Quote:
Originally Posted by Blackrat  So it's a boardgame about being a farmer? Intriqueing... Sounds just absurd enough that I might like it. Thanks Merric, I hadn't even heard about this before, but you got me interested. Have to try it out. |
Yes, it's about being a farmer - in Germany after the 30 Years War, that is. You start out with two persons, a small wooden hut, and a handful of food points.
Each member of your family can take one action per season, each action on the expanding board can be taken by one person ony; similar to Caylus, e.g.
At the end of the game your farm will be jugded according to a set of criteria, each criterium gaining you from -1 to +3 points. You score additional points for the number of family members, the size and quality of your house, and several other factors.
The basic problem is that you have to regularly feed your family, but on the other hand want to invest their turns in building your farm up.
Say you want to go the bread route for feeding. You have to plow a feed (1. action), get some grain (2. action), and plant it (3. action). Oh, and you'd better have an oven to be able to bake some bread from your harvestend stuff. This three actions in a given sequence are not alway easy to pull of.
This is the basic set up for every payer. Additionally you are dealt a set of cards: 7 Careers, and 7 Minor Investments. These cards give you advantages, but you have to - you guessed it - invest an action and possibly some food (the game's currency) to bring it into play.
Agricola is basically a game of ressource management and planned growth. While the opponents can not actively hurt you (there is only one card in the german game which causes players to lose something), there are only so few of the interesting/absolutely neccessary actions per turn, and so many players wanting to use them.
If you like games like Puerto Rico or Caylus, you'll probalby love Agricola, too.
And yet another word from our sponsors
