Our experience with Agricola, some thughts and observations.

I got my copy of Agricola last Thursday. Then I spent a few days making fimo animals and resources with my kids.
My wife is an occasional gamer. She's played Purto Roco, Die Siedler, Mu, Lost Cities, similar stuff.
We played a lot of two player Serenissima, endless games of Gin, and a lot of Rummikub. She is the current Irish
Rummikub champion. Still, she's not a _gamer_ if you know what I mean.

I suspected that she would like Agricola though. Why? Because it has what I think of as the 'Sim City' factor.
Now, as far as I know she's never played Sim City, but what I mean is that a large part of the game is about
building somehting of your own. You manage resources, purchase stuff etcetera, but essentially you're adding
stuff to make something you own better. In Sim City it's city blocks, in Die Siedler it's a nework of towns and
cities, in Agricola, it's a farm. I know she likes that kind of thing, owning something, building it up.

So, having seem me make the Fimo animeeples, reading the rules, fiddling with it and all, she suggested we try it out
two player on Sunday night.
As expected, she did like it a lot. We did a lot of things wrong the first game, and took a long time, probably over
two hours. Gwen won by a five point margin I think. The scores were in the thirties. On Monday, I was mildly
surprised that she suggested we play again, as soon as the kids were in bed. This time, we made fewer mistakes and
were finished in less than two hours. This time, I won, by a narrow margin, but we were doing the breeding wrong (giving
a baby aniumal for every pair) which probably gave me the game.

Now, on Tuesday, she suggested we play again. Gwen got a bad hand of cards. The night before, after the game, we'd
gone through the 1-player E deck (al that we've used so far) looking at what we thought was good and what was bad.
I'd got a great hand, I thought, so I let Gwen mulligan two hands, although I think she actually ended up with worse
cards than she'd started with.

From the start I was doing well, and after a while, I caught Gwen's eye looking up at the clock. I asked if she wanted to stop, but
to my surprise, she said she was wondering if we could get another game in that night.
In the end I won again by a massive margin. I had had a great hand, and I think her cards did not work well together.
Also, I monopolised the wood, and in two players there's a lot of contention for building resources.
Nevertheless, after the game, Gwen's enthusiasm was undiminished. I am sure she'll want to play again tonight.

The point? I think there's a particular sweet spot in the build-my-own-cool-thing game genre and Agricola is right
in it. There's not much interaction, very little conflict and your 'thing' keeps getting better as the game progresses.
The card mix keeps it different and interesting from game to game and it's all very well presented.

While it's very much a gamer's game, I think Agricola has a large amount of mainstream potential. In truth, I don't
see it ever becoming a big seller as a game for non-gamers, but I think the next game that does so, will be
similar to Agricola. Perhaps simpler, with a more modern theme, and fewer choices.

I liked it too, but I like everything from Modern Art to Republic of Rome.