Agricola: I know this reminds me of something...
Doug Faust
United States
Malverne
New York
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I had the fortune of playing Agricola with Zev Schlasinger at UberCon this past weekend. Apparently Z-Man Games is in preliminary talks to bring this game to the States, big props to them for that.
Anyway, I know a lot of folks here are excited about Agricola and are interested in more information about how the game plays. I thought I'd do something slightly different: I'm going to compare the mechanics of the game to other more familiar games and describe them in that context. It's easier to wrap my head around it that way, at least.
For those who have also played Agricola, feel free to add to my list.
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1.
Board Game: Caylus
[Average Rating:7.97 Overall Rank:11]
Doug Faust
United States
Malverne
New York
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Probably the easiest comparison is to Caylus, for the worker-placement mechanic. Each player has a number of farming family members (ie, workers). Beginning with the start player, each player places a family member on a spot on the communal board, which lets them take an action (unlike Caylus, the action happens immediately). Once the spot on the board is filled, no one else can use it for the rest of that turn.
Unlike Caylus, it is possible to increase the number of family members you have (something about "birds and bees" or somesuch...). However, this is a multistep process that isn't even possible until midgame. Obviously it's very much worth it when you can do it. You start with 2 and can end up with 5 (and that's very difficult to accomplish).
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Doug Faust
United States
Malverne
New York
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Like Puerto Rico, Agricola has individual player boards. This boards start out empty except for two house spaces, and you're free to fill it up as you please with either fields, pastures, or house extensions. Keep in mind, however, that your pastures need to be adjacent to other pastures (likewise for house spaces), and stuff can't be moved around once placed.
The "buildings" in Puerto Rico are somewhat analogous to the cards, and are played in front of you beside your player board. These cards typically give you some special benefit for the rest of the game.
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Doug Faust
United States
Malverne
New York
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These cards are one thing that sets Agricola apart from many Eurogames. There are over 300 cards included in the game, each of which has different and sometimes complex text. I only had the opportunity to play with the "easy" deck because the "complex" and "interactive" decks had not yet been translated. Still, these cards defined much of your strategy throughout the game, and you could often build CCG-esque "card combos" that could turn into great economic engines.
The distribution of the cards is also something I haven't seen. Each player receives 14 cards, 7 "occupation" cards and 7 "minor improvement" cards. Additionally, there are 10 "major improvement" cards that are available to everyone. There is no way of getting additional cards during the game! So you'll only see a very small portion of those 300+ cards during any particular game, providing for a lot of replay value. I'll have to trust that they did enough playtesting to eliminate unbalanced card combos though...
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Doug Faust
United States
Malverne
New York
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I'll mention Puerto Rico again because I can't think of another game offhand that does this. In Agricola, many of the available actions become more enticing if no one takes them. For example, there's a "take 2 wood" spot which simply accumulates; if no one takes it, the two wood stays on it, and two more wood are available on that spot for a total of four. One of these spots won't stick around for too long before someone pounces on it.
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Doug Faust
United States
Malverne
New York
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This might be more of an aesthetic similarity than anything else, but Agricola features animal enclosures known as pastures. You build these enclosures using fences on your player board; the bigger the area you fence in, the more animals can fit in the enclosure. Like Zooloretto, only one type of animal can be in a given enclosure. These animals will reproduce and increase in number over the course of the game, assuming you have at least two of them.
(Note: This picture has custom animal components.)
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6.
Board Game: Shogun
[Average Rating:7.70 Overall Rank:42]
Doug Faust
United States
Malverne
New York
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Like in Shogun, you have to feed those fine folks who do your dirtywork. At the end of every harvest turn, you have to turn in two food for every family member that you have. Failure to do this will result in getting a "beggar" card for each food you're short. Each of these beggar cards will give you a -3 point penalty at the end of the game (and 3 points is pretty sizable in this game). So while it may be advantageous to have a large family to perform lots of actions per turn, you'll need a lot of food to support them and there's only a few spots on the board that provide food.
