Chris Shaffer
United States
San Francisco
CA
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MisterG wrote: TheCat wrote: There isn't a "two different resources of your choice" spot on the 5 player board, is there? 4-Player family version has: A) Take 1 Reed, 1 Stone and 1 Food, and B) Take 2 different Building Resources of your choice
Right, but his reference was to the woodcutter, who doesn't exist in the family game, so the context was the regular game - where presumably "two different resource of your choice" doesn't exist.
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Geoff Burkman
United States
Kettering
Ohio
Peekaboo!
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TheCat wrote: MisterG wrote: TheCat wrote: There isn't a "two different resources of your choice" spot on the 5 player board, is there? 4-Player family version has: A) Take 1 Reed, 1 Stone and 1 Food, and B) Take 2 different Building Resources of your choice Right, but his reference was to the woodcutter, who doesn't exist in the family game, so the context was the regular game - where presumably "two different resource of your choice" doesn't exist.
Roger that. I'm tempted to concoct one excuse or another, but the sad truth is that I overlooked that point.
Have you considered entering the editorial field? 
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Hi all,
I really found this Strategy Guide informative and has helped me improve my game tremendously.
Hope I'm not asking for too much, but I was just wondering if/when Brad will be doing a card review for the I & K decks  Have experimented with both decks but my experiences with the K deck have totally sucked , score below 30 (not to mention i was playing with some rather seasoned players).
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Let me first say, this article was very interesting, and introduced some things in ways that are not immediately apparent just from playing a few games. One of those that I liked is the notion that actions that accumulate over turns ought best be taken with 2+ turns of resources on them. This is something you really only partially understand at first from playing: obviously most players realize they should jump a resource when it has piled up some. More subtle, though, is the decision made every time a resource is at 1-turn's-worth, and how that affects how strong each action will be next round. Beginning players are much more apt to grab that 1-turn pile if it meets an immediate goal, while experienced players seem to develop a patience that stems from forward thinking.
Still, it's worth noting that you should not always wait for a resource to accrue if the 1-turn amount meets a critical goal, like expansion to facilitate family growth. It would often be folly to hold out for more in such cases, as the delay in growth may easily undo (or even set you back more than) the saved actions from a 2+ turn resource grab.
Pickles wrote: Excellent article here. One quibble that I have is with this guy - WhiteKong wrote: Field Warden (163) (*) – This allows you to take vegetables and plow fields even if someone else is on the space. The problem is, you need to have this card out BEFORE you get shut out of one of those spaces. After you have the card out, you need to PLAN to get shut out of a space in order to make it useful. Eh…. Ok. Why would I want to wait to get myself shut out? Why not shut the other guy out? What this does is make taking vegetables and plowing fields easier for everyone else.
He, like the Mendicant is not an extra action guy, he is a tempo guy. In this case rather than borrowing an action he removes the pressure from you to grab an action just in case someone else does. You can therefore play a better action sooner. The Plow & Sow action can be exceedingly strong - 4 VPs for field, extra vegetable, extra filled space & extra. veg or grain. Just being guaranteed this spot twice, or with your 5th guy in round 14, can be enough to make him pay off. Meanwhile you can get the best other actions with your other people. Of course you have to plan for it & of course he has to come out in advance - this probably makes him better if you are trying to get out a few occupations for a good card like a plow. I think he can be playable & is worth **, though perhaps not for a novice.
I definitely agree with this sentiment concerning the Field Warden and other similar cards (Head of the Family comes to mind). The benefit is not just that they safeguard important actions for you (plow+sow can be very strong indeed), but ultimately that they take what would be a first-pick action for you, and push it to the end of your round instead.
Every time you utilize a card like this to take one of the specified actions late in a round, 2 things happen:
1. Your family member who would've had to pick the action early is freed up to do something else that is typically about equal in importance.
2. Your last family member to act sees a HUGE improvement to the action he gets.
Think about a 5-er where Plow+Sow is now available. There will be 2-3 turns where it can be done, but 2 of them also have Family Growth Even Without Room in Your Home also available, and 1 has After Renovation Also Fences, both typically also strong plays. Many times my first point means your first action can be spent on one of the other 2 strong actions, and at least on a strong action of some sort, and the second point means another strong action is guaranteed for your last action that round.
The result is not that you free up a strong action for someone else as the OP suggests by ignoring Plow+Sow early, but rather that you claim a different strong action early, and guarantee a second one as your last action. You are trading your decreased interest in Plow+Sow for increased interest on an equally valuable space, which yes will allow someone Plow+Sow but simultaneously deny another great first-pick action. Where the action opening the OP was looking for really appears, however, is at the time of your last action in the round, where your family member takes Plow+Sow instead of the action he was about to be relegated to - leaving that late pick action less fought for instead. Big deal.
So to sum it up, you allow someone else to Plow+Sow but deny another huge action at the same time, leaving the only real result:
Field Warden gives you the option to Plow+Sow as your last action.
If we assume families each have 4 members at this point in the game, that still means you can replace a pick no better than 13th with Plow+Sow instead. Any time you use the Field Warden, it's like your last family member gets a first-pick-quality action too, and that's not awful, it's really pretty sick. This card can be very very good, especially because it lets you plan strategy around being able to plow+sow when it becomes available, a fact which can save you other actions in the meantime, too, and allow more attention on your other farm areas.
Obviously the same argument applies to Head of the Family, and other similar cards (if any). The main point is to understand that, while making some spaces easier for other players, these cards also make others harder for them b/c you get to pick those other spaces instead of actions you'd have used on the ones that are (now) guaranteed open to you. This only really nets YOU a stronger last action in any round you utilize the card. It shifts the demand for actions around for opponents, but doesn't grant any inherent benefit to them b/c all the other actions you take instead cause more demand on other things, to replace the lost demand on the guaranteed actions you postpone taking.
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Geoff Burkman
United States
Kettering
Ohio
Peekaboo!
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Nicely argued. Of course, things fall apart a bit when you consider situations like:
A) the opponent who's already renovated to stone and maxed his fences and is busy nabbing animals to eliminate negatives, and snapping up Majors for points and/or food. He sneers at your Renovate & Fence.
B) yourownself, already at five fields and maxed on veggies and grain, all of which in additional amounts are pretty much useless. Still want to Plow & Sow?
C) that damn Taster...
I suppose what I'm saying is that Agricola can be extremely situational. The action taken in one game may not be nearly as useful in a different game, even one as strong as Plow & Sow or Renovate & Fence. It all depends on where you are at the time, and how you got there.
And that's just one of the reasons I really like this game.
As for stacked resources, there are really only a few questions you need to ask yourself. Do I really need it? Is there something better available, something that will produce more points for me (immediately or down the line) or put me in a better position to produce more points in other ways? Who's likely to take it if I don't? How much will they benefit?
Sometimes the 6Wood isn't worth bothering with. And sometimes, it's in your best interest to take the 1Reed.
It all depends.
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Matthew M
United States
New Haven
Connecticut
8/8 FREE, PROTECTED
513ers Assemble!
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Quote: B) yourownself, already at five fields and maxed on veggies and grain, all of which in additional amounts are pretty much useless. Still want to Plow & Sow?
Very possibly. Plowing will still be worth a point for filling a space, and the excess vegetables/grain can take care of your food supply while still maintaining max scores in those categories. That's on top of denying the benefit to another player.
Certainly not as critical a play in the situation you describe, but it can still be beneficial.
-MMM
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Geoff Burkman
United States
Kettering
Ohio
Peekaboo!
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Octavian wrote: misterg wrote: B) yourownself, already at five fields and maxed on veggies and grain, all of which in additional amounts are pretty much useless. Still want to Plow & Sow?
Very possibly. Plowing will still be worth a point for filling a space, and the excess vegetables/grain can take care of your food supply while still maintaining max scores in those categories. That's on top of denying the benefit to another player. Certainly not as critical a play in the situation you describe, but it can still be beneficial. -MMM
I can't argue with that, Matt, and won't.
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Oliver Cheng
United States
Providence
Rhode Island
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MisterG wrote:
B) yourownself, already at five fields and maxed on veggies and grain, all of which in additional amounts are pretty much useless. Still want to Plow & Sow?
But you knew that you were going to get Plow&Sow in the last round, so why are you already in this position. And if you knew you would be in this position, why bother with the Field Warden. This is like saying that the Plows suck because if you have 4 of them in your hand, 2 (or 3) of them will go to waste.
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Geoff Burkman
United States
Kettering
Ohio
Peekaboo!
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plaguewielder wrote: MisterG wrote:
B) yourownself, already at five fields and maxed on veggies and grain, all of which in additional amounts are pretty much useless. Still want to Plow & Sow?
But you knew that you were going to get Plow&Sow in the last round, so why are you already in this position. And if you knew you would be in this position, why bother with the Field Warden. This is like saying that the Plows suck because if you have 4 of them in your hand, 2 (or 3) of them will go to waste.
I was referring more to the Ren+Fence action in my prior comment. Beyond that, I've played many games in which I've already maxed out my fields and sowables before the last Round, with or without the help of the Field Warden. As for the hypothetical, possibly I've already utilized the Field Warden as much as needed. There's certainly no reason to overuse him, true? Sometimes, one has other things to pursue at game's end.
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MisterG wrote: I suppose what I'm saying is that Agricola can be extremely situational. The action taken in one game may not be nearly as useful in a different game, even one as strong as Plow & Sow or Renovate & Fence. It all depends on where you are at the time, and how you got there.
I believe the counterpoint to this that various posters have been trying to voice is that you must value a card according to playing it correctly. You suggest that b/c you may play the Field Warden and then not use it to Plow&Sow, it is less useful as a result. The flip side is that if you play the Field Warden, you must play with it in mind in order to make it effective. Any card, if not planned around, is ineffective. Even major things like ovens and fireplaces are nearly worthless in this game if you don't follow the course of action necessary to utilize them. Thus, in order to determine the usefulness of the Field Warden, it is necessary to assume you are trying to put it to best use, and that involves letting your farm in a state where your last action in some late round will be a beneficial Plow&Sow, and may involve doing this multiple times. Failure to utilize that action at all is a fault of the player's planning when using the card, not a fault of the card itself - it allowed the player a very good advantage that he simply failed to utilize.
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Geoff Burkman
United States
Kettering
Ohio
Peekaboo!
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The_Foz_4 wrote: ...
I believe the counterpoint to this that various posters have been trying to voice is that you must value a card according to playing it correctly.
Absolutely correct.
The_Foz_4 wrote: You suggest that b/c you may play the Field Warden and then not use it to Plow&Sow, it is less useful as a result. The flip side is that if you play the Field Warden, you must play with it in mind in order to make it effective. Any card, if not planned around, is ineffective....
Again, agreed. Please note, though, that my part in this discussion really had little to do with the Field Warden. All I'd suggested, though, was that if I did have the Field Warden, it's entirely possible that I'd already used him to his full utility before Plow & Sow even appeared. It's certainly possible, yes? In which case, not using him to P&S wouldn't necessarily be inefficient, and certainly not ineffective. Just used differently.
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MisterG wrote: The_Foz_4 wrote: You suggest that b/c you may play the Field Warden and then not use it to Plow&Sow, it is less useful as a result. The flip side is that if you play the Field Warden, you must play with it in mind in order to make it effective. Any card, if not planned around, is ineffective.... Again, agreed. Please note, though, that my part in this discussion really had little to do with the Field Warden. All I'd suggested, though, was that if I did have the Field Warden, it's entirely possible that I'd already used him to his full utility before Plow & Sow even appeared. It's certainly possible, yes? In which case, not using him to P&S wouldn't necessarily be inefficient, and certainly not ineffective. Just used differently.
Granted. Most times it seems best to leave a useful Plow & Sow for him, but I could certainly see some situations where it wasn't, like if you had a food engine that could bake off a lot of grain and you got to 5 active fields quickly in order to maximize Bake Bread actions (and therefore minimize the number of times you'd actually have to bake). Certainly that could save you at least as many actions as a well-planned Sow & Plow. Point well made.
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Jerry Wang
United States
Flushing
New York
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First of all, thank you for a fantastic article and strategy guide. Quality of analysis, ease of understanding, and total production effort are all extremely high.
That said, I wanted to add that my playgroup seems to value wood much more highly than you do. For example, the '3 wood (cumulative)' space might hit 6 wood only two or three times a game at most. Thus I rate things like the Mushroom Collector lower because of the wood sacrifice (I value one wood almost as high as two food).
WhiteKong wrote: letsdance wrote: WhiteKong wrote:
Mini Pasture (040) (*) - Not great. You get one fenced in area for two food. If you’ve already built fences, then you only get three wood out of the deal. It does conserve actions well, but the two food cost is pretty high. By the time you can easily afford to be giving away two food, you probably don’t need the pasture. Mini Pasture: very good card. contrary to what the OP says it saves you 2 actions: one to take wood, and one to build fences. surely better than the stables card (especially because it doubles the value of a single stable built together with your room), so i don't understand why it's rated below. You're right about the actions, but only if you needed to spend an action taking the extra two wood. I probably wouldn't spend an action taking just two wood.
I also rate the Mini Pasture much higher because of the higher wood valuation. Consider that for a cost of two food, you are gaining four wood and (potentially) one (full) action. From a pure resource perspective, that's incredible. This minor improvement also often sets you up as the first player to be able to store three sheep (and be the first breeder) and could potentially net two points (as first and only pasture if you build no more fences). If you save eight wood that would have been used to build more pastures and throw them into four stables instead (to cover the traditional five spaces with pastures/stables), then this card does indeed net one full action as well (at the cost of a point for the second pasture). So, in net, you could be giving up one point and two food in exchange for four wood, one action, and early animal capacity.
