Mods
- Lists from 2013 include WoG Revised, Morn Battlefields (around 130 battlefields), Covenant Town, Phoenix Mod 3.61 and Star Gates: Atlantis[7][18].
- Advanced Classes Mod is part of the ERA bundle[5].
- Heroes 3: Legend of the Red Dragon is a Russian-language WoG modification on ERA (version 0.8, December 2014)[19].
- The Succession Wars, a total conversion recreating Heroes II, runs on ERA[20].
Community
ERA is discussed on Heroes Community's "Heroes 3.5 – WoG and Beyond" board[4][8] and in Russian on the DF2 forum[9]; ERA Project also lists a VK group and a Discord server[13].