Forge of Empires Aztecs Settlement [Part 2: The Market Mini-Game]

Welcome to part two of our Forge of Empires Aztecs Guide.

In part 1 of our Aztecs series, we looked at the development until the opening of the market in the nearby courtyard.

This article it is about explaining this market and giving tips for the mini-game to be found there.

The market is a very important additional source of cultural goods for the Aztecs.

In the market, there are daily 3 mini-games, which one should always make in any case. There is no better way to get the goods of the Aztecs.

From the game mechanics, the minigame reminds us of Microsoft’s Minesweeper. But there you have to avoid mines, here it is all about finding the goods.

After a first click into the game field, a tile is revealed. If this tile has no neighbors with the offered good, the neighboring tiles will be uncovered as well.

Neighboring tiles without neighbors with the offered goods are also uncovered etc. With a little luck, a single click will uncover a huge area of the game field.

Now you can see tiles with numbers.

Each number tells you how many tiles with cultural goods are adjacent to the respective tile. For example, the 2 in the upper left corner means that 2 neighboring tiles must have a cultural good. Since the tile only has 2 neighbors, the decision is very simple.

In the upper right corner, we find again exactly the same constellation. Again we can collect 2 pieces of vegetables.

Such a corner situation with 1s is also clear. That brings us the 5th vegetable.

Also, the bottom right corner is clear and we can collect the two vegetables there without any risk.

The last unambiguous tile is then at the bottom left. The top 3 1-tiles already have a neighbor. So the lower 3 tiles share a single neighbor, who can only be in front of the middle 1-tile.

Now there are 2 attempts left, but we have no idea where the last vegetables might be. Some tiles we can exclude for sure.

This leaves 5 possible tiles where the 2 remaining vegetables are hidden. This is now pure gambling. The next click can be a hit, but it can also go wrong. There is no safe solution at this point, no matter how long one would think about it now.

Purely out of gut feeling we take the tile on the right. A rivet.

By the way, this was a bad decision, because a click on one of the 4 tiles on the left would have given us at least some information about the last tile. Such mistakes can happen.

This is not dramatic. It costs a vegetable in the end. Maybe it is broccoli, then it is not that bad.

Then we click on one of the 4 tiles on the left, also a rivet. So we get only 8 of the 10 possible vegetables this time, unfortunately.

With diamonds, we could now double the yield. But that does not have to be.

We could also buy another turn with which we would surely find another vegetable now because due to the knowledge gained so far two fields on the bottom left above and below that 2 must contain a vegetable.

But even this safe turn is not worth 10 diamonds to us. It also works completely without diamonds.

Let’s just have a look at another pass.

This time the first move, unfortunately, doesn’t reveal a large area and only gives away one safe position and a 50% chance for a second vegetable.

Now the question is whether it is better to start with a corner tile, as done here, or whether a field in the middle offers a better chance to uncover a large area.

According to Professor Niemeyer, who has worked out the mathematical background to the game Minesweeper, the chance of uncovering a large continuous area is somewhat greater in the middle than at the edge or even in the corner.

Therefore we can only recommend, unlike in our example, to make the first click in the center.

Even if our third click happens to hit a vegetable, it, unfortunately, doesn’t provide any information about the neighboring tiles and doesn’t really help us.

Only my 4th click uncovers a large area, which then makes some vegetables easy to find.

These 4 safe positions can now be collected easily.

We would like to briefly explain the fourth position.

The upper blue 1 says that this field has only one neighbor with vegetables. This is the field diagonally above. So the other 4 neighbors cannot contain vegetables.

The 1 below then has only one single neighbor, which must contain the vegetables. The exclusion of tiles leads to success in many such cases.

With this knowledge, we can also determine the second neighbor for the tile with the red 2. The 1 above already has its neighbor, so that we can safely exclude its adjacent tile.

Now we are simply at a point where again only luck helps.

Again, the recommendation is to click in the middle of the still hidden tiles if possible, as this improves the chances slightly.

But we read this realization later so that we do not click in the middle of the hidden area. We are learning as well.

However, we accidentally meet a vegetable. Unfortunately, this does not give us any information about the neighboring tiles.

Once again we have to trust in our luck. A tile with 8 neighbors and one of them has a vegetable. A very bad chance. Let’s see if another tile gives me more insight.

The 2 now uncovered makes it seem very likely that one of the 5 missing vegetables will be on one of the two tiles between the 1 and the 2. So I use my last click for one of these.

So this time we only find 8 of the possible 12 vegetables. This is a very common result. You can’t end this game with 100% for sure. Here luck plays a certain role.

But you can help the luck with a few brains. It is interesting to recognize certain standard situations. We already had the simplest standard situation: corners.

Both this corner with the 2s and the 1s corners are absolutely clear hits. There you can pick up the goods without any risk.

Besides the corners, there are other standard situations that are often encountered. With the combination 1-2-1 or 1-2-2-1, you can immediately click blindly on the respective fields without thinking.

We hope that these little tricks have helped you to get the most out of this little mini-game. Have fun with it!

For part three of the Aztecs Settlement Guide series, click here.

Guide courtesy of FOE Hints.

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