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Manos Konstantaras
Greece
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Thanks for the time and effort you put on this guide, now i will disagree with you on several points
MisterG wrote: A) the opponent who's already renovated to stone and maxed his fences and is busy nabbing animals to eliminate negatives, and snapping up Majors for points and/or food. He sneers at your Renovate & Fence. Then a good idea would be to leave renovation and fences for the end of the turn and get the animals and M&M actions your opponent wants. In any situation, the Field Warden allows for very aggressive play, without danger of retaliation.
MisterG wrote:
B) yourownself, already at five fields and maxed on veggies and grain, all of which in additional amounts are pretty much useless. Still want to Plow & Sow?
As said later on also by yourself, you have either already used the Field warden, or screwed the card yourself. Neither makes him a bad card.
MisterG wrote: C) that damn Taster...
As for the arising issue of the mini pasture:
I do agree that if played late (after fencing) the card is quite mediocre, especially if you don't have an abundance of food (or if the person that gets it from you can get more benefit from it).
However, a stage one Mini-pasture as costly as it seems, can get you quite a food engine going for very few actions. Three sheep mean two food each harvest without actions.
Additionally, it's quite often that someone feels safe being the only one with a fireplace and with three sheep being accumulated by round 4, where a starting + mini pasture at round 3 can really screw your opponent over, without hurting you (or considering the future breeds, possibly even helping you.
The downside of the card is that it is extremely situational. During a draft, i would certainly not consider it a good first or second pick due to that, but it is definitely above average.
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Banana Fritter
United Kingdom
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I'm a bit confused. Has the original "Complex Strategies for Agricola" article been removed from this thread? I can't see it, or find it anywhere on BGG.
Thanks for any info anyone.
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Brad
United States
Iowa City
Iowa
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marksansby wrote: I'm a bit confused. Has the original "Complex Strategies for Agricola" article been removed from this thread? I can't see it, or find it anywhere on BGG.
Thanks for any info anyone.
Yep. This is what happens when a user gets grumpy and deletes all of their content, leaving only the replies that followed. 
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Joseph
United States
Ankeny
Iowa
because it's all I ever wanted to be..
Cloning gamers since 2003
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Too bad, it was a good article.
But the post since are just as informative.
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Mike T
United States
Maryland
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It's a shame. Though I mostly disagreed with the strategy advice offered, it was still a wonderful article.
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Aaron McPherson
United States
Newton
Massachusetts
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Agricola
» Forums » Strategy
Re: Complex Strategies for Agricola
Yes, it is a shame. Fortunately, I saved the original post on my computer some time ago, so here it is:
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Agricola Strategy Guide
How does one begin to write a strategy guide for one of the hottest and most popular games on the Geek? You start by asking a rhetorical question and then you answer that question anyway. This is going to be a fairly long strategy guide with a full card review of the E deck. I’m not putting in a review of the I , K, or Z deck because it would make an already long guide even longer, and honestly, I really feel like I need to play more with the other decks to get a good grasp of how they perform. I may try to tackle a review of the I, K, Z deck in the future. So, how can I call this "Complex Strategies for Agricola" if I’m not going to go into the complex deck? Well, I have written other "Complex Strategies" articles for Settlers of Catan, Kingsburg, and Scepter of Zavandor and I wanted this one to fit with the theme of those other ones, so I kept the title the same. I also don’t want to get into the solo game. I don’t really find it interesting or compelling, and there seem to be a wealth of other guides and discussions going on about the solo game. When appropriate or necessary, I will go over differences in the way the two, three, four, and five player games work out.
The point of this guide is to help out players who understand how to play Agricola, but struggle to be consistently competitive. I think if you employ the strategies here, you won’t necessarily win every game, but you shouldn’t get pounded into the dirt either. Some people just don’t get what they should be doing, or when they should be doing it. Some folks look at their own 21 point farm and can’t figure out how they could have done things any better. This guide is for those people. If you regularly beat up your gaming group, then this article probably won’t make you significantly better, but you may find one or two things that will be useful.
With that all out of the way, let’s get into the meat of the strategy. I want to break this guide down into three basics sections. The first section, Managing Your Farm – The Big Picture will talk about game playing strategies for the early, middle, and late parts of the game. The second section, Feeding Your Family, will get into the ongoing debate between a grain-based or animal-based strategy. In the third section, Taking Action, I will go into all of the available action spaces on the board, rank them, then talk about when to take them, what order, etc. The fourth section, Outsmarting Your Opponent, goes into some specific techniques that you can use to outwit or frustrate your opponent. Finally, in the Card Review section, I will discuss every Major Improvement as well as all Minor Improvements and Occupations from the E deck and try to give some basic strategies for each as well as discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each card.
MANAGING YOUR FARM – THE BIG PICTURE
Agricola is not a game where there are multiple ways to win the game. There is really only one strategy, and that is to diversify your farm. The path one takes to achieve that diversity is where the fun really lies. Everyone needs to have the same things, but they can’t do the same thing at the same time. Sure you can have a lot of animals, but you can’t completely ignore plowing fields and keeping grain/vegetables. Likewise, you probably don’t want your family to tough it out in a wooden shack for the entire game. This means that you have to worry about collecting everything all the time. And don’t, of course, forget to feed your family. The penalty for not having enough food is a big one. There are some areas where you can score some big points, so let’s take a look at them.
Home and Family
I am a big believer in a large family and a nice house. Thematically, it makes sense. Would you want to be known as the guy who certainly did have a lot of boars and sheep, or the guy who had a wonderful home and a lovely family. When you look at the scoring breakdown, you can see that the greatest potential for scoring points is with growing a family. You can score up to 15 points at the end of the game with five family members. This number is a little bit deceptive. You start with two family members, so that means your potential is really 9 additional points. What about a nice big house? Well, if you have a five room house made of clay, that’s five points. A five room house made of stone? That’s 10 points. And even though your family is limited to five players, your house isn’t limited to five rooms. You may be able to squeeze out even one more than five, but I don’t see it happen that often, so for the sake of this guide, I’ll talk about a five room house.
Growing a bigger family and building a better home are the only areas of the game worth more than 4 maximum points. So, if you spent your game trying to be number one in cattle, you’ll get 4 points for your six cows. Compare that to 9 extra points for family members and 10 extra points for five stone rooms. The great thing about having extra rooms is that they lead to having extra family members. And having extra family leads to the ability to build even more rooms, and so on and so on. Having additional family members provides a not so tangential benefit that home building/improving does not – extra actions. The extra actions aren’t quite as overpowered as some have made them out to be, but they are definitely useful. That nudges the importance of a large family ahead of the importance of a large and wonderful home. So, if the choice is having your family at max or having sheep at the max, then the answer is easy. Family first. I kind of like that it works out this way, too. If you really were a subsistence farmer back in the day, then chances are pretty good that your family, then your home would be the two most important things to you. You would rather have your children show up to your funeral than all those sheep anyway, right? Heck even in modern times, odds are pretty good that family and home are right at the top of your priority list, too.
The thing is, good players already know that having more family members and a bigger home scores a lot of points. That’s probably what they are going to try to do, too. I am just mentioning this because you need to make the “Family Growth” and “Renovation” spots ones that absolutely everyone is going to have to account for. If you are in a five player game and you say “Well, everyone else keeps growing their family, so I guess I will take sheep” then you’re going to be in trouble. If everyone has the same priority to grow a family and home, then it prevents one or two people from running away with it.
Having 6 cows, 8 sheep and a five room wooden house is worth a total of 8 points. Having no cows, no sheep and a five room stone house is worth a total of 8 points. Keep this in mind. Families and houses are worth really, really big points. You don’t necessarily have to max them out, but if you get the chance to add to the size of your home, renovate it, or grow your family, you should strongly consider it. If you’re new to the game, here are some guidelines to follow. By the end of stage 3, you should have extended your home by at least one room. By the end of stage four, you should have at least three family members, and you should have renovated to a clay house. By the end of the game, you should try to have at least four family members and a stone house. Experienced players will likely be able to accomplish this goal much quicker and that’s fine. The important thing isn’t necessarily to be the first one to grow your family. But it is important not to allow everyone else to get too far ahead in the family department. You can beat your opponent even if you have one fewer family member, but it would be much more difficult to do with two fewer family members.
Scoring Points
Now that we’ve covered the importance of home and family, let’s look at the rest of the farm. I think that many players get hung up on how to score the maximum amount of points in a particular area. I’ve seen folks concentrating on how to push two points for sheep up to four points. I’ve seen them struggle to feed their family as they refuse to eat their fourth vegetable, instead taking an action to grab the fishing spot so that the veggie will remain. Early on, the best thing to do is figure out how to score just ONE point in each category. Doing this isn’t going to net you a ton of points at first, but it will keep you out of the negative. Remember that with the exception of plowed fields, the first of anything you take gets you basically 2 points. You go from having -1 to having +1 which is a two point swing. Players intellectually understand this right from the beginning, but many think, “Don’t worry, there’s plenty of time”. Really, there’s not. You don’t necessarily have to worry about scoring points early, but you should concentrate on removing negative points throughout the game.
There are seven basic areas where you can score negative points: Fields, Pastures, Sheep, Boars, Cows, Grains, and Vegetables. You can score negative points for unused board spaces, but for the purposes of this section of strategy, let’s ignore that for now. So, to prevent yourself from losing a point in each of the seven listed areas, you need to take at minimum, 8 actions (you need two fields – even if you have an occupation that allows you to plow twice, it takes an action for the occupation, hence 8). Now, if you’ve left yourself exposed in the final turn on say, three areas, you’re in a lot of trouble, even if you have five actions. On the last turn, you’d need to spend three of your five actions taking the spots that prevent negative points. There’s a good shot that you’re not going to get all of those spots, either.
Other players are also looking to fill in the holes. As a general rule, you should try to fix one negative area per stage. That means by the end of stage 1, you should have 2 plowed fields, or a grain, or a pasture. This isn’t always possible, but not having negative points at the end of the game is a process. You can do it evenly throughout the stages, or you can rush to get to them at the end. If you’re having trouble keeping in your head what you need to do, write down the seven areas and make sure you can cross off at least one or two by the end of every harvest. If you’re not crossing them off, you may be getting yourself really far behind. This is the kind of activity that leads to a 20 point farm and a look of bewilderment. Once you’ve crossed one of the negatives off your list, don’t uncross it. In other words, if you take a single cow, don’t eat that cow before you have another one. Otherwise, you’ve put yourself another step back.
If you’ve evenly taken care of all of your negatives throughout the game, you’ll notice something wonderful in the last turn or two – you won’t get the “I’m screwed” feeling. What you’ll see are lots of opportunities to score big points. Instead of praying that you’ll be able to take start player so that you can get the last vegetable in stage six to cover your negative, you’ll be able to take whatever spot on the board offers the most points. Can you build enough fences for three more pastures? Perhaps you can renovate to a stone home. Maybe another cow will give you another victory point. Having the prerequisites out of the way for the last turn or two can be a really big deal.
As for filling up those empty spaces? Try not to panic on this too early. You can slowly build up rooms and plowed fields to use the spaces, and you’ll either build up fences early or late to take up the slack. I find it isn’t realistic to attempt to fill in every space in every game. Towards the end, I am looking for about four home spaces, about four pasture spaces, and about four plowed fields. That would leave three open spaces, which isn’t horrible. Obviously there is some give and take here. Sometimes there will be more fields. Sometimes more pastures. Sometimes more rooms. But I find that just keeping in mind that I only really need about four spaces of everything generally keeps me pretty far out of the hole on unused spaces. Filling in empty spaces isn’t always something that happens early. It really happens based on when you decide to build fences. There is no hard and fast rule about how many empty spaces you should try to fill up each turn. I can say this – if you’re relying on the last turn to be able to build fences, you’d better be one of the first two players. Even players that already have fences will often look to add a couple of more pastures with that extra wood in the last round or two.
Keeping in mind that you’re looking to reduce the negatives evenly throughout the game, here are some other general goals. In the first two stages, you should be attempting to get your food engine up and running. In stages three and four, you’re looking to expand your home and begin to grow your family. In the final two stages, you’re looking to use every action to score between two and four points. If your opponents are experienced, you may see them doing things slightly out of order. You may see them doing a little bit of everything all at once. The reason is that they have enough experience to know where they will and won’t be scrambling at the end of the game. If you’re having trouble getting past 25 points, go in with a general idea of what needs to be done in each of the stages, and try to follow through with that plan.
So, to sum up:
1. Growing your family is a priority. You need to have around the same number of family members (or more) than everyone else. Don’t fall too far behind in this department for certain.
2. Improving your house is a great way to score points. You can score far more points by improving your house than you can with traditional gathering/growing. You won’t always be able to build a five or six room stone house, but building at least a four room stone house or a five room clay house should be right at the top of your list.
3. Try to remove one or two negative points every single round (not counting empty spaces on the board yet). Don’t backtrack by eating up your only cow, vegetable, etc.
4. Don’t stress about filling up spaces right off the bat. You’ll eventually get there. You want to fence in four spaces for pasture, plow four fields, and build four rooms. This is very easy to do in an average game if you have this as a stated goal from the beginning. Remember, the cards change everything. You may want 7 pastures and only 2 fields. You may want a five or six room house. Just keep in mind that having 3 open spaces isn’t the end of the world, but having 7 open spaces probably is.
