Harrowed Halls

We had a guest player this week. Mike Byrd joined us for a 5-player game of Agricola. Agricola is a game all about farm management and development. Sounds exciting doesn’t it? Well I’m not sure I’d call it exciting, but it is challenging. As noted by my stellar performance in this game and the two previous games we’ve played. (You can check out those two previous games here and here.)

Ben has played this game a few more times than we have…and still doesn’t have the rules right. But that’s ok. We happily gave him a ton of grief about it. As our game progressed we had another one of those “Steve” moments where “Steve” goes to make a play and Ben (and others) tell “Steve” it’s a bad play. But “Steve” wants to make the play. “Steve” has a plan. Ben (and others) warn “Steve” again. “Steve” still makes the play…and after it’s too late, realizes it’s a bad play. If only someone would have warned me.

None of us were too surprised when Ben won the game with 32 points. Owen came in a very strong second with 26 points. Owen got a ton of his points from his major and minor improvements; to the tune of around 14 points. The rest of us garnered mere 1-5 points from our improvements. Mike Byrd, who had never played before, got a very respectable 21 points. Mike’s 19 points were just enough so he would not be tied with me for last place. (I had 18 points.) In all three of the Agricola games we’ve played, I’ve been last. I’m not bitter though. I could see from the beginning of this game, that I did not have a good plan. Heck, I’m not even sure I had a plan at all. I’m not sure what Mike’s excuse was.

Chaos Steve

The game of Agricola rose to the top of the list for this week. Ben was able to borrow a copy from another friend of his. Ben explained the rules—leaving several things out—and we began to play. (I can’t give Ben too hard of time for leaving a few rules out. It’s a big game and I’m the worse person to explain rules.) Ben had played this game about 20 times in the past, while the rest of us had never played. This did not bode well for the rest of us.

Agricola is a farming game. And just like on a real farm you have a lot of options: How are you going to use your land? Are you planting or raising animals? Should you add family members to get more work done? How are you going to feed everyone? Each turn each of your family members can perform one action. This action might bring you more wood so you can build fences, or bring you a new sheep, or add another room on to your farm house. After several turns, which get shorter and shorter as the game progresses, you must harvest and feed your family. Woe to those who don’t have enough food. Also along the way you can add occupations and improvements to your farm so it runs more efficiently and you score more victory points. Essentially victory points are awarded based upon how big your farm grows by the end of the game. You get negative points if you don’t fulfill some basic requirements.

I’m not doing the game justice as far as trying to get across just how fun it is. (But hey, I’m trying to make running a farm look like fun.) If you like resource management games, you’ll love this one. If a resource game has many ways to score victory points and more options than you can possibly exercise in a turn, then I think it’s on the right track. This forces you to decide what you are going to major in as far as accumulating those all important victory points.

In our game, many things went horribly wrong…mostly on my farm. At the end of the game, my farm looked like a barren wasteland compared to everyone else’s. Unsurprisingly Ben’s farm did very well. He won with 43 points. Both Owen and Mike did well coming in at 35 and 30 points respectively. As you can suspect, I came in dead last with 28 points.

At the beginning of the game Ben mentioned just how important it was to have a food generation mechanism in place during the game so feeding your family is not a big issue. I must have dozed off just before Ben gave out that advice, because I struggled the entire game trying to keep my family feed. Only some good occupations and improvements kept me in the game at all. A major point about scoring (and losing) victory points also never struck home. At the end of the game I had a -18 points compared to Ben and Mike who only had a -1 and a -3 respectively. (Owen had no negatives.)

We liked the game and we’re going to play it again next week. Hopefully with a more favorable result! :)

Chaos Steve