Ultimate Gathering Guide
The heroes you must have and the perfect pre-gathering vs. gathering stage setups.
Essential Gathering Heroes
Having the right heroes is critical for maximizing your resource intake. Here is the hierarchy of gathering heroes based on their specialization.
Ultimate Skill Gather (Must Have)
Extra Resource Drop
Extra Load Capacity
Pure Speed Gather
Hero Leveling Milestones
If you don't have enough XP books to max everyone, level your gathering heroes equally across these milestones:
- Level 56 — Minimum requirement for gathering talent.
- Level 70 — Next gathering talent breakpoint.
- Level 96 — Final gathering talent breakpoint.
- Level 100 — Required to unlock Lv.35 skills.
- Level 120 — All maxed out.
Progression: 56 → 70 → 96 → 100 → 120
1. Pre-Gathering Stage (Load & Capacity)
In Age of Empires Mobile, the "Pre-Gathering" phase is all about maximizing your troop load capacity. This setup is highly recommended when sending your marches to the Alliance Resource Center or massive level 6/7 nodes before going offline or sleeping. By prioritizing load capacity, your troops can carry millions of resources back to your city in a single trip.
Load Mechanic: The maximum amount of resources your march can carry is determined the moment they leave your city. Use these load-heavy heroes to lock in a massive capacity limit.
2. Active Gathering Stage (Speed Oriented)
Once your massive load-capacity marches are deployed, or if you are actively playing and doing shorter gathering runs, you should optimize for pure gathering speed. This setup prioritizes speed over capacity, allowing you to rapidly strip normal resource nodes on the world map.
Speed Mechanic: Age of Empires Mobile calculates gathering speed continuously. Use this setup for rapid node-hopping during the day when you can log in frequently to refresh your marches.