FEEDING YOUR FAMILY
There is a lot of debate about whether or not the best way to feed one’s family is through either bread baking or animal slaughtering. There are, of course, other ways to feed one’s family, but it is generally difficult to get by without either of the aforementioned methods. Early on you can succeed without them, but by the time you have three, four, or five family members, feeding them is difficult to do without one of the traditional methods.
Many claim that animal slaughtering is easier than baking bread because it takes so many more actions to get the bread baked in the first place. Others say that baking bread provides so much more food that it can erase food worries in the late game altogether. I believe that the game is very well balanced between the two.
Rancher
There are definitely some advantages to being a meat eater. Slaughtering animals doesn’t take an action. If you have a fireplace or cooking hearth, you can simply declare the animal to be slaughtered and it is converted into food. The drawback of course is that you can’t eat raw meat. In order to cook it, you must have a fireplace or cooking hearth (or one of a few cards) to convert animals into anything edible.
The real crux of the animal gathering strategy is to allow them to breed. It’s quite inefficient to pick up a boar, slaughter it for three food, then have to pick up another one the following turn, kill it again, and so on. Once the animals start breeding, this allows you to basically get some of your food for free so long as you have room to hold the animals. If you have three boars at the beginning of the harvest, simply slaughter one for two or three food, and then during the breeding, you have a brand new one to replace it with. If you want to play the animal strategy effectively, though, you really need to have the discipline to allow the animals to breed. If you have two animals or fewer of a given kind, don’t kill them if at all possible. Do anything else to get food, even if it means taking day laborer. If the animals aren’t breeding, you’re simply treading water with respect to both food and points.
There are really only two major problems with going for the animal strategy. The first problem is that it is the strategy that most players will recognize early on as an easy way to make food. In a four player game, for example, if you have four people that all want to cook animals, there’s going to be a shortage of something. For one thing, only two people are going to get a cooking hearth. The other two will be stuck with fireplaces and that means the upper level animals don’t convert into food nearly as well. In a four player game, there are only three spots on the board where one can pick up animals. With four carnivores, this means that they are all three likely to be taken every round. This means fewer animals for all, less food, harder to feed one’s family.
The good news is that if you plan to eat primarily sheep, you really only need a fireplace. A fireplace converts a sheep into two food, the same as a cooking hearth does, and for much less clay. Obviously a cooking hearth opens up more options and is worth more points, but if you know that you’re primarily going to be eating sheep, then just stick with the cheaper fireplace.
The second problem with the animal strategy is fencing. To effectively breed animals, you need the capacity to hold 3 of one type. If you’re going to have animals, you need a place to put them. Early in the game, there is only one “build fences” action. If everyone gets it ahead of you, again, you’re in a lot of trouble. You can’t breed animals with no place to put them. Most of the time, this means building at least a 2 area pasture with a minimum of 6 wood. There is, however, an alternative to fences in the early going. If you’re building a room, you also have the option to build stables. With two unfenced stables you’ll be able to hold a total of three animals. One in each of the stables and one as a pet in the house. That allows you to kill one animal at the harvest and still have room for the remaining two animals to breed. This will buy you some time until the fences option is open.
Fencing and stable building have another subtle problem. They both require wood. Early in the game, if you are using wood to build fences, you aren’t using it to expand your home. If you’re not expanding your home first, you’re not growing your family first. And, if you’re not growing your family first, you are letting someone else get one or two actions ahead of you. These extra actions that you’re giving up are just about the difference in how many actions it takes to bake bread versus cooking animals. This is what some might call “balanced” and whether or not it was intended, it’s pretty brilliant.
Bread Baker
Is it possible to win at Agricola without killing any animals? Absolutely! It’s also one of the best ways to make a lot of food for your family. If you decide to bake bread, you’ll start off slower than other players, but won’t have to worry nearly as much about feeding your family in the last couple of harvests. People say that it takes too many actions to bake bread, so why don’t we compare what needs to be done to bake bread vs. slaughter animals.
Plow field.
Take grain.
Sow.
Take resources to buy oven.
Buy oven.
Bake bread.
Take wood.
Build fences.
Take animals.
Take resources to buy cooking hearth.
Buy cooking hearth.
This is of course simplified. A bread baker may want more than one field. A bread baker will likely have to sow and bake bread more than once. A rancher will likely have to take wood more than once. He will also need to take animals more than once. A rancher also might be able to get enough resources to buy a cooking hearth with a single action whereas a baker will almost certainly need at least two actions. But the early basics are the same. A bread baker will need an additional action or two. There is a way around this, however, and it is through action conservation. It will take longer to get your bread baking engine up and running through action conservation, but once you do, it will be unstoppable.
The basic setup is to get three grains, one oven, and one plowed field. I generally don’t sow my field in the very first stage. I first take a grain as soon as possible. Next, I will attempt to gather resources for an oven and purchase it. When I purchase the oven, I bake the grain I have taken. I know this leaves me with zero grain, but having that much food early is a big advantage. Which oven? Well, the Stone Oven is certainly better in the last few turns, but the Clay oven is much better early on, since in the early going, I’m only ever going to be able to cook one grain at a time anyway. Now, why would getting the oven be a bigger priority than getting something planted? Truthfully, it’s psychological. There are only two ovens in the game. If you take one very early, it generally discourages others from attempting a bake bread strategy – at least not one with an oven. If you get an early oven, there will be only one left, and saving up for it without a guarantee that you will receive can be a scary proposition. If you’ve taken the time to gather all the materials, but you get shut out of the ovens, you’re in a lot of trouble. That said, you absolutely cannot buy an oven before you have a grain. There’s no sense in it. Getting a free bake bread action when purchasing the oven is too important. The only exception to this rule is if you have the Baker occupation which allows you to bake bread during the harvest without taking an action.
The next priority is getting two more grains and one plowed field. I make sure I have two grains before I sow, so that when I finally plant one of the grains, I can bake bread with the other one. If you’re keeping score, this is two extra bake bread actions without actually having to take an extra action.
After the first harvest where I actually receive a grain from my field, I’ll take another grain, plow a second field (if needed), then sow one of the grains and bake the other. At this point, I am getting two grains per harvest. Food starts getting pretty easy for the bread baker at this point. Being an effective baker requires patience. Depending on the number of players in the game, you may not get all of the above steps done until just before the third harvest. Trust me. It will pay off. If you buy an oven without being able to use the bake action, you’re wasting an action. If you sow without being able to bake bread, you’re wasting an action. Rookie bread bakers are so concerned with getting that first grain in the ground, that they skip two bake bread actions to make sure that the first seed is planted. Later, they have trouble making food. This causes the rookie bread baker to declare “Bread baking is too action intensive. Ranching is the way to go.”
Now occasionally, your oppoents will leave open both a “take grain” and a “plow field” in the first round or two. This usually means that your opponents are spending their time gathering resources. If you are having trouble actually getting resources to build an oven, then go ahead and get a grain into the ground. Ideally, you’ll want the oven before you plant because it will allow you to both sow and bake bread at the time. But, if you’re sitting on a grain and you have a plowed field and can’t don’t have the option to take resources for your oven, go ahead and plant something.
Vegetable eater
The vegetable section assumes that you have a Cooking Hearth. If you are going to cook vegetables, you really need to be converting them to at least three food. I never make a plan to eat vegetables. The reason is simple. They generally come out later in the game (barring a card that gives them earlier) and they are worth one victory point each. A Boar can provide three food, but it’s worth somewhat less than one victory point. Cattle provides up to four food and is worth less than a victory point (depending on how many you have). But a vegetable is worth a victory point all by itself. Unless you’ve already got four vegetables, or you risk having to take a begging card, you should probably not cook the veggies. And under almost no circumstances should you cook the only veggie you have in your possession. That’s taking away two victory points and essentially is wasting an another action because you’ll want to acquire a vegetable before the end of the game to avoid negatives anyway.
The exceptions to the “don’t cook veggies” rule (assuming you aren’t cooking your last one) are as follows: If you have only two of a type of animal and cooking one would prevent it from breeding, eat the vegetable instead. There isn’t much point in having animals if you aren’t going to let them breed. The other exception would be if your only other alternative for food would be to spend two actions taking it off the board (Day Laborer + Fishing). One victory point isn’t worth two actions. Late in the game, one victory point may not even be worth one action. In the last turn, if you need 2 food and you haven’t upgraded to a stone house, you should just eat the vegetable and spend the action on renovating.
If you get the cards that allow you to take vegetables early, you may want to actually cook them up. Being a vegetable farmer is a lot closer to being a rancher than being a bread baker. You’ll want the same type of coking implement that the rancher does – a Cooking Hearth. And although you’ll be plowing fields, you’ll be dropping vegetables into them instead of grain. For this reason, vegetables eaters work better with ranching than with bread baking. Ranchers may grow vegetables to eat, but bread bakers will usually grow vegetables for the points only.
TAKING ACTION
Here is the big secret to Agricola. It isn’t a game about planning a strategy. It isn’t a game in chaos management as many have stated. It isn’t about effectively working the cards you’re given. Agricola is a game of conserving actions. You will only get X number of actions per game, and the person who takes the most actions will win. That means that having the biggest family, or growing ones family first is the dominant strategy right? Not exactly. Extra family members to give you additional actions, but you have to keep it in perspective. Sure, it’s nice to have a third family member before everyone else does. But, that third family member gets to go last. In a 5 player game, that means the third family member gets the 11th best spot on the board. Early on, the 11th best spot isn’t that good. Later in the game when more actions become available, the 11th best spot might be very desirable. But by the time the 11th best spot becomes a good one, chances are good that other’s will have grown their own families. I know that there will be folks who want to argue how awesome having the third family member early is, but really take a look at what he’s actually picking up the first time or two you get to use him. If you’re routinely picking up 6 wood with the eleventh best spot, then you need to find better competition. Likely, you’re picking up 2 food. Or perhaps 2 clay. It’s nice to have, but not game breaking. The real advantage that having the first extra family member is that it puts pressure on the rest of the players to start growing their family as well. That may cause them to be careless, or even to do something desperate like take a single reed when they only need one more to be able to build a room. This might leave open better spots for your third family member.
I have heard some people ask the question, “Well, why does the player who grows his family first always win the game?” I have an answer for you, but you may not like it. If that’s happening in your games, then the player who grows his family first is probably a better player than the rest. He was able to grow his family first because he was able to conserve enough extra actions to build the extra room and feed the new family member. The fact that he was able to grow his family first is indicative of the game he has already been playing, not in and of itself a determining factor. It would be like saying, “When birds fly south, their wing flapping causes the cold air from the north to follow them and this is what causes winter.” Of course birds fly south because winter is coming. Winter is not coming because birds fly south. Likewise, a player grows his family first because he is playing well. He isn’t playing well because he grew his family first. In competitive games where players are more equal in skill, the person who grows his family first is not necessarily the winner. In fact, he may be at a disadvantage because he may have to waste extra actions taking food for a larger family that can’t be supported by a meager food engine. If you run right out to expand your family, you aren’t planting crops, you aren’t building fences, and you aren’t taking animals. That means you aren’t as effectively feeding your family. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. What all of this means is that the game is pretty well balanced.
But growing your family is only one way to gain actions. Whenever you use a family member on a space that gives you two options such as “Sow and/or Bake Bread” you actually conserve an action by being able to both Sow and Bake Bread. If you’re taking the spot and only doing one or the other, you’re throwing your actions down the drain. Likewise, you can also conserve actions by taking cumulative spots after they have built up some level of resources. If you use an action to take two reeds from the “1 Reed” spot, you’ve actually conserved an action over the player that took a single reed twice. If you manage to take three reeds with a single player, you’ve conserved two actions.
So, what you really need to look at is the effectiveness level of a given spot on the board. If you choose the “Take 1 Grain” spot on the board, you’re taking that spot when it is at its maximum level of effectiveness. The “Plow 1 Field” space and the “1 Occupation” space are also always at their maximum level of effectiveness any time you take them. But what if you take the “1 Clay” spot when there is only a single clay? Is having one clay really as good as having one plowed field? And what is the maximum level of effectiveness on the clay spot? Is it two? Three? Six? The longer you can let a cumulative spot grow without taking it, the better it will be for you. The real trick comes in guessing at what level will it be built up enough to where I can take it and someone else won’t snatch it up before me?
In taking your actions, you really need to be willing to break from your set plan in order to take an opportunity that may present itself. You may not be looking to convert to a clay house, but if there are 6 clay on a space, you really need to take them. Why would you do that? Well, eventually, you’re going to need the clay. The same goes for seeing 4 reed on a spot or 4 stone. You may not be planning to use those resources right away, but if you’re presented with the opportunity to take them, you really need to do it. If you’re eventually going to need the resources for something, then taking them when they are piled up is always preferable to working whatever immediate goal you may have. You may say, “Wow, I’ve been trying to get this occupation out for two turns, but there are 4 reeds on the board. What should I do?” Take the reeds. A guy who executes his plan perfectly will always lose to a guy who took advantage of every juicy opportunity that presented itself. Having the patience to execute your plan later in the game while taking advantage of the accumulated spaces that present themselves early is key to going from a 25 point farm to a 45 point farm.
So, on the first turn, I see a lot of rookies immediately go for the resources. The best three spots on the board in the first turn are (in no particular order) “1 Occupation”, “Plow 1 Field”, and “Take 1 Grain”. These should be gone with the first three actions in any game played. I know it’s popular to take three wood, but if you do that, you’re getting that spot at its minimum level of effectiveness. You may end up taking the “3 Wood” spot in the first round, but I certainly wouldn’t do it with any of the first three picks. A player who takes the “3 Wood” space in the first round then takes the “3 Wood” space again in the second round has used two actions to take 6 wood. If you can take 6 with a single action, that’s much better.
