Beginning Agricola

We were surprised and delighted to be given a new board game for Christmas 2012 by our younger son. It came highly recommended, although none of us had ever played it before.... the game looked complex when we opened the box, with boards, cards, tokens, and lots of little wooden pieces.

A Christmas guest had played the game once or twice, so we did get it out after lunch and started to look at it:

But, rather brain fogged from viruses, and over-satiated by lunch, we didn't feel very intelligent. We gathered that it's a game about farming; each player is a 17th century subsistance farmer who must figure out how to feed his family by growing crops, baking bread, and/or breeding and cooking animals. But the instructions are lengthy and complicated - possibly losing something in having been translated from the German - and we thought it would take some time before we understood it. 

A day or two later, and mostly recovered, we got the game out again. We figured out the different pieces - three kinds of animals, five building resources, plus grain (yellow) and vegetables (orange). Each player starts with two family members in a small wooden farm which can be extended to allow for family growth, or upgraded to clay or stone, if one has sufficient of the resources. Fences, rooms, and other items can be bought by having the correct resources in one's stock - this all seems quite familiar, as we are long-term players of Settlers of Catan and its variants.  

There are, however, no dice. Instead, the board shows a number of 'actions' that can be taken on each 'round' (of which there are 14 in each game). Actions include collecting various resources, ploughing or sowing fields, and - as the game progresses and further action cards are revealed - building fences, collecting animals, and growing one's family.  

The twist is that each available action may only be taken once per round. So if Player 1's first family member decides to plow a field, nobody else can do so until the next round. Player 2's first family member might then decide to pick up wood that has accumulated, so both those actions would be unavailable for the rest of the round. Since each family member takes one action per round - going around the table until all have been placed - it's clearly a good idea to grow the family as early as possible, thus having three or even four actions to take per round, rather than just two.

However, every so often comes 'harvest', when family members must be fed. Food can be picked up from the board - if the action is available - but it's more efficient either to bake bread - if one has bought an oven, which requires further resources - or cook animals - if one has fences, and animals and a suitable oven. 

Confused?

Yes, so were we.  The first game was played very slowly, with frequent reference to the instructions: 

We took the advice in the booklet to play the 'family' version of the game, which does not use any of the large packs of 'occupation' or 'minor improvement' cards. It was complicated enough without. 

I had read some reviews online, some of which said that the game would start to make sense by about Round 10-12.  I didn't really believe it... but it was true. I was, somewhat randomly taking actions and trying to figure out how to feed my family at each harvest - they come more and more quickly as the game progresses - but sure enough, at about round 11, something clicked. I don't know that it became any easier, but I saw how it worked. 

Then when Round 14 was over, we had to figure out how to score. It's a non-competitive game, really... each person is trying to build their own farm in the way they think best, adjusting their strategy all the time as other players take actions that are thus no longer available. Points are given for animals, grain, pastures, fields, upgraded houses, family members... and more. Points are lost for unused farm spaces, lack of any kinds of animals... and more. I think we all managed around 16-20 points in that first game and were pleased to find that it made some kind of sense.

We realised that we needed to play a couple more times with the simplified family version, just to consolidate 'Agricola' in our minds.  the second game progressed more rapidly, and it was interesting to see that we tried slightly different strategies more deliberately. One person focussed early on gaining wood to build fences, and then collecting animals and an oven to feed his family. Another concentrated more on ploughing and sowing fields, so as to harvest grain and bake bread. 

At the end, the scores were all slightly higher than they had been in the first game. 

We then played a third 'family' game a day or two later, and felt a great deal more confident about it. Clearly Agricola is less complex than we had feared, and a very interesting game with a lot of potential. And that was without using any of the occupation or minor improvement cards. 

Definitely a great addition to our favourite board games!