Agricola is an economic engine, worker-placement game for 1 to 5 players. Games last around two and a half hours. So what does it have to offer?

all the shortcomings of an AT

Agricola has all the fiddliness of an AT. There are a lot of actions to choose from (and many of these actions need to be seeded with more resources at the end of each of the many rounds), a lot of cards (with texts), and a lot of scoring categories.

Unfortunately, despite the sheer quantity of choices, none of the individual cards/actions/scoring category feels particularly unique or special. Do you want to pick up 6 wood, pick up 4 wood, pick up 4 clay, or pick up 2 clay? Do you want to pick up 2 sheep, 1 cattle, or 1 boar? Do you want to build an improvement that lets you generate food in this manner, this manner, or that? Do you want to build fences or stables, which basically serve the same purposes but with slightly different numbers? More than an interesting set of choices to pick from, it feels like a laundry list of things hacked together. Many of the choices are more of the same, and you'll likely end up doing something from each general group. More complexity than real variability.

Very fiddly strategically, and physically from the set up and all the handling.

none of the benefits of an AT

An AT (and war) game fits its game mechanisms around a theme, instead of tacking on a theme to a gameplay. As such, thematic immersion is usually one of AT's strong points. I feel that Agricola tries to do what AT does, namely fit mechanisms around a theme, except that the theme is, well, farming. Compare this to the Punic Wars, and I am already predisposed to favor Hannibal: Rome versus Carthage by leaps and bounds. Furthermore, looking at their respective execution of thematic simulation, Hannibal's recreation of a monumental historical conflict feels natural and aesthetically pleasing, whereas Agricola's simulation of farming feels awkward and hacked.

The way the cards recreate (possibly alternate) history is a pleasant experience in Hannibal. And the way two numbers (Hannibal's 1-4 rating) manifests Hannibal's mighty prowess as a general is very creative. But with Agricola, a clay oven doesn't feel especially like a clay oven, and a sheep is not much more than a sheep, on the pasture, potentially good for a point or some food. The way Agricola recreates farm life is very uninspiring and unimaginative. It's too straightforward: a fireplace cost so and so and does this, going fishing does that. Now obviously pretty much every action in every economic game costs something and does something, but in Agricola the cost-so-and-so-and-does-this feeling is particularly dominant, because everything is so one-dimensional.

So what we have is a game that tries to tailor its gameplay around a theme, except that, due to the uninspired execution and choice of theme to begin with, there is no theme either--or a very dry one.

all the shortcomings of an euro

This section is, admittedly, redundant. (But so are many of the choices in Agricola, HA!) But, yeah, I mean, the game is about farming, like a good old euro. And we have white cubes for sheeps. It is what ATers like to call "dry," and everything they believe to be wrong with euros. And they are right.

(As an aside, I like the animeeples the most. Fimo is hard to visualize, and cubes are less than pretty. Animeeples strike the right balance between style and function.)

none of the benefits of an euro

Now I don't mind "dry" euros by any means. But that's because they usually have subtle, sophisticated gameplay. Agricola, however, is theme first, gameplay second. (Now this is debatable, but I support my claim by calling your attention to the number of people making fimo pieces for this game.) As such, the strategy is much more straightforward and scripted, more like a mechanical simulation. Proof: Agricola plays well from one to five. For me, any game that plays well from one to five necessarily has limited player interaction, or at most very "scripted" ones. Incidentally, I feel the same way about Age of Empires 3 (which plays well from two to five), except that the thematic execution is done a little better with the specialists really adding flavor to the game.

Conversely, consider Modern Art, Ra, Power Grid, Stone Age, Puerto Rico, and Imperial. Each of these games has some subtle nuances, and often some aha! moments where something just clicks. There is something "clever" about these games, something unique, some singular or odd ideas, something that cannot be gleaned superficially. Granted, that may just mean that I have yet to have my aha-moment with Agricola. But for now, it feels like an overly straightforward gateway game (except that it is also too fiddly and complex to be a gateway either), or an uninspired turn-based computer game.

Solid, but not great. Functional, but not inspiring.

In summary, Agricola does not have an euro's sophisticated gameplay, nor an AT's thematic immersion, but does have respectively the dryness and fiddliness of the same. The worst of both worlds, the best of none.

Having said that, I do think that Agricola is a very solid, functional game. In particular, it is disturbingly accurate how the farm starts out slow and picks up in speed. It also encourages farmers to be self-sufficient instead of specialized, true to the economic model of the time as far as I know. Harvest and feeding come around faster than one expects, and one is always short of farm hands to do all the things one needs to do. I do not think that any of these is incidental. The parameters of the game were carefully tested and tweaked to get the desired pace and short-handedness, and to encourage players to farm and anguish like real anguishing farmers. So despite all that I said, the game is quite thematic in some aspects, and the designer scores big on that one.

But for me, an accurate simulation does not necessarily translate to thematic immersion, if the accuracy is begotten by mechanical, clinical tweakings instead of more inspiring, creative methods. It just leaves me cold.

I usually love games where there are so many things I need to do, but so little time to do them; but for some reason Agricola is the exception. Maybe because I will eventually end up doing a little bit of everything anyways. Maybe because the angst comes more from a need to cross things off on a laundry list in a sequential manner, rather than some ingenious strategical considerations. So solid, functional gameplay does not translate to great gameplay either.

If I had to use two words to describe Agricola, and I've probably used them many times in this review, they would be "fiddly" and "uninspired."

By the way, am I the only one who finds the As on the box cover to be peculiar-looking?