With that, I will rate every spot on the board for its level of effectiveness and accumulation.
Boards
Build Rooms and/or Stables – What’s really going to drive your ability to use this spot at higher than its base level of effectiveness is whether or not you have something that makes building rooms cheaper. Getting plenty of wood to build two rooms early isn’t nearly as tough as getting four reeds. I think building just a single room using this space is an effective use of it, but building two rooms can be devastating to your opponents. Being able to grow your family twice in a row is a really big deal because the pressure to grow their family becomes inescapable when you’ve gone up by two family members. You just have to make sure you can feed your family before you grow them. In a typical game, you’re going to build two or three rooms. If you can conserve an action by building two at a time, it’s a big deal. Keep in mind, you can also just build stables. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it, but again, if opponents keep camping out on the Fences spot, you may want to build three or four unfenced stables right off the bat to hold some animals.
Starting Player and/or Minor Improvement – This is a really great spot, but I see it misused constantly. Typically, people will play on this spot because, “I don’t really like going last, and I have a pretty good minor improvement I want to get out.” This is fine, I suppose but less than optimal. Going first is important, but it’s even MORE important when there is something that you really want to do first. Let’s pretend for a moment that you are the last player in a four player game. Somehow, everyone has played their two family members, and the “3 Wood” space has built up to a total of 6 wood and they have left it for you! You take it, right? Absolutely not. What you do is take “Start Player”, you get your minor improvement out, then with your first placement on the following turn, you take 9 total wood. This is much, much nicer. You not only get the benefit of going first (at least until someone takes it away) but you’ve played a minor improvement, and you’ve gotten 50% more wood out of the “3 Wood” space that you otherwise would have gotten. If you want to go first, make sure that there is something worth going first for. Some nice times to take this also include right before the first “Family Growth” spaces becomes available. You may also want to grab it with your first action right before stage 5. In stage 5, you know that either “Family Growth even without room” or “Plow and Sow” is coming up. Both of these spots are quite powerful.
I would also encourage you to hold on to your minor improvements until your opponents have all played one or two. If everyone else has already played one or two, then you can pretty much dominate having the “start player” spot for the rest of the game. Players without improvements to play are much less likely to take Start Player. And if they do, you can take it right back the following round while still holding good improvements. I never want to be one of the first few players to put out a minor improvement because putting one out late allows one to be the starting player for longer. If you’re the first one to put out a minor improvement, odds are good that you’ll be the start player for only a single turn. The exception here is if you have one of the really powerful minor improvements that need to be played early.
Take 1 Grain – This spot is at its maximum level of effectiveness right off the bat. It’s a great way to start the game. If you plan to bake bread, this is the best first spot to take.
Plow 1 Field – I think this is slightly less desirable that taking a grain, but if a grain were gone, I would plow a field. This is good for both ranchers and bakers. Eventually everyone is going to need a couple of plowed fields, so you may as well get it out of the way when there aren’t nearly as many other attractive options on the board.
1 Occupation (1st free, then 1 food) – If you plan to be a rancher, then this is probably the best spot on the board for you at the beginning.
Day Laborer – This spot stinks, and if you are putting a family member here, one of two things has happened. You have played an occupation/minor improvement that makes taking this spot a lot more attractive, or you have messed up and your family risks not being fed. The “Day Laborer” is always at its maximum level of effectiveness with just two food, but with so many other ways to make or take food, this is definitely a last resort.
3 Wood (Cumulative) – The more players you have in the game, the more popular this spot will become. This spot will accumulate to 6 wood during a game often. It will rarely, if ever, accumulate to 9 wood. If there are 6 wood on the space, I generally take it, even if I have to delay my other plans a bit. You can’t really do anything with just 3 wood, but with 6, you are well on your way to building a nice pasture, building a room, and perhaps having some extras for minor improvements. If for some reason it does accumulate to 9, you need to take this spot immediately. The only exception would be if you’ve already renovated and you no longer need to build fences.
1 Clay (Cumulative) – The only reason I would take a single clay is if that is all I needed to build the stone oven. You really need to get at least 2 clay to make this work. With 2, you can buy a Fireplace which can be traded in later for a Cooking Hearth. At 3 or 4 clay, this spot is a good deal and really. At 5 clay, you pretty much have to take this spot. That’s enough to renovate a 5 room house. It’s enough to buy the expensive cooking hearth. It’s also enough to build a clay room if you’ve already renovated.
1 Reed (Cumulative) – This spot is a good one to take with 2 reed on it. That allows you to build an extra room. With 3 reed it is a must take. Reed is one of the rarest resources in the game. You use it to extend your home (and therefore your family) and to renovate it. Growing your family and improving your home are the two ways to score the most points in the game.
Fishing 1 Food (Cumulative) – This is a funny spot. It’s not good with only 1 food, and not much better with only 2. It really starts to get tempting around 4 food. Depending on how effective folks have been at getting their food engines going, this one can get up to really high levels. There’s no hard and fast rule for grabbing this spot, but at 5 food, I am probably going to grab it, even if I can already feed my family. I may take it at even less if I need food to build my occupations or improvements.
3 player spaces
Take 1 Building Resource of your choice – This is simply an awful space. If you’re placing here, you’re probably too desperate for your own good. The exception would be to take an early stone to build a Clay Oven or a powerful Minor Improvement.
1 Occupation (costs 2 food) – It better be a really good occupation. Two food is a lot to sacrifice. Late in the game, you may be swimming in food, but want to get out an extra occupation that helps you score points. Early on though, this one might put you too far back to be useful.
1 Clay (Cumulative) – Just as good as the other “1 Clay” spot.
2 Wood (Cumulative) – This one is unique. After three turns, it’s exactly the same as the “3 Wood” spot. The question is, should you take it with four wood on it? If I had some minor improvements to play, or if I really wanted a single fenced in pasture on my farm, then I probably would. Having 4 wood on the space isn’t so powerful that you need to deny other players the spot, but not so weak that you need to avoid it until it has more.
4 player spaces
1 Occupation (first two are 1 food, then 2 food) – This is a great place to play your second occupation. The second occupation you play will cost you exactly the same as it would on the main spot. After that, it gets pricey.
Take 1 Reed, 1 Stone, and 1 Food – This is the best spot in the game assuming everything at its minimum level of effectiveness. Not only do you get stone earlier than is normally possible, you get reed, too. If that’s not enough for you, there’s a food on it as well. When I go first in a four player game, I take this spot until I have 4 reeds or until someone takes it away from me.
2 Wood (Cumulative) – same as the two wood spot in the 3 player game.
1 Wood (Cumulative) – Starts getting good at around 4 wood. At 5 wood, its enough to build a room, so think about it.
2 Clay (Cumulative) – If you want to build a fireplace, this is a good spot to start. Really good with 4 clay, and a must have with 6.
Traveling Players 1 food (Cumulative) – Same as the Fishing spot.
5 player spaces
Build 1 Room or Traveling Players 1 food (Cumulative) – The fun thing you can do with this spot is to use it to build a room, let the food accumulate one more time, take “Start Player” with your other action, then grab the food on the next turn, too.
Take 1 Sheep and 1 Food Or Take 1 Wild Boar Or Pay 1 food for 1 Cattle – Borderline overpowered early. Taking a sheep and a food is really good. If you can afford the food, getting early cattle can be extremely powerful once they start breeding.
1 Occupation or Family Growth (from round 5). – A necessary space for opening up the ability to get out occupations and family members in a crowded game.
4 Wood (Cumulative) – pretty good at 4, but a must have at 8.
3 Clay (Cumulative) – Extremely good right off the bat.
1 Reed (Cumulative) and 1 Stone and 1 Wood – Not as good as the four player “1 Reed, 1 Stone, and 1 Food” spot. However, the cumulative nature of the reeds makes this one better after a single turn. Once two reeds are on this spot, it’s pretty much a “must have”.
Stage 1
Fences – You ever notice how hard it is to build fences in this game? Regardless of how many players there are in the game, this is the only spot you can take to get this done until right at the end of the game. Most people are going to take this twice per game. Once to get some pastures built, and a second time to add a couple of pastures for scoring purposes late in the game. I think it’s not a very good use of actions if you’re only building one pasture of one or two spaces. If you can build one bigger, or perhaps build two or more pastures, you’re using this spot well.
1 Major or Minor Improvement – One of the only ways to get major improvements in the game.
Sow and/or Bake Bread – If you read the baking section, you know that I like to sow AND bake bread. I don’t take this spot unless I can do both.
1 Sheep (Cumulative) - Unless it’s the end of the game, I never take a lone sheep. The exception would be a five player game. The “Take 1 food and 1 sheep” spot is very nice, and you may want to grab a second one so that they start breeding. Early sheep is the best reason to buy an early fireplace – even if you are planning on being a bread baker. I’ve seen many times where the only guy who has a fence is waiting for the sheep to grow to 4 sheep before he grabs it. There’s nothing quite as fun as taking those sheep right out from under him, putting one in your home as a pet, then converting the other 3 to food. You also really have to watch this spot if it is the first one to come up in Stage 1. Sheep can start building up quickly and can be a decided early advantage for the person who takes them.
Stage 2
After Family Growth also 1 Minor Improvement – It’s really nice if you can do both family growth and a minor improvement, but being able to take Family Growth is good enough by itself. If you’ve managed to build an extra room in stage 1, you may want to try to grab start player before stage 2 or right at the start of it to allow you to grow. Also keep in mind, if no one else has room to grow, you don’t have to take this spot with your first action.
After Renovation also 1 Major or Minor Improvement – Once your home has four rooms, you can start looking at doing this. A five room home is certainly better, but the longer everyone waits to do this, the more likely it is that someone will get shut out. That’s not a big deal unless it’s you. This is also the only other spot where you can get a Major Improvement out. Major Improvements are worth a lot of victory points. If you can upgrade to a 4 room house to clay and buy the well, then you’ve scored 8 points with one action. Not bad.
1 Stone (Cumulative) – Stone is tough to gauge. Sometimes, it builds up like crazy, and sometimes people are taking it as soon as there are 2 on the board. You definitely shouldn’t take stone when there is only 1. When it builds to two or three, you may consider it. At 4 stone, you really should take it. You’ll eventually need it for renovation anyway, so you may as well pick it up at 4. At 5, you’re not going to have a shot at the stone unless you’re going first. If this is the first card to come out in Stage 2, the stone can really pile up before many players decide its important to have. Keep this in mind, and jump in when it gets to 4.
Stage 3
Take 1 Vegetable – Don’t forget to take one of these, even if you’re not going to plant it. I’ve seen many games where three people need the vegetable on the last turn. Don’t get shut out.
1 Wild Boar (Cumulative) – Boars are really good for food. Worth it with only 1, and a must have at 2.
Stage 4
1 Cattle (Cumulative) – It’s almost a must have at 1. If anyone has allowed it to get up to 2, then they should all be smacked. If the cattle comes out at the end of stage 4, there are only 4 opportunities to pick up cattle. Take one as soon as you can house it. If you don’t need one and you have a means to cook it, it may be worth it to take a second one just to cook it up and deny the cattle to another player.
1 Stone (Cumulative) – Same as the other “1 Stone” space.
Stage 5
Family Growth even without room in your home – This card is one of the reasons you may want to take “Start Player” in the second half of stage 4. You have to be able to feed your family, but an extra person is worth three victory points. If the option is to grow my family or to take my one and only vegetable, I would grow my family. Taking that vegetable is only a 2 point swing (from -1 to 1) but taking a family member is worth 3 points.
Plow 1 Field and Sow – Also very powerful. Grow a little extra food and cover up and empty spot at the same time.
Stage 6
After Renovation also Fences – The only other way to build fences in the game. If you aren’t going first on the last turn, look at all of the people that will play in front of you. If even one of them hasn’t renovated to stone, then this spot probably won’t be available to you at the end. If you CAN use this spot, that’s nice. But I wouldn’t go planning my entire strategy around this spot being available at the end of the game. Renovating is something people tend to put off because there are no immediate benefits, so this spot is fiercely contested at the end.
OUTSMARTING YOUR OPPONENT
I read that the Interactive Deck was included so that players would have a chance to interact with one another more closely than with the Easy deck. I can tell you that in the games I have played with the E deck, there is plenty of interaction.
I don’t advocate taking a spot that someone else was going to take just to screw them. If you adopt the philosophy of trying to mess with people in this game, you’re going to lose. As a general rule, you should play your own game. By blocking, you may slightly hamper one or two people, but you may significantly hamper yourself. However, if you can help yourself out and screw up someone else at the same time, well, that’s just golden. The stuff that follows can’t be used on everyone, nor does it work every time. Some people are simply not going to be outsmarted. Others often are oblivious to the subtle meta-game signals that I am trying to send. But, when these techniques work, it can give one a slight edge over his opponents, and that’s what this game is all about. It’s not about doing one thing better than everyone else – it’s about doing a lot of these just barely better than everyone else.
One of the things I like to do is watch when people start going through their occupations and/or minor improvements. If someone is picking up and fanning through the cards, it’s likely that they are planning on moving into one of those spots. At this point, it’s time to evaluate. Do I need to play an occupation this round? Is it important for me not to lose the starting player spot? For this next round? The decision as to whether or not to deny someone the occupation spot is fairly straightforward. Either you have one you need to play or you don’t. The decision as to whether or not to deny them the start player space is more difficult.
