The single highest-leverage, zero-cost action in any MEE Day I or MGE gathering phase is something roughly 80% of players completely skip: pre-gathering. It costs nothing extra — no additional speedups, no gems — and it can effectively give you 1.5× to 2× your normal gathering output in a single phase.
🔑 Core mechanic: Gathering points are scored when your march returns resources to your city — not when the march starts. A march sent the night before an event will score its points the moment it returns, even though it departed before the event opened.
The Timing Diagram
Here's how a perfectly-timed pre-gathering day looks:
Which Events Use This?
- MEE Day I — Resource Gathering (100 resources = 10 pts)
- MGE Day III — Gathering + Wheel (100 resources = 1 pt)
- MGE Day VII — All categories reopen, gathering included
Note that MEE scores gathering at 10× the rate of MGE (10 pts vs 1 pt per 100 resources). Pre-gathering is most impactful on MEE Day I where the scoring rate is highest.
Hero Loadout for Pre-Gathering
When sending pre-gathering marches, prioritise load capacity over speed — you want each march to carry as much as possible per trip since the resource cap is locked in when you depart:
- Diao Chan (Ultimate — must have)
- Darius the Great, Queen Dido (max load capacity)
- Cleopatra VII, King Derrick (extra RSS drop)
- Target the highest-tier resource nodes available to your alliance
See the Ultimate Gathering Guide for the full 5-march setup breakdown.
Common Mistakes
- Sending too early: If your round-trip is 8h and you send 12h early, Trip 1 returns 4h before the phase opens — those points are lost.
- Not timing the return: Use your march queue to count the exact minutes. The goal is Trip 1 returning within the first 30 minutes of phase opening.
- Ignoring alliance buffs: Activate any gathering speed or load capacity buffs before Trip 1 departs to maximize both trips.