I think we both agree that "3 Wood" and "Occupation" are almost always the best two opening moves in a 2 Player game. But I personally think you overstate the gap in saying things like "I dont think that the comparison between occupation and 3 wood on turn 1 is even remotely close." Situationally, they can be quite close - or 3 Wood can be better.

Your custom rules might be having a greater influence than you think. By excluding the "I" deck and using a draft instead of a random deal, you are adopting a ruleset that significantly strengthens Occupation cards, especially in 2 Player, where the Occupation deck is already quite small.

Think about this: You are basically dealing out 14 of out a possible 46 cards (about a third of the entire deck), and then allowing each player to pick the best ones in a draft. So the player choosing second is going to get the "second best" card, out of a selection that covers 1/3rd of the possible deck. If he's hunting for a 'early Occupation' card, he's almost certain to find one. In most games under these rules, I could see how both players are very likely to have very good "early Occupation" cards.

But now consider a standard rules game using all three decks. Each player sees 7 out of a possible 65 cards - about 1/10th of the deck. They have no ability to pick from a larger pool or see what their opponent holds in a draft. I can tell you (since I play under standard rules), it is far less common to have a 'gimmee' Turn One occupation in this scenario.

So, for a player operating under the normal rules and using all the cards, the notion that Occupation is dramatically better may be quite misleading. A "random 1/10th of the deck" is just far less potent than "the second best card taken from a random 1/3rd of the deck" It is quite frequent to end up with a hand of Manservants, Maids and Mendicants. So don't underestimate how your chosen variants change the value of that space for you. You are, in a way, playing under custom rules that have an enormous impact on average card quality - it should be no surprise that you value the space. I just question whether that carries the same weight for people playing under traditional rules.

But even with that in mind, Occupation is not always the best move even if you have "good" Occupations. It simply depends on the Occupation.

The crux of the matter is that 3 Wood is always an objectively "good" first move, whereas "Occupation" is highly situational, and can range anywhere from "amazingly powerful" to "bad." So while there are many Occupation plays that are better than 3 Wood, there are also many that are worse, either because the card itself is weak, or simply because even though the card is good, it is premature to play.

To give a simple but compelling example, assume you are dealt Chamberlain. A novice reading these boards might see that Chamberlain is considered an extremely powerful (perhaps the most powerful) Occupation card you can get. Following the logic of "Occupation is clearly the best first move," it should be obvious that your first move should be "Occupation - Chamberlain." But I think any skilled player would agree that this is actually a *terrible* first move. Even though Chamberlain is a great occupation in the grand scheme of things, playing him in turn one effectively wastes an early move (he has no purpose prior to Round 11) and undermines the cards value (since your opponent now has 10 turns to plan for it). Good space + Good occupation . . . But bad move.

This is a great demonstration as to why Occupation is so highly situational - it may not be the best (or even a good) opening move *even if* you are holding some of the best occupations in the game. Certainly, there are specific occupations where the opposite is true - occupations that almost force you to play them as soon as possible. Seasonal Worker. Wood Distributor. Mushroom Collector. But unless you hold an Occupation that *benefits from early play,* it is not clear that it is a good move at all.

As to the other arguments, most of them apply equally strongly to 3 Wood.

DEFENSIVE PLAY: In terms of the defensive value of playing Occupation first, I'm afraid I can't give that much more weight than the defensive value of taking 3 Wood first. In most cases, the 3 Wood has a higher defensive value. You are right to say that you can often get 3 Wood - but in a 2 Player game, the same can be said of Occupation. In fact, it is actually far easier and far more destructive to deny your opponent Wood than Occupations. If he has one worth playing, it is nearly impossible to prevent him from playing it by Round Three without huge self-inflicted damage. You could easily, on the other hand, take Wood 3 times and put enormous stress on your opponent while simultaneously benefiting yourself. Remember we are talking about two player here - the space is just not that contested the way it is in multiplayer and Wood is far more scarce. He's *going* to get it before the first harvest.

The notion that you must take Occupation, even with a mediocre card, is important because your opponent might have a good one is also a bad bet. Yes, if your opponent drops "Seasonal Worker" on you, that's bad news. But the harsh reality is, he's going to drop Seasonal Worker on you before the first harvest and before he takes Day Laborer and there is nothing you can do about it - you can't block out Occupation for more than a turn or two. He'll just play it in Round Two as his second move or, at worst, in Round Three, when resources are once again generally back to starting values. Again, perhaps this is different in a draft situation - you *know* he has Seasonal Worker. But in a random deal, playing defensively because he has a 10% chance of having Seasonal Worker is not a no-brainer at all.

IMPROVEMENT CARDS: Certainly Occupations can be precursers to useful improvement cards - but the same is true of Wood. And, since we are talking about Round 1, this is sort of a weak argument. If your first move is Occupation, and you are hoping to use it to activate an improvement card for your Starting Player move, you better hope you have either Clay Roof or Acreage. Because to my knowledge, these are the only Improvements you can play with 1 Occupation and no resources. The reality is, Wood is far more powerful to combine with Starting Player in round 1 - there are a huge number of Minor Improvements that require Wood to play. At the end of the day, there are far more scenarios where taking Wood gives you a useful minor improvement than playing an Occupation does (for purposes of Round One).

Don't get me wrong - as I said at the onset, Occupation is a fine first move. At times, the best first move. Rarely any worse than second best. But at the end of the day, I can't agree with statements like "Occupation is actually massively better." It is *in some cases*, massively better. It is *in other cases,* massively worse. It is something that will vary tremendously depending on the Occupations you hold - and not just whether they are "good" or not, but whether they are "good" to play early.

Being able to accurately assess the value of your Occupations - including *when* they are most effectively played, is an important skill in Agricola. It is far too simplistic to declare categorically that, in all cases, the first player should simply shuffle through his Occupation cards and automatically play the 'best' one, regardless of his hand.