Your cosy little farmA little review of Agricola and a note about its attractive atmosphere.
(and an eye-opener about my personal preferences).
IntroductionI'm not a typical Euro-fan, to be honest. Yes, I play them, rather often, the typical ones, and I marvelled at the clever mechanics in Puerto Rico, but the game never caught on. It was not only that the game was so intricate, and not only that the lack of luck gave a feeling that there was an "optimal" way to play (which I doubt there is), but something didn't strike a chord. I felt the same way about Santiago (although I prefer that one, as it's simpler). The game mechanics are fantastic but something lacked.
Then again, I'm not the typical amerigame-fan either. I love random games like Talisman, I get childishly excited over all the components in games like Descent and I adore the immersive themes in Arkham Horror and Fury of Dracula. But rather often they also wear me out. If there are 6 gates open, then Cthulhu comes. And if there are these many monsters, they will overflow, and this meter will go up, and when that reaches 6, the shops close. And if it reaches 10, Cthulhu comes. And if these stray beings wander into these special gates, then this meter goes up, and if THAT gets to 3, then this OTHER fiend emerges, and he gets THIS meter to rise each time he eats a ham sandwich and THAT meter causes Cthulhu to spawn one subway monster which closes the subway and if they're 3, then your dog will poop on your rug! (explicit exaggeration).
At times like that I yearn for the clear and simple yet deep rulesets of a good Euro. But I never could put my finger on exactly what bothered me with Santiago yet kept me interested in other games.
I admit I bought Agricola partly out of the hype that surrounded the game. But only partly. The largest reason was that I am a bit of an agriculture romanticist and I like farmer themes. And partly it was because I wanted at least one nice heavy Euro in my collection. Agricola seemed like the perfect fit. And it was. And not only that, it made clear what I lacked in some games but found in others.
A general overview If you're set on the rules, skip down to "Atmosphere and verdict"Despite what one might think, Agricola is a simple game. Complex, yet simple. When I opened the heavy box, I felt like "ugh!". Tons of cards and components. Without reading the rules, I could barely understand what was what and how the game was supposed to be set up! Once read, though, the game was dead simple.
Each player has a farm board of 3x5 squares (image
here), representing the land you own. It's here you expand your house, plow your fields and fence your pastures. The design is up to you, the 15 squares (minus the 2 representing your starting house) are at your disposal.
The "main game board" (image
here and
here) is little less than a collection of "action fields" representing turn actions like "plow a field", "expand your house", "sow your fields", "make a baby", "collect wood", "go fishing", "collect sheep" etcetera etcetera. Some of these action fields get "loaded" with stuff each turn, like the "collect wood" field gets loaded with 3 wood each turn (if no one wants to collect wood one turn, it'll have 6 wood next turn and so on), and some are simply "you get 1 each time you go here", like the "take 1 grain" action.
You start off with 2 family members (man and wife), so in the beginning you get to do twice each turn. The catch is, each action can only be taken once per turn. So if your opponent decided to sow his fields on his go, your plow gets magically unusable. A little illogical, but hey.
The goal is to build a good farm in a set number of turns. You get points for basically everything you've done, the size of your house and family, the number of plowed fields, the amount of grain and vegetables, the number of pastures, the amount of animals you have… and you get a minus point for each piece of land you haven't used up and each thing you have nothing of. For example, if you have no sheep, you get -1 points. And if you have no cattle, you get another -1. All of these things are valued differently, so scoring at the end is a little tongue-in-cheek, but that's not only bad. You can also get points if you've built something nice, like a cooking hearth. The only thing you don't get points for are surplus raw materials (like wood and clay), although you can during the game build things like "table-carpentry" or "basket maker" which will give you points for surplus wood and straw, respectively.
One interesting aspect is that as the game progresses, the number of available actions increase. Each turn, a new action is drawn from the action deck (which is rather sorted, the first 4 cards are always the same 4 cards though they might differ in order, the next 3 are always the same 3, etcetera, so the random effect is not that huge) expanding your abilities. However, as families get bigger, so do the number of actions each player can do each turn, so the action chart continues to be crowded.
So, the game is basically a race for the raw materials to expand your farm. You want a bigger family, you first have to expand your house. To expand your house, you need wood and straw. If the other farmers took it, you need another plan. Plow a field to later sow it and gain tons of grain? Or build some fences so you can house all those animals?
The game is also a solitaire battle against time, because you need to feed your family. Each "harvest" (which all occur at set times during play) you need to have food enough for each family member, else they have to go begging (which is minus points in the end, and which also feels very very bad). So… either you sow your fields to gain grain, and build and oven to bake bread. Or you build a cooking hearth, letting the meat of the animals soothe your hungry stomachs. Or you get the food a little more directly, by going fishing, or maybe earning some money by making straw baskets or performing on a scene for the villagers.
These two aspects (expand for points + provide for your family) form an intertwined chain of events. You need to build things for your farm in order to provide for your family all the while expanding it to be proud of your work. And during all this time, your opponents are set on the same goals, so it's a competition for the different actions, and a weighing between what action is best for you now, and what is your neighbour about to do, will he get in your way? Maybe you should try to get in his way?