The real trick is, as the game moves along, the harvest turns occur more often. There are 15 turns in the game, and harvest occurs after turns 4, 7, 10, 12, 14, and 15. In the last turn of the game, you'll only have one turn to get all the food you need to feed your large (hopefully!) family.
(The food chits are on the right of the picture.)
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Doug Faust
United States
Malverne
New York
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A lot of the "major improvements" in Agricola work like the power plants in Power Grid--you feed it a resource, and it produces a number of food. I've found that these are often overlooked by new players but are a very important way of securing needed food.
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Doug Faust
United States
Malverne
New York
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Like in Vegas Showdown, filling up your player board is important for scoring at the end. Specifically, you get points for having pastures, fields, and house spaces on your board. Furthermore, you lose points for having unused spaces on your board. You also score for the number of animals you have in your pastures, and the number of wheat and vegetables you've managed to accumulate with your fields. There are also ways of scoring bonus points with cards.
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Doug Faust
United States
Malverne
New York
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Mechanically, the game isn't similar to Uwe Rosenberg's other well-known creation, but there is at least one artistic shout-out to the card game classic.
I managed to get this card in the game I played. Yay for soybeans!
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Doug Faust
United States
Malverne
New York
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While I don't have any specific mechanics to compare here, I think the game has a lot of the same feel as Sceptor of Zavandor. In both games, you're building complex economic engines aided by text on cards that only you have. In both games you can be overwhelmed at first, as you figure out what all the cards do and what all your options are. As the game goes on, you get more in the groove of things, and each player uses their own specific card synergy to maximize their production.
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11.
Board Game: Agricola
[Average Rating:8.25 Overall Rank:2]
Doug Faust
United States
Malverne
New York
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Of course, there are a lot of aspects of Agricola that don't really compare to other games (or at least, not ones that I've played). For example, the crop-growing mechanic involves first obtaining a wheat or vegetable (usually through a worker placement action) and then planting it (with another worker placement action). At that point, the field will give you 1 wheat/vegetable per turn for the next two or three turns.
Anyway, if anyone would like to add to this list, feel free!
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Mikko Saari
Finland
http://www.lautapeliopas.fi/ - the best Finnish board game resource!
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Actually, the crop-growing mechanism is 1:1 with Antiquity - in that one too you need to have seeds to make crops - and you might need to eat your seeds, too.
Antiquity was my first reaction from Agricola as both feature feeding your folks as a core element. Agricola is like a friendly family version of Antiquity.
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Harald Korneliussen
Norway
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'nuff said.
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Lindsay Thomas
United Kingdom
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Great list.
Having played Agricola now, I can see that it is a fine blend of features from other games.
There are similarities to the resources used in Settlers of Catan:
Wood - wood
Brick - clay
Sheep - sheep
Ore - stone
Grain - grain
Agricola also has reeds, pigs (wild boar), cattle, vegetables.
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15.
Board Game: Caylus
[Average Rating:7.97 Overall Rank:11]
Lindsay Thomas
United Kingdom
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Turn order.
Turn order is very important in both Caylus and Agricola. Going first gives you first pick of where to place your workers.
In both games you can place a worker in a space that will gives you the advantage of going first. You keep that advantage until someone else places a worker in that space.
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love-fest 
Pueblo
Colorado
Lüneburg
Agri Cola
Coke Cola
Pepsi Cola
You forgot the obvious one: Afri Cola.
Littleton
Colorado
Malverne
New York
Zev liked the game (I think he said this was his second time playing), but he was concerned about the effect of the poor exchange rate on his ability to realistically produce the game.
As for our game, I ended up coming in second (by one point!) with an animal-heavy strategy with lots of vegetables. The guy who won managed to set up a completely insane house with 6 stone rooms. The third place player seemed to have a bread-baking strategy going. Zev finished in last; I'm not quite sure what he was doing.
Unspecified
Unspecified
Coke Cola
Pepsi Cola
Diet Coke with sugar!
Oh wait, that was "New Coke"--