If it looks like an opponent is rifling through their minor improvements, unless they can grow their family, it’s likely that they will be taking the start player spot. At this point you need to evaluate. Is it the person on your immediate right? If so, you may not care. Going second is often just as good as going first. Is it the person on your immediate left? You may want to worry. Going last isn’t any fun. Remember, though, your decision to deny them the space will only put off the inevitable for a single round at most. It’s likely that if you take it away, they will simply go after it on the following turn. So you have to weigh whether or not going first next turn is more important that taking it back the following turn. If the stage 5 card is about to come up, chances are good that I will deny the other player the start space. I would rather have first crack at “Family Growth even without room in your home”. If we’re in an earlier stage, I may let them have it and plan to take it back at a more strategic time.
Remember, too, that you can trick your opponents into guessing your actions. If I see a guy with three occupations out, right before his placement, I might pick up my occupations and start going through them furiously as if I am trying to decide which one to place. If he’s the kind of person that likes to jam his opponent, he may deny me the occupation space by placing one of his own that’s less useful. Likewise I may attempt scare the start player into thinking that I plan to take his start position away. I REALLY like to do this when the start player is on my right in a four or five player game. This guy on my right knows that if I take the start player, he will be going last next turn, and maybe for one or two more turns after that. But, if I can convince him to preemptively take the start player from me, I still get to go second, which is pretty good. And all that without having to spend an action myself.
So, when is taking family growth not a good idea? When you can’t feed them. In a five player game, someone grows their family just before the harvest, but they don’t quite have enough food to feed everyone. That’s ok, there are 4 food tokens on Fishing and 5 food tokens on the Traveling Players spot. Family Growth guy needs only three. At this point, I like to put the pressure on by taking Traveling Players. I may casually mention, “Not going to be easy to feed those people if someone else takes fishing.” That’s usually enough to push someone else to take the fishing. Now the Family Growth guy can only take Day Laborer. He’s one food short. Maybe he has to sacrifice is only boar or his only sheep. Maybe he has to cook his only vegetable. Either way, I’ve just erased the advantage that having that extra person gave him. And, I’ve got time to catch up while he replenishes the boar/vegetable or whatever he had to consume to feed his family.
Another solid technique for a baker is purchasing an early fireplace. This does two things. First of all, it denies the quick fireplace to all of the ranchers. Secondly, it keeps ranchers honest in terms of how long they allow the sheep to build up. You’ll rarely see boars or cattle building up, but sheep is another matter. If you have a fireplace, though, you can grab the sheep as soon as there are three on it. This converts into six food and is well worth it. It prevents letting sheep built up to four or five, particularly when the sheep comes out as the first card of stage one. Even if you’re not the baker, you should keep an eye on letting the sheep spot get too nice. Should you deny someone two sheep? Maybe. But you should probably just play your own game. Two sheep represents four food, and isn’t overpowering. Should you deny someone a cattle? Well, again, maybe. If you can’t score more points somewhere else, then do it. But, by the time cattle comes out, there should be ample opportunities for scoring two or three points with every placement. Denying someone a cattle puts you two or three points ahead of them. Playing the “Clogs” card on the last turn gives you two extra points against everyone.
Just keep in mind: Denying someone a spot isn’t a sound strategy by itself (except maybe in two player). Your goal shouldn’t be to get ahead of one player, it should be to get ahead of all of them. Even if you benefit yourself when denying someone else, this isn’t always the best idea. If I steal the “Build a room” spot from the player on my left, but leave him to take 6 wood, perhaps I’ve done him a favor. Perhaps now, he will be able to build 2 rooms with one placement instead of one. In your haste to deny someone a spot, make sure you aren’t helping them even more.
I put one of these sections in just about every article. It’s the meta-game around the game. And invariably, someone comes out with a statement like, “Well, your advice on how to mess people up may work, but you’re a jerk if you do that, and I would never play with a jerk.” Let me pre-respond to this by saying two things. Number one, I’m really not a jerk. My wife and daughter told me that I’m not, so it must be true. I’m actually a really nice guy and fun to play with. You’d never even know that I was meta-gaming you at the table. Number two, you probably are playing with someone that does stuff like this already, but they do it so well that you haven’t noticed. If you don’t know which gamer is meta-gaming you, then look at the guy who wins all the time. It’s him. Besides, when everyone is playing this way, it’s even more fun. Did my opponent shuffle through his occupations because he wants to play one? Or is trying to make me THINK he wants to play one? Of course he knows that I am not a great fool, so clearly I cannot choose the glass in front of him….
CARD REVIEW
The cards in Agricola are what really set this game apart from many others. There are so many that developing a single strategy for winning just isn’t possible. A player will always be searching for his Occupations and Minor Improvements to give him an edge. For players that are having trouble being competitive, I would encourage them to look at their card play first. Something to try would be writing down the name of each Occupation and each Major/Minor Improvement that you play during the game. Whenever you use the ability granted by the improvement, put a check mark next to the name you’ve written down. You may find that you’ve not made the best use of your cards. You may have a card that gives you a bonus when you take the fishing space. But how often did you take the fishing space? Was the benefit you received worth the action and the resources that you spent to get the card in play? One should scrutinize Occupations even more harshly that Minor Improvements. After all, when you put out an Occupation, that’s all you can do with that action. When you play a Minor Improvement, it’s generally because you took another action as well, such as Start Player, Renovation, or Family Growth. Strong card play can be a major advantage in the game, but weak card play can be devastating. Putting out cards that you can’t use wastes resources, but more importantly, it wastes actions.
While the number and variety of cards are really the spice of the game, I think most players put way too many of these. New players will ask, “How many of these should I put out?” The answer is that experienced players typically put out between one and three occupations and somewhere between two and 4 improvements. Some players put out far more than this, but in a very competitive game that can be difficult to do.
I would encourage new players to limit themselves to playing just two Occupations and two Minor Improvements. There may be opportunities to get additional Minor Improvements out, but don’t make getting out more than two the focus of your game. If you’re regularly getting killed in the game, it may be because you’re playing to many cards. Making a rule for yourself to limit the number you will play may be just the self control you need to start scoring more points. After you’ve mastered winning with just a couple of Occupations and Minor Improvements, you can experiment with adding in more.
Make no mistake. Putting out more Occupations and Minor Improvements doesn’t make the game easier to win. Playing lots of Occupations and Minor Improvements makes the game turn into the ultimate exercise in efficiency. Every time you put out an occupation, that’s one less action you have for gathering resources, building up your home, growing your family, gathering animals, baking bread, and anything else you may need to do. In order to be able to sacrifice the amount of food and actions it takes to get out four Occupations and Four Minor Improvements, you really need to be making them up in other ways which will take time to learn. I have won Agricola by playing as many as 12 cards, and I’ve won when playing just 3. For a beginner, I would definitely recommend fewer cards be played. For the advanced player, it’s all about planning out how many actions one will need before the finish. Even with 14 excellent cards to play, the smart move might be, in some cases, to play only a couple.
The organization of this card review (or lack thereof) grew sort of organically. Because it’s not in a format that most will expect, I wanted to discuss how I came up with the format I was using. When I was thinking up how to get through this card review, I came up with several ways to do it. My first thought was to list them all numerically, then give a short synopsis of each card. But, I don’t think of the cards numerically, so that won’t really work. So I thought, I’ll go through them alphabetically – first the occupations, then the improvements. But, I don’t really think of the cards alphabetically either. I think of them in terms of what they do and how they work mechanically.
So, finally I decided to put the cards into categories based on what type of benefit they provide. I would categorize the occupations separately from the improvements, but a funny thing happened. I realized that the categories for occupations and improvements are essentially the same. I started with as few as four categories and worked it up to as many as ten categories. Finally, I settled on eight. Obviously, there are some that will fit into more than one category, but for brevity’s sake, I’m just putting them in one. In addition, I am putting all of the Major Improvements into their own category.
So what you’re going to see are the eight categories I’ve chosen. Under each category, I will list the occupations first and the minor improvements second. I will list the name of the card and the number in three digit format (for example, card #36 will be 036). This way, if you want to search for a specific card, you can simply do a “Ctrl-F” and put in the card name or card number. With that said, I am going to write top to bottom, so if I cover a card concept early in the article, I probably won’t repeat it for later cards.
When discussing occupations, it is assumed that it costs one food to play the occupation. I am making this assumption because I don’t want to get into whether or not an occupation is worth it when you don’t have to pay a food versus when you do. It would take too long. I’m also not going to type up an exact description of each card. It would take a really long time, so I will assume that you either know what the card does, or that you can grab your copy of the card and find it. I also won’t go into too much detail on specific card combos. There’s no guarantee in a game that you can put the combos together, and besides, a lot of the fun of the game is figuring out how to get these cards to work together.
Finally, each card will be rated with one to three stars (asterisks ***). This rating is just my own personal opinion on the power and usefulness of this card. One star (*) means I would pretty much never use this card. Two stars (**) means that this card can be useful in the right situation. Three stars (***) means that when I have this card I pretty much always try to get this card into play. I'm certain that even the one star cards have been absolutely critical to at least a few victories out there, so keep in mind, just because I rated it with only one star doesn't mean it isn't EVER useful. Likewise, just because something has three stars doesn't mean that it should always be played. Many three star cards compete with one another and are less effective when played together. Even if you disagree with the star rating I give a card, I try to give enough of a summary to make my case for it, and for veterans of Agricola, hopefully you'll find my reasoning not terribly lacking.
For quick reference, the categories I came up with are:
Cards that Give Resources Over Time
Cards that Grant/Conserve Actions
Cards that Assist With Building/Renovating
Cards that Give Bonus Resources When Taking Actions
Cards that Make Baking Easier
Cards that Make Ranching Easier
Cards that Convert Resources to Food During the Harvest
Cards that Score Points at the End of the Game
Without further adieu, here they are.
Major Improvements
You probably won’t many games without owning at least one of these. If you’ve been taking a beating and you’ve never bought a Major Improvement, now you know why.
Fireplace (001, 002) – This is card is the stepping stone for ranchers to get to the Cooking Hearth. If you’re going to spend two actions taking four or five clay, you may as well spent two actions gathering a Fireplace, then turn it in for a Cooking Hearth. The Fireplace is also great for cooking sheep. If sheep is going to be your primary method for food, you really don’t need to go past the Fireplace. This is also a great secondary improvement for a baker to make certain that you’re keeping the ranchers honest about taking animals before they build up to ridiculous levels.
Cooking Hearth (003, 004) – This is the logical upgrade for ranchers. If you’re going to keep and eat animals, you’ll want to get the most food out of them that you can, and that require a Cooking Hearth. Bakers should take note. If you have any cards that give you an extra food when you bake, then the Cooking Hearth becomes as good as a Stone Oven – and what’s better, there are no limitations on how many grain you can cook. A bread baker would do well to consider these cards if they have the ability to make extra bread.
Clay Oven (005) – I am biased towards this oven. You get five food for one grain, but you can bake a maximum of one grain. I often find that this is enough, particularly in the early game. Add this to the fact that it is cheaper to get that the stone, and this is my favorite oven. If this Oven is open at the end of the game, even a rancher may want to pick it up. If a rancher ahs more than one grain and some extra clay, sacrificing the resources and the grain for 2 victory points and 5 food is a pretty good deal.
Stone Oven (006) – If you’re in a four player game and you’re the first player, you may be able to take the “1 Stone, 1 Reed, and 1 Food” space enough times to make buying an early stone oven a real possibility. Frequently, when I buy an oven early, I go unopposed as a bread baker. If this happens to you, keep in mind that you can buy a second oven later. Why a second oven? Simple. If I own the Clay Oven already and I purchase a Stone Oven, I immediately get a bake bread action. This allows me to convert 3 grain into 13 food – this is just a ton of food for almost nothing. Add that to the fact that the Stone Oven also got me an additional 3 victory points and it is a win/win all the way around.
Joinery (007) and Pottery (008) – I’m not a big fan of either of these cards. They are expensive, and the ability to convert a wood or a clay into two food isn’t all that great. The two victory points aren’t bad, but the bonus points can be tough to get. Typically, I look at these as opportunity buys. If I am holding a bunch of extra clay at the end of the game for some reason, I may look to pick up Pottery to score the 2 victory points plus bonuses. I would never pick up Joinery or Pottery early with a plan to save up enough resources to get the bonus points. I think it slows down growth too much early to be useful.
Basketmaker’s Workshop (009) – I do like this one. Reed isn’t easy to get, but neither is three food. I never plan to buy this one, but I will definitely pick it up if someone has neglected the reed spots and I manage to get a bunch. That said, I rarely ever see anyone make good use of the bonus points at the end. If you’re holding 2, 4, or 5 reed at the end of the game, you probably should have been building more rooms with it. In a four player game, You can get this fairly easily if you take advantage of the “1 Stone, 1 Reed, and 1 Food” space just twice.
Well (010) – This is the consolation prize for the player who wasn’t able to renovate his clay house into a stone house on the last turn. Nope, you won’t get those 5 points, but getting 4 points from the well isn’t so bad. I have seen some people purchase this one earlier and make good use of the food, but most often I’ve seen it purchased in the last couple of turns.
Cards that Give Resources Over Time
As a general rule, I don’t really like these cards. The benefits are real, but when you realize that the benefits are spread out over time, they are really lacking.
