Agricola
Ξ April 21st, 2008 | → | ∇ Boardgames |
I had written a review on Agricola sometime back on BoardGameCafe.net but have not got to repost it here. After the recent game with Tom Vasel from TheDiceTower.com, I now feel compelled to post… enjoy:
Gaming with the illustrious Tom Vasel, fellow Malaysian boardgamers Dave, Chua and Edwin with Ryan looking on
Basically macedwin has covered the basics of the game and the descriptions can be found easily elsewhere which are much more comprehensive than what i can do, so i’ll just concentrate on my response and a description of our game:
First off, this game rocks! being a farmer is not easy and it’s fun just to see how much VPs you can squeeze out while attempting to feed your family. Everything counts for points in this game, what you have or do not have will impact positively and negatively on your score.
There is a certain flow to the game as the time for feeding of your family members gets shorter and shorter. so you scramble to get better improvements and learn more occupations to do things more efficiently. even when you are doing better than before, the game still puts you on the rope by up-ing the speed towards the end.
The game manages to feel tense throughout and you always obsess with trying to get just enough food to survive while trying to improve your lot in life when you have spare time/hands. Feeding your family is not enough, it is like what wolfx say during the game, you gotta raise your social stature as well, show your neighbours you have a better lot in life, like renovating your house to a brand new spanking stone-laid, or get that new oven hotness ![Smile [:)]](http://null/community/emoticons/emotion-1.gif)
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The vaunted variety in occupation and improvement cards are not really game breaking, but they provide just enough of a difference to see people specialising in different ways. of course, it becomes much of a puzzle trying to figure out which cards to get because you can’t get them all (and you still have to do other things, like fencing up pastures) and realise that certain cards interact well with each other.
The two ways to get food: meat (sheep, boars and cattle) versus greens (grain and vegetables) also play off well with each other. Although meat does seem easier to feed your family, the greens can’t be ignored as well. Both resources multiply differently in your farm, in that two animals will get you a baby while sowing a grain will net you two extras. However the way to first grow them (fence up pastures and plough fields) are so radically different that you can’t really tell which is better at times. Plus, actions are limited and if you can’t plough a field because someone has already taken it, you have to keep at least a small pasture somewhere.
Right enough about my responses, how about the session? In this game, I won due to my diversified interest. Yes, yes, i win again, boring, but the scores at the end are quite close which means that specialising to a certain extent should win the game as well.
In this game, I diversified into all meats and greens, had a good field and pasture and work up a good score. The key idea is that I minimise my negative scores as the difference between having a resource or not can mean the difference between a +1 or -1 score. i basically did not attempt to learn new trades or get new toys to play with, I just bring out as many family members as possible to ‘work them fields’
Li Li on the other hand went into pastures. She had so many sheeps and boars and cattles at the end that they scored massive for her. The pastures are also good in reducing the negative scores for fallow fields. She came in 2nd.
Jian Fei went with learning new crafts and gettting new members of his family. By the end of the game, his family members were cabinet makers, pottery makers and basket weavers, sustaining themselves by selling wares and generating a huge VP at the end by stocking up on the materials of his trade: wood/clay.
Shaun the bummer had an interesting occupation which allows him to ignore negative points from resources, so interestingly enough, the whole game he was bumming all the time by fishing in the pond, getting enough food to scrape by and upgrading his house to an impressive stone structure. He could have got more points at the end from the stone house but unfortunately was one turn short so he can’t brag about his solid stonework (hehe). Shaun was fourth.
Wolfx did a boo boo and grew too much vegetables to come in last. The superspecializing backfired as the vegetables only scored points to a certain extent. I’m sure if he know what he knew now, he’ll do much better with his super fields strategy. As it is, still have to give him props for being the fastest player on board, gives me the pressure everytime from sitting left of him.
Macedwin graciously did not play (how can he resist?), as he’s doing translation and explanation duties but i’m sure he’s itching to get it out again. I give this game two thumbs up! Only thing is the comprehensive scoring at the end where anything and everything makes a difference, but who cares? A farming we will go, a farming we will go, hey ho a derry o, a farming we will go. Agricola, anyone?