The family game and the full gameIn the "family" game (which is gamer's game enough, I'd say) the only cards used are the so called "general acquisition" cards, such as the cooking hearth, bread oven and the likes. These you can build by choosing the "build acquisition" (provided you have the materials to build it, of course). These 10 general acquisition cards are available for everyone to buy, but it's finder's keepers, the supply of general acquisitions is scarce. (These are called "Major improvements" in most translations, but I'm stubborn enough to use my own wording.)
In the "full game", each player gets a hand of 14 cards, 7 "Education" cards and 7 "special acquisition" cards. (These are called "Occupation" and "minor improvements" respectively in most translations). As for the General acquisition cards, you need to choose the correct action for these cards to come into play. These skew the situations a bit, some of them will grant you more points for some special detail, some of them make certain actions more effective, or cheaper and so on. What's overwhelming is that there are over a hundred cards of each of these two sorts.
So, while the family game has a very low random aspect (only the order in which the new actions come into play), the "full game" depends a lot on what cards you get at the start, as those are the ones you get, take it or leave it. Then again, they make the game endlessly variable, and the tactics for in what order you want to do things, or what you want to specialise in, will vary a lot from game to game.
The scaling of 2~5 playersAs the action board will be more crowded the more players there are, new actions are added when playing with 3, 4 or 5 players. These vary quite a lot, it's not that you add 4 actions when playing with 3 players, and then adding another one when playing with 4. No you have a set of "extra actions" for each player configuration, and though some actions are similar, the game changes noticably when changing the number of players. In 5 player games, some materials that won't come into play until a lot later in 2-player games, are suddenly available from turn 1, changing not only tactics, but also the conditions for quite a lot of Special acquisitions! All Education cards are also marked for what number of players they apply to, so the more players, the more Educations may come into play.
Shortly, the game not only scales well, but it
changes according to the number of players.
Lastly, there is also a solitaire version where your only opponent is time, and your goal is a set number of points.
Atmosphere and verdictI love the atmosphere in Agricola. It isn't only the game mechanics, although they are interesting and impressive. It isn't just the farmer theme, though I, as said, love farmer themes. Rather, it's the wonder of having your own place. Playing Agricola is, at least for me, not only playing a game and competing for the most points. It's simply enjoying myself. It's like building a little engine. You put this in, you get this out. It's a cosy solitaire where you fight against time to balance expanding against getting enough food, but at the same time it's also very interactive, as you have to burn your brain cells trying to figure out plan B if your opponents should block you.
And it was while playing Agricola that it suddenly struck me what I lacked in certain Euros.
It's not just about building. It's
having an in-game identity and
short-term goals. I find some silly joy in seeing my little empire in Catan spread across the island, I like the look of my train routes snaking across the map in Ticket to Ride, and I love seeing the meeples of my colour investigating in Tikal and Goldland. In some way, they are my incarnation inside the game. The short term goals make the game more than just winning: I might lose, but at least I got where I wanted! Look! My trains go from Berlin to Moskow, that's not bad! And lookie here, I have 3 cities on the southern end of the whole island! You might have more points, but I created a little land in itself! Puerto Rico and Santiago failed to convey this feeling for me. I had my little wooden cubes there, but they merely seemed to be a means to get points. Interesting, but almost only intellectually.
Agricola succeeds immensely in being this game where you have your place "for yourself". You really build your little farm. You crave for the points, but when harvest is coming and begging seems to be the only solution, you abandon your greed. I've sat in a situation where I realised that doing plan A where I will lack one food and thus get -3 points, might still be generating more points in the end than doing plan B where I get enough food for this harvest. And I chose the latter, almost as if "having enough food for the family members" in the game had become a matter of pride. "No, my wife, there will be no building that fence this week. There will be no beggars in my family if I can help it! Come now, we must provide for our family even if acting like clowns or doing day's work for the landlord is our only option!" I get this warm feeling of comfort when I finally have that oven, and have baked bread for food enough to last me even through the next harvest. I rejoice when I see the sheep in my pastures breed.
And if you want, there is humour and immersive roleplay there aswell. Finding the reason exactly why action A generates the materials you get ("Ehm… it seems my son was a little promiscuous here…"), or the points you get ("Of COURSE it much nicer walking in a stone house with wooden clogs!") or inventing silly nicknames for the Educations and acquisitions ("Hey! I just educated my daughter so much, that the village chief adopted her! But… what a snob she became!") is just another way the game can be enjoyed.
Naturally, not all play games like I do. I don't doubt a large portion of gamers couldn't care less about having in-game identities or short-term personal goals. But even so, I believe Agricola will manage to satisfy even those only hungry for an interactive fight for points. That set aside, what put the game on a high shelf for me was the wonderful way it straches my itch of building, seeing goals inside the game and getting this warm little feeling of tending my own place. Add to that a system that changes the game system according to the number of players and a near infinite variation, and this is a game that will last a lifetime.
Posted Wed Feb 27, 2008 4:41 pm
), but I might give it a shot.
. Oh well, I can't wait for it to make it to the US and when it does I will invest in adult diapers 
.
