Agricola

[MerricB]

My copy of Agricola arrived last night. I've played it before, but this is the first look I've had at the English edition. It's not that different from the German version, except everything is in English!

It remains a great, great game - worthy enough to dethrone Puerto Rico as the #1 game at Boardgamegeek.com

Here's the session report for the solo games I played last night: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/337684

And, for my experiences further back, you can see
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/306204
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/306369

Cheers!

 

[Wycen]

When I first saw those scores I was like, "How?" and then I saw those were solo scores.

I've played it twice. Got about 30 points the first time and 18 the second. Really had too many open fields, but I was dealt a crappy hand that I didn't know how to play.

 

[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.

 

[bobthehappyzombie]

It is a very good game, well worth the £40 I payed for it at Gencon.
It always seems to end too soon, just when everything starts comming together the game ends... If you are thinking this is a easy game, think again it is easy to learn but is very complex strategically.

Oh and how come I only got coloured cubes and not fluffy sheep in my version .... outragious!

 

[scitadel]

Oh and how come I only got coloured cubes and not fluffy sheep in my version .... outragious!

Not a joking thing for me. Mistakenly thought the first edition had it, and then realised it didn't unless you pre-ordered from Z-Man. And told some customers that. Luckily, caught one but missed the other one. *sighs* Fun, fun.

As for the game itself, a friend bought their copy and I've played it a few times. I definitely like it more than PR (though I must admit, it was never the #1 game for me anyway) but yeah, it ends way too soon. Still, the fact that it plays so fast is cool. Let's it get onto the table a lot more.

 

[Wycen]

I play with board game geeks. That is, they order Euro games before they are available in the US and then get translations. So both my games so far are with the Euro version. It doesn't have meeples, just blocks.

The US version has nice pieces apparently and also has a few more cards from the Euro version. I would also hope the translation is smoother than ours.

The BGG's in our group went to Target and bought bunchs of barnyard animals to represent the various animals and chickens to represent food.

 

[MerricB]

I first played Agricola with Melissa's translation (she's almost a neighbour... only a couple of hours drive away), but now have the new Z-Man set. My copy has the Z deck, a few bonus cards, but no animeeples. I believe the animeeples will be available from other retailers separately, but I'm fine without them.

I can always use the camels from Traders & Barbarians, I guess...

Cheers!

 

[Jan van Leyden]

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.

 

[bobthehappyzombie]

I first played Agricola with Melissa's translation (she's almost a neighbour... only a couple of hours drive away), but now have the new Z-Man set. My copy has the Z deck, a few bonus cards, but no animeeples. I believe the animeeples will be available from other retailers separately, but I'm fine without them.

I can always use the camels from Traders & Barbarians, I guess...

Cheers!

I wondered what those Z cards were.

 

[Cadfan]

Actually, you can actively hurt your opponents if you want- if you realize that they need, say, two cows to finish their cattle breeding program, you can buy the two cows before they can and make tons of hamburger. Then you eat delicious hamburger while they shriek in rage.