Forge of Empires Starting Guide Part 10 [Market and Ruug]

Welcome to our tenth installment of our Forge of Empires Starting Guides. Today, in part ten, we will be taking a look at the Market and Ruug!

We produce two goods of the Bronze Age and so far one good of the Iron Age.

A second Iron Age good will be added as soon as we have unlocked the corresponding deposit on the province map.

It would be a waste to produce goods for which we have not found any resources on the province map.

All other goods have to be exchanged at the market. This is deliberately designed in the game so that players play together and not just side by side.

For each successfully completed trade, the buyer pays a fee of one Forge Point in the market. This fee is waived when trading within your own guild. Therefore, it makes sense to keep an eye out for suitable trade offers while guild hopping.

A trade ratio can be entered in the market. When trading goods of the same age, an exchange ratio of 1:1 is considered fair trade. In the app, you can automate this fair trade by using checkmarks.

If you do not immediately find a suitable trade offer in the market, then simply set your own offer. Then you have to wait a bit.

Since the other players must also exchange all goods that they have not produced themselves, you should be able to find an exchange partner. Of course, you have to be patient.

If the offer is not accepted within a week or if you break off the trade, you get the offered goods back.

In the lowest ages up to and including the late Middle Ages, there are actually no better or worse goods.

If one trades goods of the next higher age, an exchange ratio of 1:2 is considered appropriate.

This is based on the fact that twice as many coins and supplies are needed to produce them.

Thus, if you can produce goods of a higher age and then exchange them for goods of the previous age, you are using your building space more efficiently.

Many guilds also explicitly require their members to barter fairly. Other guilds subsidize new players through deliberately unfair trade.

Be sure to ask what the guild’s policy is, as violations can result in expulsion.

There are players who assert themselves as traders in the game and then of course want to earn something from every trade.

This is basically not a bad thing. Prices are based on supply and demand. However, only accept these unfair trade offers if the urgently needed good cannot be obtained otherwise.

Playing ahead helps to avoid situations in which you need a good very urgently. So always check what the next researches need and build up stocks in time.

Some players also sell their goods for forge points. Since a new player has very few forge points, you should only use this if there is no other possibility.

It is always worth looking for bargains.

Occasionally, guilds urgently need goods of a certain age and are then willing to pay above average for these. It’s nice when you can pick up such bargains.

As the population grows, so does the need for happiness.

Cultural buildings increase happiness, but they also consume space. From the Iron Age on, there is the possibility of a flanking measure.

Building better streets also increase happiness. This does not cost any additional space, since the new streets are simply built over the existing streets.

Only if this is not enough, a cultural building will be built.

As always at the end of our guide, we have to battle.

Today the conquest of the province Rugg.

This is the narrow province south of the river. As long as we have soldiers as the only Iron Age unit, the team formation decision is very easy.

However, soldiers against heavy units are not ideal. We can keep the horsemen coming. Bushes give our soldiers a little better defense.

With that, the 4 horsemen are quickly defeated. Against the much fiercer heavy units, we take advantage of the fact that they can only hit back once each turn.

So if we need 5 hits to defeat a heavy unit, we only receive a single counter hit. When the last opponent unit hits, we feel how strong it is.

We retreat the wounded units into the bushes and let a still fully healthy unit make the dangerous first blow against the heavy unit.

A forest gives an additional defense bonus. This time two more hits are enough to defeat the heavy unit. This way we only lose a single unit.

Once the wounded units are healed, we move on to the next sector. In the fight soldiers against soldiers, we try to use forests and bushes in our favor.

However, if the opportunity arises to attack the opponent’s archers, that takes priority. Archers do a lot of damage, but they can’t withstand anything themselves.

Therefore, it is helpful not to let them shoot too often. In this battle we have to take heavy losses and so it takes a while until the next sector can be tackled.

The third sector of the Ruug province is not easy either. Soldiers against soldiers is always associated with losses.

In addition, the opponent’s ballistas are already hitting our units while they are on the long way to the other side of the battlefield. Once again, trees and bushes help our soldiers.

Then in the fourth sector we again face a mixed team of soldiers and archers. This brings even more big losses.

Reproducing the soldiers is not expensive, but it forces long gaps between the battles. Therefore, progress on the provincial map is somewhat slow at the moment.

The archers of the Iron Age are strong units and indispensable against heavy units. Therefore we can only recommend every player to build an archery range.

Sometimes you can find a tip on the web that you can win almost all Iron Age battles with 8 ballistae.

Attention: This only works if you have good combat bonuses. Without such bonuses, the ballistae are simply too weak in most battles. New players are better off with archers.

We can then promptly use the archers in the last sector of Ruug.

We would have liked to show this battle as well.

Unconcentrated for a moment, we pressed the auto-combat button out of habit.

If we had fought manually, the losses would have been less. After all, the province is conquered.

Click here to read part 11 of our starting guide series, on the Guild Expedition!