Epic Age: Sweep vs. Training for Hero Leveling

In Epic Age, choose Sweep when you want rapid experience for a durable main squad and have the reserve troops and hospital space to absorb casualties. Choose Training when you need to level low-level, newly recruited, or fragile heroes without risking troop losses, provided you can spare administrative Decrees.

Why Repeated Conquest Falls Behind

While conquering new territory provides initial combat experience, relying on tile conquest to level heroes quickly becomes inefficient. Every lord operates under a strict territory possession cap determined by settlement hall upgrades and administrative technology. Once you reach your maximum tile capacity, expanding further requires abandoning existing tiles, waiting through release timers, and marching on unfamiliar border garrisons that inflict unpredictable casualties.

To level heroes consistently, secure high-yield resource plots—such as high-level farmland, timberland, stone quarries, or iron veins—within your territory. Once captured, an owned resource tile serves as a permanent base for either Sweeping or Training, eliminating the logistical friction of territorial expansion.

How Sweeping Works

Sweeping converts hero stamina into rapid experience points through direct combat against a regenerating NPC garrison on an owned tile.

• Stamina Cost: Consumes hero stamina (typically 15 stamina per hero).
• Speed: Resolves immediately upon your squad's arrival, enabling quick stamina dumps.
• Casualties: Inflicts normal battle casualties, including lightly wounded, heavily wounded, and dead soldiers.
• Resource Impact: Heavily wounded troops enter the settlement infirmary, requiring food, wood, iron, and time to heal. If your infirmary reaches maximum capacity during repeated sweeps, subsequent casualties result in permanent troop deaths.

Because of this attrition, reserve Sweeping for well-developed squads with strong sustain and high damage mitigation when your hospital has ample space and your barracks have surplus reserves.

How Training Works

Training stations a squad on an owned high-tier resource tile to generate experience through formal drills rather than standard physical combat.

• Primary Costs: Consumes hero stamina alongside administrative Decrees.
• Duration: Requires the squad to remain stationed on the target plot for the duration of the drill before awarding experience.
• Casualties: Guarantees zero troop losses, keeping your drafted soldiers fully intact.
• Stat Scaling: Bypasses defender stat checks, allowing under-leveled commanders to earn high experience yields scaled to the tile's tier without suffering wipes.

The primary constraint of Training is its Decree cost. Decrees regenerate slowly on a fixed hourly timer and are also required for essential civil tasks, including forced resource collection and constructing forts or camps.

Sweep vs. Training Comparison

When to Switch Between Sweeping and Training

Adjust your leveling method based on your current military readiness and settlement priorities:

1. Use Sweeping during peacetime progression: When your settlement has surplus healing resources, active draft queues, and no imminent battles, sweep your highest cleared resource tiles with your primary squad to spend stamina quickly and stay ahead of the leveling curve.
2. Switch to Training for new commanders: When leveling a newly summoned commander from level 1, avoid standard sweeps on high-tier tiles. Train them on your highest-level secured plot until they unlock additional skill slots and gain sufficient troop capacity.
3. Switch to Training during alliance wars: When participating in border conflicts, gate sieges, or PvP engagements, halt Sweeping entirely. Use Training to advance secondary heroes so your drafted reserves remain available for war rather than tied up in hospital recovery.