[Brian,
Monday September 1, 2008 at 10:27am]
More Agricola
I've now played a handful of games down here.
- New players are overwhelmed by their own options and do not look at other players boards/occupations. Understandable in a game with so many moving parts. (Many people level the multiplayer solitaire at Race for the exact same reason, but the worker placement mechanism blunts that).
- I stand by my criticism of the card game, but accept Chris Farrel's point that the variability makes it a cost worth bearing. After all, how often have I played Caylus recently? (Although I feel the urge to pull out Magna Carta ...)
- Shuffling all the decks together was fun. I think I'll do that from now on. The "I" deck's 'take that' seems fairly well done.
- To a certain extent, Caylus, Puerto Rico and Agricola have a 'one true path to victory.' Actually, one path to defeat. If you delay family growth too long, you lose. (It's seems a necessary but not sufficient condition to winning in a group). This bothers me, slightly. Many games have this. I'm becoming fairly sold on the idea of dropping VPs for family members to 2, instead of 3, although I don't think that would have changed any outcomes. It would close the gap between new and experienced players. (I did make a point to harp on the "Get another room ASAP" when teaching the game last night).
I did play a few solo games, but that lost its charm fairly quickly. For me, at least.
Some other strategy thoughts:
- You can delay family growth a turn or two if there's a super great action now (particularly if you are positive you'll hit the growth space next turn).
- It's not quite a mantra, but "I'll take the two reed" is pretty close.
- Don't expect a lot of food the round prior to a harvest if nobody has a good food producing occupation. Hit the fishing hole the prior turn.
- Is it just me, or do the non-E decks make it a tighter game with respect to food? (That wouldn't be too surprising, but I haven't done the analysis).
- I've taken David's comment on bread baking to heart. Buying an oven and converting 2 grain to 8 food, then sucking up the bake bread action (if you have to), isn't nearly as inefficient as I thought.
Related Posts (on one page):
I've only played a few times, but it doesn't seem like a bad play to go for plowing, grain and an oven early, and then worry about growing.
fighting for WOOD, reed, building, and growth early
Even though I like to procreate as soon as possible, I'm not convinced it's the only way to win. As Mark points out, doing so before you have your food engine in place is counter-productive. I know Mr. Fair is very fond of gaining points from the Major Improvements; I'd be interested in hearing his take on this. The VPs for your kiddies may be indispensible, but getting them late rather than early may not be the Kiss of Death. At any rate, I don't see this as even a slight flaw. I don't rate Agricola quite as high as it's greatest Fan Boi's (it was only my third favorite game last year, behind Brass and Phoenicia), but that's principally because I still find the gameplay somewhat frustrating, probably because my strategies aren't too coherant yet. But I have no problem with the design and still consider it an excellent game.
The reason that I consider the fact that you basically have to grow your family in a timely manner a minor flaw is simply because of the number of actions it takes: at least two to get the wood, one to get the reeds, one to build the house, one to finally get the person. That's 5 actions - and it could easily take an extra one or two - out of your first 12 or so. You can squeeze a little bit of efficiency out of it by accomplishing other things at the same time, but still, roughly a third or more of the effort of the early game is siphoned into one activity which you just have to do.
I don't consider it a serious flaw. But it is a big constraint on the early game, limiting the range of play, and it does often tempt new players to believe that there might be a strategy available which puts off or avoids family growth. But I'm virtually certain there is not. You need to get that first extra person fairly early. The second and later ones can be put off, but doing almost anything requires a fair number of actions, and increasing your capacity to perform them by 50% is huge. Although I like Agricola quite a bit, I do wish getting that first person was just a touch cheaper so it wouldn't dominate the early game to the degree it does. It's tough to see how you could tweak this without upsetting the rest of the game though.
If instead, you concentrated on a food engine, and then worried about increasing your family later, when competition isn't as stiff for wood (heh :)), you might come out ahead. Just a thought. I need to play more before I convince myself of that, but it will be fun trying.
As with many of these games, it's not the destination, but the getting there. Sure you know you need to grow your family, but how do you go about doing efficiently with all that competition? That is where the challenge is.
I get the same feeling from In the Year of the Dragon, you know it's all about the palaces and privileges, but you still need to figure out how to get more then your opponents using all the other auxiliary personages at your disposal.
One thing about "Is a family member break even?" No matter if it's true or not, a family member two turns earlier is two more actions. So if it's close to break even, then being the first is even more important. And, of course, some of the actions spent building the house are worth 1-3 points (avoiding the -1, then up to 2 points if you later renovate. More if you have any bonus points depending on houses).
I've also been starting to like ovens recently, whereas before they seemed to suck.
I think that some method of card distribution other than just dealing 7 of each type, is important, because they are highly important to the outcome. I love drafting the cards, it ensures that each person at least generally ends up with about the same number of good cards, so its pretty fair. Its also very fun.
I'm not fond of the I and Z decks, not because I dont like the interaction, but because the vast majority of cards in those decks are a completely worthless pile of crap. So if you end up with 3 I deck cards in your improvements, its almost like you have only 4 improvements in oyur hand. Unless you get one of the few good ones.