Mike had picked up Agricola on the back-end of another order, but as he rates learning games by reading the rules as one of his less favourite activities (just above getting his teeth pulled out), he lent the game to me so that I could master the rules by the time Saturday rolled around and we all gathered at my place for a game.

Then, when Saturday came along, Randy, Craig, Rich and me were all ready to play Agricola... and Mike wasn't there. The last we'd heard of him he was coming. What had happened?

To make things worse, Mike doesn't have my number. He had Randy's, but Randy's phone was constantly going in and out of range. I live a little far away from civilisation for mobile coverage to be 100%. Indeed, that's why I don't have a mobile phone of my own. As we later discovered, Mike's car developed a flat battery just as he was going to leave. Urgh.

So, here we were, sitting around an Agricola board and wondering where its owner was. Eventually we decided to press ahead regardless.

All of this led to a particular mistake in our first game of Agricola. We were playing the family game (no problem there) as I felt it'd give Rich and Craig in particular an easy introduction to the game's mechanics and reduce any Analysis Paralysis that might crop up. However, the extra action cards we used were those for the five player game. So, these scores may not be entirely reliable.

As I swiftly discovered, there's a big difference from the solo game in the availability of resources...

Game 1 Scoring
Fields: Merric 4, Rich 1, Randy -1, Craig -1
- When you come down to it, I find it far easier to be a grain farmer than a cattle farmer. Especially with such a premium on wood!
Pastures: Randy 4, Craig 4, Rich 2, Merric 1

Grain: Merric 4, Rich 1, Randy -1, Craig -1
Vegetables: Merric 4, Randy 1, Rich 1, Craig -1
- Randy took a Vegetable as his last action, just to gain the point.

Sheep: Rich 3, Merric 1, Randy 1, Craig -1
Wild Boar: Randy 3, Craig 2, Merric 1, Rich -1
Cattle: Randy 3, Craig 2, Merric -1, Rich -1

Unused Spaces: Rich -1, Merric -4, Randy -4, Craig -5
- Talk about incomplete farms! This doesn't happen much with the solo game.
Stables: Craig 2, Randy 1, Rich 1, Merric 0
House: Randy 10, Craig 5, Rich 3, Merric 0
- Yes, I never upgraded my house. So?
Family: Merric 15, Randy 12, Craig 12, Rich 9
- But i had the biggest family!
Improvements: Randy 8, Craig 4, Merric 1, Rich 1

Game 1 Final Scores:
Randy 40, Merric 25, Craig 22, Rich 19

Well, I got slaughtered. Learning the game in advance hadn't prepared me for how tight things could get in the multiplayer game.

We then adjourned from Agricola for a game of Sword and Skull. Craig wanted something a lot lighter than Agricola, and Randy hadn't played it before. (He probably won't play it again, but we got to say, "Arrr!" a lot, so it was worth it).

We then resolved - on Randy's suggestion, not that I objected - to play Agricola again, this time with the Occupation and Minor Improvement cards. At this point, I actually paid a lot more attention to the game and did better as a result. I was also helped by the cards I had helping me very well with a farming strategy. I can use a plow to plow multiple fields at once? Fantastic! Oh, the vegetable picker gives me extra veggies? Also great!

Randy was quite impressed how my cards came together, although he was no slouch himself. Rich only had a small house (and family), but Craig kept a somewhat balanced approach, although he ran into begging problems at one point. Me, I took two begging cards, but was able to use the Mendicant occupation to discard them in the endgame. Oh, I also had the occupation that allowed any "-1" score to be counted as "0"...

Game 2 Interim Scores
Fields Merric 4, Rich 3, Craig 2, Randy 1
Pastures Merric 4, Randy 4, Rich 3, Craig 3
- better scoring than the first game, and a more balanced approach!

Grain Randy 2, Rich 2, Craig 1, Merric 0
- The grain went to feed my family. Instead, I had a lot of veggies in the endgame.
Vegetables Merric 4, Randy 1, Craig 1, Rich -1

Sheep Randy 4, Rich 3, Merric 2, Craig 2
Wild Boar Rich 3, Craig 2, Merric 0, Randy -1
Cattle Craig 4, Merric 3, Randy 1, Rich -1

Unused Merric 0, Craig -4, Randy -5, Rich -5
Stables Merric 4, Rich 2, Craig 2, Randy 1
House Craig 8, Rich 6, Merric 5, Randy 4
Family Merric 15, Randy 15, Craig 15, Rich 9
Improvements Randy 10, Merric 3, Rich 3, Craig 3
Occupations Randy 7, Merric 3, Rich 0, Craig 0
Begging Craig -3

Game 2 Final Scores
Merric 47, Randy 44, Craig 36, Rich 27

I'm now extremely fond of Agricola. I think it an exceptional game which I really want to play again - and with Mike! I've used my excess card sleeves from my CCG days to sleeve all the cards, and so they'll go to Mike when I return the game, along with a plastic tray I had spare for organising the tokens. (I want the English copy for myself).

With any luck, Mike will be free on our next BGD, so he can experience the game for himself...

Actually if you compare Randy and Craig's scores for vegetables you will see that that one vegetable was worth two points to Randy. He went from getting -1 to getting +1

An important point to remember when choosing your last action.

Oh, indeed.

Just an additional note: we played with the proper 4-player action cards in the second game... and realised that we'd made a mistake in the previous game.

I'm afraid those two games gave me a bit of the Agricola bug. I was pouring over my scoresheet at the end of the second game trying to figure out what I could've done better.

It's a 'simple' game to 'play' but the interactions and 'cascading' effects are quite complex.

I think 'solitaire' Agricola was Merric's downfall in game one. No one else wanted the reeds not realising their importance and Merric was probably used to grabbing 6 reeds on turn 6 (from his solitaire play), so on turn 4 (as we were playing with the 5-player cards) I grabbed all 8 of them with my farmer and his wife (and went off to become a basket-weaver). This led to everyone else fighting for them for the rest of the game (and also in the second game).

I'm looking forward to more multiplayer Agricola as I think we've only begun to scratch the surface of the game (and the cards).