Occupations
Clay Deliveryman (187) (*) – You get 9 clay out of this card. A total steal, right? Not really. The main problem with this card is that you get the clay late in the game. What are you going to do with the clay you get on turn 14? The answer is, probably nothing. Unless you’ve purchased the Pottery improvement (which I’m not a fan of) you’re not going to be putting that clay to good use. Clay is very useful early in the game, but not so much in the last few turns, especially if your getting it one at a time. Clay Deliveryman does something else bad. It devalues clay. If there is more clay in the game, then clay is easier to get – but not for the guy who played Clay Deliveryman. The guy who played Clay Deliveryman is waiting turn after turn for his clay to roll in. Meanwhile, everyone else is having a proportionately easier time getting clay.
Maid (190) (**) – You could potentially get a lot of food out of this card. I would caution against upgrading to a clay hut when you have only three rooms, though. It can become difficult to extend your home again if you upgrade too early. If you have something that makes extending your home cheaper, the Maid can be very nice.
Reed Collector (205) (**) – As I said with the Clay Deliveryman, the Reed Collector makes Reed easier to get – for everyone else. If you take the reed collector, it should be with the idea of using some improvement that converts reed to food. Still, giving up a food and an action for 4 reeds isn’t bad.
**edit** I wanted to add in how much discussion and disagreement there has been about the Reed Collector. It seems that the general consensus is that this is one of the best cards in the game. For my money, I'd much rather have the Thatcher, so you pay less reed for pretty much everything, but you're still encouraged to take the existing reed off the board. That's why I have the Thatcher as a 3 star and the Reed Collector as a 2 star. This guide really reflects my opinions and playstyles, but there has been enough response about the Reed Collector, that I felt it important for readers to know what others think. I still stand by my assessment that he it is a 2 star card for the reasons I listed, but take that for what it's worth.
Master Shepherd (204) (**) – Not bad, but you need to have built your fences first. If you can hold three sheep, this one is nice. With certain improvements that give bonuses for how many sheep you have, this one is simply wonderful.
Cattle Whisperer (201) (*) – Guarantees that you’ll get a couple of cows, and in the five player game, this can be tough. Unfortunately, you have to play it in round 5 or before to get the full benefit – and you can’t make use of the benefit for a long time. It just takes too long to get that first cow. Additionally, it makes cows easier to get – for everyone else.
Minor Improvements
Private Forest (045) (*) – This costs too much food. Trading two food for 7 wood is a bad deal if you get the wood over the entire game and not up front. Oh, and if you play it in the second or third round, you only get 6 wood.
Reed Pond (048) (**) – You get three reeds for free. Only problem is that you need three occupations to make it work. I would never put out occupations with the intention of getting this into play. If it works out that you can play it, though, why not. The extra victory point is what gives this the second star.
Sack Cart (046) (*) – This looks like it would be easier to do than it is. It requires 2 occupations and costs two wood. I find those requirements to be difficult to get to before round 5, when the grain starts to kick it. Is it really worth it if you only get three grain over time? If you dno’t get it out before round 5, you don’t get your first grain until round 8. I generally like to have my grain engine running before that if I can. And again, it makes grain easier for everyone else since you won’t be taking it.
Carp Pond (031) (***) – Why three stars on the lowly Carp Pond? Simple. It’s very easy to get out. One occupation and two minor improvements is cake. This will give you a couple of food and a victory point. Chances are, you were going to take a spot that would allow you to build a minor improvement anyway, so why not build the Carp Pond? Doesn’t cost you a thing.
Fruit Tree (043) (**) – Three occupations is a bunch for requirements. But, if have three you’re using anyway, this is a great card. Lots of food and a victory point.
Dovecote (057) (**) – Another food over time card. Not bad, but two stone can be steep in games with many players. If you can upgrade your house to stone and still get this out, then do it.
Animal Pen (024) (*) – How awesome would it be to get this card out? The only problem is the 4 occupation requirement. I just never see anyone able to make good use of this. I give it one star because I never seem to be able to get it in play.
Cards That Grant or Conserve Actions
I really like this next group of cards, and it’s because I believe Agricola to be a game of managing your actions. Some are clearly better than others, but most all of them are useful.
Occupations
Grocer (184) (***) – Piling up eight resources sure looks cool, but it costs 8 food to get them. Still, this card is rarely wasted when in play. When you’re motivated to find the food to buy the extra reed or vegetable, it can be done. This helps you conserve actions because you can make 8 food in a turn or two, but it would take much longer to gather the number of resources that the grocer offers.
Hobby Farmer (180) (**) – It’s like taking two vegetables for one action. Not too shabby.
Plow Driver (194) (**) – Paying food to plow fields can be very useful at the end of the game, especially when you’re doing it to cover spaces that would otherwise be open and costing you -1 points each. Requires a stone house which makes it useless at the beginning of the game.
Plow Maker (195) (***) – Again, plowing additional fields is always good, but this time you’re not limited to when you can do it. As long as you can plow, you can use this occupation.
Merchant (179) (*) – There are lots of opportunities to play improvements in the game. This opens another avenue, but isn’t used as often as you might first think. You’re giving up an action to put out the occupation, so you really need to use the ability at least twice. I would rather take start player back while putting out an improvement instead of paying food to get lots of minor improvements out all at once.
Field Warden (163) (*) – This allows you to take vegetables and plow fields even if someone else is on the space. The problem is, you need to have this card out BEFORE you get shut out of one of those spaces. After you have the card out, you need to PLAN to get shut out of a space in order to make it useful. Eh…. Ok. Why would I want to wait to get myself shut out? Why not shut the other guy out? What this does is make taking vegetables and plowing fields easier for everyone else.
Head of the Family (159) (**) – This is more useful than the Field Warden because you probably will get shut out of the Family Growth space more than once. This is a nice insurance policy. This is a better card because it protects a better space.
Ratcatcher (198) (*) – You don’t really get that great of a benefit out of this card. You pay one action and one food to cost everyone two actions. That is essentially trading one food for one action. It’s ok, I guess, but there are lots of other cards that will score me points and conserve actions at the same time. This one is pretty weak. Some players are just so pleased with themselves when they play this card, though. It comes off as a lot more aggressive than it really is.
Academic (148) (*) – Not terrible if you want to play a card with a big occupation requirement, but I rarely do. Besides, I’d rather spend an extra action getting out two useful occupations instead of one useless one.
Dock Worker (171) (**) – Converting resources isn’t too bad. Allows you to take big chunks of resources on the board when they appear and convert them as you wish. Can be very useful if everyone is pummeling the reed space or the stone. Also very useful at the end of the game when clay is plentiful.
Guildmaster (341) (**) – If you’re going to build two of the things on this guy’s list, he’s worth it. If you’re only going to build one, he’s not. I generally don’t have a rigid enough plan to be able to use this guy early enough, but perhaps if I started playing him more often, I’d find that I like him better.
Clay Firer (185) (**) – I completely misunderstood how this worked when I first wrote the guide. Apparently the card isn't displaying fractions. With this card you can convert 2 clay to 1 stone, or 3 clay to 2 stone.
Clay Seller (186) (**) – I like the idea of trading Clay for things. I would make sure I had the clay before playing this card, though. Once people see that you have it, they won’t be letting the clay build up.
Pastor (193) (*) – Basically, if you are getting your butt kicked, this card helps you not get it kicked quite as badly. But you’re still losing. I would never play this card with the intention of being the last to build a room. The only way it would get played is if for some reason I HAPPENED to be the last.
Rancher (340) (*) – This one is too hard to get any advantage out of. It’s just too easy for people to catch up to you. Besides, how many wood will you really get out of this card? Three? Four? And you need to spend an action and a food to get that wood. Sounds like the definition of a bad deal.
Minor Improvements
Writing Desk (049) (*) – So, you have to have two occupations and a wood to get this out, and when you do, you can even more occupations out for paying large amounts of food. Not my idea of a deal. I would rather put out an improvement that I can use more than once without such high requirements. Don’t forget about it, though. At the end of the game, you can get a victory point for just one wood if you happen to be on a space that also allows you to build a minor improvement.
Cattle Market (060) (***) - Trading sheep for cattle? Where do I sign up? I like to use this before the person to my left has any sheep and preferably before he has any fences. Another great time to use it is after the person to my left already has a cow. Using it late also gives the advantage that it might not make it all the way around the table. Using it early almost guarantees that you’ll get to use it twice.
Turnwrest Plow (062) (***) – You get three actions for the price of one. Well, not really. You’ll have to gather the three wood to pay the cost of this. But the best part is how early you can actually get your fields plowed. This is a really nice card.
Riding Plow (061) (**) – Good card, but requires even more occupations and wood than the Turnwrest Plow. That makes this one much harder to use in the early going.
Field (011) (***) – This allows you to plow a field for just one food. If I want to plow a field and I have this card, I will often just take start player and play this card rather than taking the “Plow 1 Field” space. I try to do this when the person on my left is out of food so that start player isn’t immediately yanked from me. It’s also nice to have to prevent you from getting locked out of the plow spot early.
Stable (052) (**) – Get a stable for half off. Not terrible, but not great. If you’re doing something that gives you a minor improvement action and you have nothing better to play, then this isn’t bad.
Mini Pasture (040) (*) – Not great. You get one fenced in area for two food. If you’ve already built fences, then you only get three wood out of the deal. It does conserve actions well, but the two food cost is pretty high. By the time you can easily afford to be giving away two food, you probably don’t need the pasture.
Builder’s Trowel (050) (**) – This one is ok. You don’t have to use an action to renovate. But you have to use an action for the minor improvement, so it’s a wash unless the minor improvement benefit is as a result of doing some other necessary function (such as family growth).
Building Material (016) (*) – Not completely useless, but just about. I’m not saying this is the worst card you could play, but really. Isn’t there a better one out there you could use instead?
Helpful Neighbors (042) (*) – Only slightly more useful than Building Material because you get more difficult to acquire resources. Unfortunately, you also have to pay either a wood to clay to get one.
Market Stall (039) (**) – I like playing this card right at the end of the game when I’m the only one who can benefit from it. It’s even better if I’ve ignored vegetables for the entire game. Someone thinks they’ve screwed you out of vegetables and all of the sudden “No so fast…”
Clay Roof (036) (**) – Clay is easier to get than reed. But if you’re not taking reed, you just made it easier for everyone else to get it. For that reason I would normally give this one star except that it has a victory point attached to it.
Cards that Assist with Building/Renovating
Most of these cards could be lumped in with the ones that conserve actions. But there were so many that deal specifically with extending or renovating your house that I thought they should have their own section. Having multiple cards from this category can produce devastating combos. I really like having these because building up ones house is one way to score a lot of points.
Occupations
Mason (191) (***) – Extending from four rooms to five is very nice. Particularly if this lets you take another family growth action. Also, this occupation can be played in the mid-game where it is often easier to take the occupation space.
Master Builder (151) (**) – Having six rooms isn’t quite as good as having five because you can’t have six family members. This guy can still be useful to score a couple points with, though. When used with other cards that score points for rooms in your home, Master Builder can be very useful. By himself, not as much.
Carpenter (218) (***) – I like this guy a lot. He helps you conserve wood early which allows you build up your home and build fences at a reasonable rate. If you’re going to be a rancher, you may want to look very closely at getting the carpenter into play.
Thatcher (157) (***) – You pay less reed for just about every useful thing. This is very nice to have and can make owning the Basketmaker’s Workshop a lot easier.
Hut Builder (178) (*) – I really dislike cards that make me invest early, payoff late, and require me to not upgrade as quickly as I can. This one hits the trifecta of crapola.
Stonecutter (211) (***) – This guy is so much better than the guy who gives you extra stone, it isn’t even funny. This guy allows you to build a clay oven with only three clay. You can put the axe into play with only one wood. You will probably end up getting at least 3 or 4 stone out of him.
Renovator (199) (**) – Basically, you get 2 clay and 2 stone for 1 food and 1 action. Not bad. Not great, but not bad. If you’re not on a path to renovate all the way up to a stone house, then this guy becomes worthless.
Conservator (200) (***) – Boderline overpowered. Going straight from wood hut to stone house it unbelievable. You not only save yourself a renovate action, you save as much as 5 clay and a reed which undoubtedly would have taken at least two other actions to gather. The only thing that makes me not throw this out of the game is that it makes clay significantly easier for everyone else to get. Still, I should probably through it out of the game.
Minor Improvements
Stone House Extension (055) (**) – Very nice if you get shut out of building a room. But it’s rare that I will spend four stone and a reed to upgrade to a stone house, then have three more stone left over to extend it again. If I’ve upgraded to stone with four rooms, that’s pretty much what I’m going to have. If you do plan to use this card, use it when the person on your left has already upgraded to stone.
Clay Supports (037) (**) – Gives you the advantage of not needing wood to build up your house. Makes wood easier for everyone else to get though. Ranchers should strongly consider getting this into play so as to conserve wood for fences.
Axe (013) (**) – Why build just one room when you can build two? I love getting the axe in play because I can build two rooms at once with just 4 wood and 4 reed. In reality, you’re getting 5 wood for one stone. I would recommend putting out the axe after getting the reed together first. Once people see that axe, they’ll know you intend to build two rooms and they’ll deny the reed to you if they can.
Cards that Give Bonus Resources When Taking Actions
This is a popular group of cards with many players and for good reason. This group contains some of the most powerful cards in the game.
