Introduction

Every two weeks the Gold Event starts with different stages. This guide deals with information relevant for winning the Gathering Stage (first stage) of the Gold Event.

How to Gather Resources

There are resource tiles scattered around the world map where you can gather one of the four resources, wood, food, iron or silver, by sending troops to the tile. Wood and Food are always possible to gather, at Stronghold lvl 10 Iron will be added and at Stronghold lvl 15 Silver.

Points

Points are acquired depending on the type of resource. You need to gather 20 units of Food or Wood to score one point, 4 units of Iron or 1 unit of Silver.

Preparation and Boosts

In the Economy tree in the University there are various research projects that increase the gathering speed for each type of resource. In the Economy Talent tree there are boosts for gathering per resource type as well. Your Dragon can also be equipped with Skills that increase gathering speed. Note that Dragon Skills only boost the march they are part of.

In the Development research tree there are Troop Load projects that increase how much resources your troops can carry.

In the Combat research category there are March Slots projects that allow you to deploy extra Marches and March Capacity projects that allow you more troops in a march. Higher Stronghold levels also increase your March Capacity. VIP level 8 also unlocks an extra March Slot. VIP 8 might be hard to achieve, but make sure you have the first two March Slot projects researched as soon as possible so that you can gather with three marches.

A huge effect are the Gathering Boost items that you can purchase from the Alliance Store. They are quite cheap, and you might have some as prizes from events as well. Use them during the event. They come in 8 hour and 24 hour and both give a 50% gathering speed boost.

Do not forget to train enough troops. Unless you are online 24/7 it is important to be able to send maximum amount of marches out.

If you have the Heroes Prince Claudin and Elyan the White, make sure to use them. Prince Claudin gives a Wood Gathering Boost when you reach the second star and Elyan the White boosts all resource gathering.

As an alliance you might want to locate your hive near high level tiles so that you can keep gathering when off line for longer times. Ideally you are near the center where there are level 7 tiles, but depending on the kingdom that might be to competitive. Being near level 5, 6 is a must, not only for this event.

As an alliance you can cast the Nimble Harvester spell from the Dragon Altar, this also gives you 50% Gathering Speed boost.

Beginner's Tips

Just go out there and gather. At a very early stage you might not have enough troops, but later on this event should be relatively easy to win the 3rd tier prize.

The points per resource align with the default speed of gathering, so rather than selecting Iron or Silver if you can, it is better to select the resource for which you have the highest boost (e.g. Gather Food with your commander if the Lord Talent Points are boosting Food Gathering or if your Lord wears gear that increases Food Gathering speed).

Be careful with potential attackers. Ask your alliance members whether it is safe to gather, otherwise keep an eye on your troops while gathering.

Dominating the Event

If you want to challenge for leaderboard prizes in this stage of the gold event, it is crucial that you have 5 marches, meaning Stronghold level 20 which allows you to upgrade the University to level 20, which is necessary for researching the last March Slot, and havig VIP 8 or higher active.

The Gathering stage is the first stage of the gold event. Make sure you plan ahead, you should get a good start and make sure you have all your marches fully loaded at the start of the event.

Be aware of how the Gathering boosts work. The Alliance Gathering spell (Nimble Harvester) that can be cast from the Dragon Altar works very differently from the 8 and 24 hour Gathering Boost items each player can use individually. Neither of them work as you might expect.

The 8 and 24 Gathering items have a backward effect. You might have noticed that if you activate a Gathering item if you have troops already gathering that if they have not that much remaining time, maybe like half an hour on a level 7 tile, they will immediately return with the tile depleted the moment you activate the Gathering item. This can only be explained by the Gathering boost being effective for the complete time you were on the tile, so even the time before you activate it. This makes it actually quite useful at the start of the Gathering event. You don't have to plan things out exactly to the minute, you can just send all your marches out gathering to lvl 7 tiles without any gathering boost item active and plan to to complete sometime within 1 hour after the Gathering stage starts. Now the moment the gathering stage starts, you log in to the game and activate the 24 hour gathering boost item, this will make sure all your marches return home full right away.

The Gathering spell from the Dragon Altar works completely opposite. It only has effect on marches that start Gathering after the spell is activated. Because of this it is in my eyes best to always cast this at the start of the Gathering stage, since typically people will recall their full loads at the start and set out new marches, so you make sure everyone benefits most from the Alliance spell. Be aware that if for some reason the spell is cast later when you already have your troops out marching, depending on how much is still left in the tiles you are on, your gathering rate, and the march time, it might very well be beneficial to recall your marches and send them back to make use of the Alliance Gathering boost for the remainder of the time on those tiles.

Specialize your Dragon for boosting Gathering Speed by making him Radiant (you might have to reset all dragon skills and only assign Guardian skills to achieve this).

In the Lord Talent Tree focus on Gathering Speed as much as possible, so only Economy tree and always select Gathering where you can (as opposed to Production). Once you reach a high enough lord level, you can unlock the Instant Gather talent, which is very beneficial, as it will allow all your marches to be filled completely one time every 24 hours.

Make sure your Dragon Skills are boosting the gathering speed of the march your Dragon is in.

Likely your Food and Wood Gathering rate are boosted more than your other resources, if this is the case you can best focus on those resources.

Planning ahead for the upgrade stage of the gold event that comes after the gathering, it is best to make sure you have lots of iron and silver already before the gathering event, so that during the gathering event you can focus on the wood and food you need for the upgrade stage, so that you on the one hand use the fast gathering to score well in the Gathering stage, but on the other hand also have the right mix of resources to score well in the Upgrade stage.

Conclusion

I hope these tips make it easy to win the Gathering Stage of the Gold event. If you have questions or want to share more tips, please use the comment section below.

Contributed by: GamesGuide on October 27, 2016

(last modified on November 23, 2017)