Occupations
Woodcutter (176) (**) – Gives you additional wood when you use a family member’s action to take wood. For the two, three, and four player game, I don’t really like this card. How often will you really be taking wood? Four times? Five? That means you’re giving away an action and a food to get four or five wood. Not terrible, but not great. Chances are you could get that many wood by just taking the wood action itself. But, in the five player game, this card is much more useful. You can get an extra wood when taking wood with “Two different resources of your choice” or you could get an extra wood on the “1 Stone, 1 Wood, and 1 Reed (Cumulative)” space. The latter becomes super powerful when just one additional reed is on it. Can you imagine 2 wood, 2 stone, and 2 reed for a single action? That is scary good. In two, three, and four player, the woodcutter is a one star card. In five player, it’s a three star card. That averages out to the two star rating I’ve given it.
Clay Mixer (188) (***) – When combined with other cards that take advantage of large amounts of clay, it’s far more useful. If you’ve read the entire card review, you know that I regularly bash on cards that give out extra resources because they put more of them into the game which make it easier for those who didn’t play the card to pick them up as well. This card is slightly different. By providing two extra clay, it encourages the owner to take clay earlier than usual. This means LESS clay for other players in the beginning of the game. It will ultimately mean more clay, but only at the end of the game. The end of the game is when clay is least useful. The beginning of the game is when it’s most useful.
Stone Carrier (210) (**) – How many stone are you going to need in the game? And how often are you going to take stone? My guess is that you’ll take it fewer than four times. That means you are paying a food and an action for two or three stone. Not great. But what’s worse is that this card actually encourages you to take stone by itself, instead of with other resources. Picking up stone with other resources is a good thing – not something to be discouraged. It’s for this reason that I find the Stone Carrier to be useless in the five player game. In the two player game, there really is plenty of stone to go around, so Stone Carrier is fairly worthless there, too. It’s moderately useful in the three and four player games, but I would need a pretty bad draw of occupations that would make me want to get this one out.
Conjurer (167) and Seasonal Worker (202) (***) – You get grain in addition to getting the food on the traveling players or day laborer space. Where do I sign up? No one ever takes the day laborer space, and it makes taking the Traveling Player space that much more attractive, even with very little food on it. I cannot get these cards out fast enough. The normal way to get grain gets you nothing extra. It’s much easier to become a baker when you’re able to pick up grain and food at the same time. Seasonal Worker even lets you pick vegetable from round 6 on. It’s so overpowered it’s almost game-breaking. You’ll obviously want to be a baker if you get one of these monster cards.
Land Agent (147) (**) – You get grain when you take vegetables and you get a vegetable when you play the card. This card makes it easier to be a vegetable cooker, but the vegetable space won’t be wide open. Lots of players are going to need vegetables, particularly in a four or five player game. However, this is an occupation that is effectively played in the middle of the game which makes it easy to get out.
Greengrocer (168) (***) – You get a vegetable whenever you take a grain. Like Land Agent, this one makes it easier to become a vegetable grower. The difference with Land Agent is that you can begin getting vegetables very early. That bumps the usefulness of this card way up.
Undergardener (166) and Storyteller (169) (***) – Just like Conjurer and Seasonal Worker, except you get a vegetable instead of a grain when you pick day laborer or traveling players. Again, these are borderline overpowered. Make sure you have a cooking hearth before you put these out because everyone will know what you’re up to as soon as they see it. Remember too that Storyteller requires you to leave one food behind to get the vegetable, but that shouldn’t be a problem.
Hedge Keeper (175) (**) – This is a very good card, but it telegraphs you as a rancher. You really can’t sneak up on anyone with your plan once you bring out this guy. Chances are good that you’ll be building fences twice during the game, so this will provide you with basically 6 free fences. I think this one gets misused a lot. I’ve seen many people build a single fenced in space, paying only one wood. You get a much better benefit when you are fencing in more than one space. I would recommend getting at least four wood together before building fences with the Hedgekeeper. That allows you two pastures, which can be very powerful in the early game. Later, as players are scrambling to make room for boars, you’ve already got some room carved out for them.
Stablehand (207) (**) – This gives a free stable when building fences. If you build fences twice, it’s like getting two free stables. That’s not bad, but not as useful as it appears at first. If you’re building fences for the first time, do you really need an early stable? Chances are you won’t need the stable until later when your animals have time to grow. You will probably get a chance to build a stable when building a room long before you need it. Not for free, mind you, but then again, you’re paying an action and a food to get the free stable. Not useless, but again, not uber powerful.
Mushroom Collector (196) (***) – I really like this card. Leaving a wood for 2 food? Done deal. The card says if you “leave” a wood on the space. That means it can’t be used on a space such as “1 Stone, 1 Wood, 1 Reed (Cumulative)”. That’s a big downer, but there are enough places where wood does exist that you’ll end up getting some good use out of this card. You’ll probably take wood at least four times in the game. That’s potentially 8 food, and that’s pretty good for one occupation.
Berry Picker (152) (**) – Not quite as good as Mushroom Collector. If you take wood five times in a game, you’ll get five food from this card. But you spent a food and an action to get that food. That means four food for one action. That’s ok.
Patron (192) (***) – You get two food before you pay the cost of an occupation. That means you can put out occupations and actually gain food at the same time. I love this one. The only problem comes if you have a lot of crappy occupations. Patron makes getting out Minor Improvements with high occupation costs much more reasonable.
Fisherman (161) (*) – You can take double food when you take the fishing space, but you have to give some away to certain other players. As soon as they see this card, other players will put something out to hose up the fishing space. I am also not a fan of taking just food if I can avoid it. Certainly, you need food to feed your family, but you can often make food and still advance yourself in points in other ways. When you take food by itself, you aren’t scoring in other areas.
Dancer (212) (**) – Although I wouldn’t personally play this card because I don’t like taking just food, I think it’s a pretty good card for new players. New players might have trouble making food consistently and this occupation can be a nice safety valve for them. An experienced player shouldn’t need this safety valve. Of course, if you get shut out of the ovens and hearths in a five player game, you may need something like this to keep your family out of the poorhouse.
Master Forester (164) (*) – This is a piece of junk card. What this card really does is put a ton of extra wood into the game. It benefits everyone else a lot more than it benefits you. Having this card will encourage you not to take the wood spaces and to wait for your own wood spot to pile up. That leaves the other spaces ripe for the picking. I love seeing this card come out, but I love not being the one who played it. The player of this card sacrifices an action and a food to make sure that wood is significantly easier for everyone else in the game to get. Not a good deal.
Minor Improvements
Canoe (030) (**) – You get reed and extra food when you use the fishing spot. You also get a victory point. The only drawback is the 2 occupation requirement and 2 wood cost. That’s a little high for the number of times you’ll actually use the fishing space.
Raft (022) (**) – No occupation requirement like the Canoe, but you get extra food OR extra reed. Again, you probably won’t use this too many times.
Fishing Rod (012) (**) – I don’t like taking just food if I can help it, so this one doesn’t get a lot of use by me. But getting two extra food in the last 7 rounds is pretty tough to ignore for the cost of just 1 wood. If you’re having trouble with getting food, this is a big helper. It should be noted that combining this with the Canoe and/or Raft is very powerful.
Stone Tongs (056) (**) – You get an extra stone when taking from the “1 Stone (Cumulative)” spaces. Only costs a single wood to get out there and you’ll probably take stone more than once.
Quarry (054) (**) – You get three stone when you use the Day Laborer space and you get two victory points. The four occupation requirement is pretty steep, but if there were any card you’d want to get four occupations out for, this would be it.
Corn Scoop (035) (***) – You get an extra grain when you take grain. With the corn scoop, you may not even need to sow grain at all. You might be able to bake bread with just what you can pull from taking grain.
Basket (034) (**) – You can leave 2 wood to take 3 food. Not as efficient as the Mushroom Collector occupation. It also can’t be used in as many places because you have to leave 2 wood instead of just one. The only real advantage of this card is that because you’ll be leaving two wood instead of one, you’ll probably need to take wood more often, which will mean more opportunities for food. So, you get more food, but you use more actions. Sort of a wash.
Cards that Make Baking Easier
A pretty self explanatory title for this section.
Occupations
Baker (150) (***) – This card makes baking a piece of cake. You no longer have to worry about taking “bake bread” actions when buying an oven or sowing your fields. You should really attempt to get a stone oven if you can. As long as you are going to harvest at least two grains, a stone oven allows you to automatically convert them into 8 food. A Baker/Stone Oven combo is almost overpowered. You definitely want to have your Stone Oven in hand before you play this card. Once your opponents see the Baker in front of you they will definitely have to step up their games to win.
Meat Seller (162) (**) – allows you to cook animals with the same efficiency as a Cooking Hearth. You have to own an oven first, though. If you already own an oven, chances are you’re a bread baker. If you’re a bread baker, then you don’t need a method for killing animals, except to keep the other players honest. But, if you’re a rancher and both Cooking Heaths are gone, this card can get you back in the game.
Master Baker (149) (**) – Allows you to bake bread whenever someone else does. Also gives you an extra bread whenever you bake it on your own time. The second power is what makes this one so nice. You can turn a Cooking Hearth into the kind of oven that will produce 4 food for a single grain, but has no limit to the number you can convert.
Minor Improvements
Millstone (041) (***) – With this, you could turn a regular fireplace into a really nice oven. And you can turn a nice oven into a bread baking assembly line. Makes being a bread baker a total snap.
Baking Tray (015) (**) – I really like this improvement. It means you can purchase a Clay Oven without any stone at all. What’s more, you can buy it as a minor improvement. Imagine a turn in which you take start player, pay three clay, get the clay oven, and then with the free bake bread action you convert a grain into 5 food. That’s a pretty nice turn and the Baking Tray makes it possible.
Baker’s Oven (014) (**) – The thing that makes this strong is the fact that it is essentially free. I probably wouldn’t put back a stone oven to get this in play. This oven is only 20 percent more efficient that a stone oven. I would definitely put back the clay oven as this one is 100% more efficient.
Wood-fired Oven (027) (*) – It’s kind of a crappy oven. It costs you four resources and only cooks one grain into three food. A Cooking Hearth will do that and convert animals, too. And the Cooking Hearth costs about the same in resources.
Ceramics (033) (***) – You get two food for one clay. This really doesn’t have much to do with baking bread, but I put it with these cards because it it requires an oven to play it. This one allows you to get pottery for free which means that you’re getting all of the following for just 1 wood: 2 food, 2 victory points, and the ability to turn a clay into 2 additional food during each harvest. Oh, and if you happen to have a lot of leftover clay at the end of the game, it’s worth even more points. Not too shabby for a single wood.
Simple Fireplace (020) (**) – Better than nothing. Cheap, and worth a victory point, it’s real usefulness is twofold. If you’re primarily a bread baker, this will keep your opponents honest about how many animals they let accumulate. You could just pick up all those sheep and kill them for food, right? The Simple Fireplace can also be useful if you have another card that gives you additional food when you use the Fireplace. Still, if I were a rancher, I’d rather just have the Cooking Hearth if at all possible.
Lettuce Patch (047) (**) – The only thing that prevents this from being a three star card is the high prerequisite of three occupations. You get to automatically convert the vegetables to four food when they are harvested. This means you don’t even need a Fireplace or a Cooking Hearth to turn vegetables into food. Perfect for a bread baker, but really a great card for anyone.
Cards that Make Ranching Easier
Another very self-explanatory category title.
Occupations
Tenant Farmer (215) (***) – In a five player game, this card can be a game changer. With early access to cattle, you could play this card, take a cow for the price of a food, then start breeding them. In games with fewer than five players, it is slightly less useful, but I still think using it to get the second boar or second cattle, even later in the game, can be a game changer once you start breeding them. Remember, you give the animals back BEFORE scoring. That means that they can breed one more time right before you have to give them back.
Farmer (160) (***) – I like cards that give cattle. Take a boar with your first fence build. On your second and third builds, you get 2 cattle and you are breeding them before anyone has a chance to take one off the board. Very powerful.
Stockman (213) (**) – You get animals for building stables. That sounds nice, but as a practical matter, I don’t usually build all four. The good news is that the best rewards come for the second and third stable, but if you don’t get two animals out of this, it really isn’t that great. If you have something that makes stable building easier, this is a great card.
Animal Keeper (216) (**) – You can keep different animal types in the same pasture. This means that you really only need one pasture to take care of all of them. If you maintain just the one pasture throughout the game, you’ve cost yourself some extra pasture points, but the utility this provides earlier in the game outweighs that cost.
Stablemaster (208) (**) – Can be a nice stop gap if you’re getting shut out of fences or wood. Not nearly as useful if you’ve already got a couple of nice pastures early.
Shepherd (203) (**) – This one means that if you’re breeding with four sheep, you’ll be able to produce as much food per turn as if you were breeding cows. The tough part is getting the four sheep early enough to get a ton of food with this.
Swineherd (206) (***) – If you have the English edition of the game like I do, this card has something completely wrong printed on it. It’s actually supposed to allow you take an additional boar whenever you take the “Wild Boar” space. If you get to use this twice, it is well worth the price. If you only get to use it once, it still isn’t bad. It allows you to get a breeding pair with one action which really gets the ball rolling for ranchers.
Minor Improvements
Animal Yard (058) (***) – Doesn’t count as a pasture, but gives you a victory point anyway. You can hold two animals on it, and you don’t have to take the Fences action to get some early animals in play. Despite the wording, it does not allow you to take 2 animals from the general supply.
Drinking Trough (059) (***) – If you don’t see this one face up in a game you’re playing, then it didn’t get dealt. For the price, it’s very nice. It does encourage small pastures rather than large ones, though, as the two animal benefit isn’t per space, it’s per pasture.
Shepherd’s Pipe (029) (**) – The zero cost on this one means it gets into play in about every game where I have sheep early. If you have some easy ways of acquiring sheep, this makes housing them a snap.
Butter Churn (053) (**) – You have to figure out how many food this is really going to make you before you decide to put it in play over something else. If you’re only going to get three food out of it by the end of the game, you may want to play something else. If you can start taking advantage of it early, though, it can be very powerful.
Spindle (051) (**) – Thanks to Elgar for pointing out how this card isn't showing three fifths and one half which is the way I have always read it. It's showing 3 sheep giving you 1 food, or 5 sheep giving you 2 food.
Gypsy’s Crock (019) (***) – You will probably have a lot of opportunities to use the Gypsy Crock in the game if you’re a rancher, and it’s worth a victory point, too. Does this work with the Simple Fireplace. I play that it does. Otherwise, the Simple Fireplace would be even more useless than it already is.
Feed Pellets (338) (**) – If you have access to one of the many cards that make vegetables easy to get, this is a good card. If you don’t have access to one of those cards, then trading vegetables for anything other than cattle doesn’t make a lot of sense. Vegetables are generally worth one victory point each, and both boars and sheep are worth fewer victory points and the same or less food.
These next improvements all have to do with vegetables. I put them in the Ranching section because it is assumed that a rancher will want a Cooking Hearth, and if you have to cook vegetables, a Cooking Hearth is the preferred method for doing it. But, it’s entirely possible with one of these next three cards that vegetable consumption could be the primary way you feed your family, even without cooking animals. Plus, I needed a place to put these three cards and I this is where I picked.
Potato Dibber (012) (**) – If you’re going to have vegetables, you may as well have a whole lot of vegetables. If you can sow two fields with one vegetable each using this card, you’ll definitely have gotten the most out of this card.
Beanfield (018) (**) – You can plant vegetables on this card. I generally don’t have trouble figuring out where to plant things, though. It also requires two occupations. The only good news is that it doesn’t require any resources and is worth a victory point. If you get the opportunity to throw out something extra, this is something that might fit the bill.
Spices (025) (**) – Like the other vegetable cards, if you have early access to vegetables, this is a very powerful three star card. If you don’t have early access to vegetables, then this card probably won’t do you much good.
Cards that Convert Resources to Food During the Harvest
These cards kick in during the harvest and automatically help you convert goods to food. These are really good supplemental cards to help you if (and when) your primary method for feeding your family comes up short.
Occupations
Turner (158) (*) – You can convert one wood to one food as often as you like. This isn’t a good deal. You’re spending an action and a food to get out a card that allows you to get ripped off. Terrible idea. Even if you’re desperate for food, there’s almost always a better option than trading one wood for one food.
Potter (214) (***) – Trade a clay for two food. You’ll probably use this in every single harvest, and it’s a pretty good deal. Clay isn’t difficult to get at any point during the game. This card goes well with the Pottery card. You’re already going to be taking clay for food anyway, so you may as well be able to convert twice as much of it.
Basketmaker (183) (**) – I’d rather not have to convert valuable reeds into food. But if I did, getting three food would ease the sting of losing the reed. I would NOT play both the Basketmaker and the Basketmaker’s Workshop together. You don’t want to try to burn through two reeds per harvest. It will make it too difficult to expand and/or renovate your home.
Quarryman (209) (**) – Stone is probably worth more than two food, but if you’re desperate, it can help out. Trading your stone for food will mean it will be slower to get out some of the Major Improvements, Minor Improvements, and it will be slower to Renovate as well.
Master Brewer (154) (***) – This is a pretty nice card because you don’t have to take an action to convert grain into food. If you have a Clay Oven and this card, you can convert two grain into 8 food – just as good as a Stone Oven. But the Master Brewer will be useful to almost anyone. Plant one grain and you get 9 food out of it. Not too shabby.
Cook (181) (***) – In order to make the most out of this card, you need to aggressively grow your family. That’s a good thing to be doing anyway.
Charcoal Burner (182) (***) – I think it’s worth only two stars in a three player game, but definitely three stars in a four or five player game. You need to get this one out almost immediately so that you can take advantage of everyone who builds a Fireplace, Cooking Hearth, or Oven. If the convert from Fireplace to Cooking Hearth you get the benefit again.
Bread Seller (155) (**) – This is a great card if there are two bakers in the game. It’s not nearly as good if there is only one. Try to anticipate the number of bread bakers early, though. The quicker you get this out, the more you will benefit. Unfortunately if you get it out too quickly, you may inadvertently cause someone to decide not to become a bread baker at all.
Minor Improvements
Plane (026) (**) – If you have this card in hand, you may want to buy the Joinery. It actually makes the Joinery not so bad. Spending all those resources for the Joinery isn’t worth it for the ability to convert a single wood to two food. But it probably is worth it to be able to do that twice during the harvest.
Windmill (017) (*) – I might get a lot of grief for this one (among others), but I just hate this card. The cost is too high and it only converts grain to two food. Even with the two extra victory points, you’re probably better off spending your resources on something else.
Cards that Score Points at the End of the Game
These are the cards that will rack up bonus points for you at the end of the game. Be careful about waiting until the last turn or two to play them though, as you may have opponents who are thinking the exact same thing and who may take the occupation spots before you get to them. As a general rule, I dislike these cards. Many people swear by them, and there is not doubt that they can, at times, be used effectively. I’ll try to make my case for why I generally dislike each of them and leave it up to you to decide whether or not these are part of a winning strategy for you.
Occupations
Brush Maker (156) (**) – This card’s power is relative you how easy it will be for you to get Boars. I can tell you for certain that once everyone else sees you put this card out, you’ll have a much tougher time getting boars. You also really need to score at least two points with this card, and that means cooking up at least three boars after having played this card which isn’t as easy as it sounds.
Estate Manager (170) (*) – All you have to do is get more animals of every single type than everyone else. The problem is that it’s extremely difficult to do that. It’s likely that someone will end up with at least one more animal than you have in at least one category.
Braggart (197) (**) – This is an interesting card because it opens up an entirely different strategy for winning that isn’t normally available. This makes for a fun experience for experienced players, but may lead to great frustration for new players who may have difficulty feeding their family because they’ve spent too much time getting out improvements. When combined with Yeoman Farmer, the Braggart is potentially devastating. But keep in mind, getting out 9 improvements is worth 9 points, and that requires that you put out every minor improvement you have plus two major improvements. Getting three additional family members is also worth 9 points and has other practical advantages.
Tutor (174) (*) – Gives you a bonus point for every occupation you play after the tutor. But how many points will you end up getting out of it? I don’t like playing a ton of occupations in a game, so this would never be a card I would choose to put out. I also don’t like the fact that you need to get this card out very early, but you don’t get any benefit until the very end of the game.
Reeve (217) (*) – This is a weird card. If you happen to have the most occupations, you’ll get three victory points for having played this card. The thing is, if you’ve played the most occupations, you’ll probably NEED the extra three victory points. There’s also a chance that someone else will get the benefit of this card in addition to or instead of you. That makes this one a loser in my book.
Wooden Hut Builder (177) (*) – You get one bonus point for each wooden hut in your home. The fundamental problem with this card is that if you’re planning to use it, you’re necessarily not going to take clay and stone for renovations. That means stone and clay are now easier to get for everyone else. Sure, you’ll probably score six points for your wooden house, but the guy to your right will probably score 8 points for his stone house, and you will have made it significantly easier for him to have upgraded it. If you’ve gotten jammed out of renovating all game long, then this card might prevent you from coming in last, but I doubt that you can use this card regularly and still come in a winner.
Chief (172) (**) – Nice points, but expensive to play. Scoring as many as five extra points with this one is great, but the three total food cost may make this one prohibitively expensive for you at a critical time in the game (the end) when you likely have a lot of family members to feed. If you’ve got plenty of food, though, you’ll definitely want to get this one out, but only if you’ve either already upgraded to stone, or after you are certain that enough of your opponents are in no position to upgrade and that one of the renovation spaces in the following turn won’t be taken from you.
Chief’s Daughter (173) (**) – If the Chief gets played, then this is a three star card. If the Chief doesn’t get played, then it’s a one star card. Why only one star? Because if you’re like me, you’ve waited all game to see if someone would play the Chief, and you didn’t get a chance to play it otherwise. A three or a one averages out to the two star rating I gave it.
Lord of the Manor (189) (**) – To make this card worth playing, you probably need to max out three scoring areas. If you’ve done that, you’re probably already winning anyway. I certainly wouldn’t want to put this card out early because it really puts too much pressure on trying to max out points one a few categories when a player should probably be worrying about just making sure that they don’t get negatives in any categories. If you happen to max out enough areas to make this useful, then by all means play it. I think that’s something that’s much easier to do for an experienced player than for a rookie.
Mendicant (153) (*) – You get to ignore two begging cards when this is in play. But you have to ask yourself, how did you get those two begging cards? By not having two food of course. But if you play the Mendicant, you’re sacrificing an action and a food to make up for the fact that you don’t have two food. Not a good idea. The Mendicant should be used as a safety valve in case something, uh… happens during the game. You should never put this out with the intention of taking a couple of begging cards later. It just seems like that would be playing to lose. I think there may be another potential use for the card. It may be possible to simply ignore grabbing any extra food in the first round with the intention of giving yourself a leg up on all the other players. Perhaps you can get an early enough advantage that you could breed sheep before the first harvest, but it would require you to take two begging cards. That might be worth trying out. That said, I have never been bold enough to actually do something like this in a real game yet. It’s all speculation.
Yeoman Farmer (165) (*) – Other than being useful for the Braggart, this is another card I dislike. He allows you to ignore the points you would lose for not having things like boars or vegetables. But if you set out to not have things like that, you’re probably going to get hammered pretty good, and the Yeoman Farmer won’t take away enough of the hurt to give you a win. But let’s just say I am missing a vegetable and a boar. Would I be better off playing Yeoman Farmer for the cost of 1 food and 1 action (net 2 points), or would I be better off just taking the vegetable or the boar with one action and no food cost (again, net 2 points). Obviously, I’d rather just take the boar or the vegetable. But what if you’ve messed up in three areas? At that point Yeoman Farmer isn’t going to save you anyway, so it won’t matter if you put him out or not.
Minor Improvements
Manger (023) (**) – If your pastures happen to take up a lot of space, then this card helps you score a lot of points. Works nicely with the Animal Keeper card.
Clogs (028) (***) – Clogs seems to be face up in every game I’ve ever played in which it was dealt, so it must be good.
Half-timbered House (**) – If you have something to make the cost of this cheaper, it’s definitely a three star card. Without something to make it cheaper, it can be tough to gather the resources needed to build this at the end of the game.
Madonna (038) (**) – There are many improvements in this game that will outlive their usefulness before the game ends. If you’re holding on to two of them, playing the Madonna is a good idea. It’s a total rookie mistake, but just make sure you aren’t discarding cards with victory points on them if you can avoid it.
Outhouse (044) (**) – Easier to get out in games with more players. If you meet the requirements and there’s nothing else that will benefit you more, this is a good one to get out on the table. I typically see this one come out in the middle of the game, but occasionally at the end. I wouldn’t play this before stage four. As I’ve said earlier, I’m not a fan of cards that are played early but provide no benefit until the end of the game.
CONCLUSION
If you’ve read through this entire guide, you have my thanks. It took a lot of time to write it, so I appreciate anyone willing to slog through the entire thing. Hopefully, it helps you turn your 20 point performances into 40 point performances. If you find any egregious errors, let me know and I will try to get them corrected as quickly as possible.
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Banana Fritter
United Kingdom
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amcpherson wrote: Yes, it is a shame. Fortunately, I saved the original post on my computer some time ago...
Aaron McPherson, you are a star!!
I'm taking a copy now, myself, in case it gets the chop again.
I don't suppose you have any of the others do you. eg. Advance Strategies for Settlers of Catan. If you do, I'd be in awe if you could stick it here... http://www.geekdo.com/thread/197511/complex-strategies-for-s...
By-the-by, I did wonder whether all of WhiteKong's articles may have been removed due to some kind of pending commercial deal (eg. like a book deal or something)?? I'd be fascinated to know if anyonw has heard anything.
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United States
Austin
Texas
Glory to Rome!
"Let each man pass his days in that wherein his skill is greatest" Propertius Sextus
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marksansby wrote:
Done.
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How tall is justice?
Canada
Georgetown
Ontario
Who IS this masked man? And WHY has he never been photographed together with 6 year old millionaire playboy Calvin?
I see a world that's tired and scared of living on the edge too long.
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marksansby wrote: By-the-by, I did wonder whether all of WhiteKong's articles may have been removed due to some kind of pending commercial deal (eg. like a book deal or something)?? I'd be fascinated to know if anyonw has heard anything.
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/498614/i-think-im-probably-f...
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Banana Fritter
United Kingdom
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darthnice wrote:
Soopa-doopa. Thanks a mil. Thumbs 2 u.
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Banana Fritter
United Kingdom
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Genghis wrote:
Aha... I see.
Thanks for that link, it's all clear now. Such history there is on BGG, and I'm just catching up on it all.
Cheers again.
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Aaron McPherson
United States
Newton
Massachusetts
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marksansby wrote: amcpherson wrote: Yes, it is a shame. Fortunately, I saved the original post on my computer some time ago...
Aaron McPherson, you are a star!! I'm taking a copy now, myself, in case it gets the chop again.
Thanks, I would normally respect the wishes of the original poster, but in this case, since it was by far the highest rated strategy article for Agricola, and the thread made no sense otherwise, it seemed better just to replace it. Now I just wish there was some way to bump it to the top again...
Aaron
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