Agricola
Man, it’s been too too long. No Star Wars tonight, and I has a sad, but I’d almost forgotten how great this is. I did, however, forget how to win the darned thing. We keep our little score sheets so I went through them after losing, and sure enough, I’ve been good at this game in the past.
I have the Farmers on the Moor stuff in the box, but I think we played it just once or twice. Too much too much, so we just played the basic game again. Plus a bunch of expansion cards because they were shuffled in.
Now I want to just play Agricola exclusively for the next six months.
I know like, four people who play this semi-regularly, and also Smallworld, and have somehow never played either. I can’t help but take it as an indictment of my personality.
Have you tried Caverna?
I cannot get into these worker placement games, they just feel like multi-player solitaire to me.
I feel you Paul. I really miss having pals around to regularly play it.
For two players I prefer Fields of Arle. Played Caylus again recently, that game is hard.
Rob Brennan the thing about them that’s brilliant to me is that the interactivity is all in strategically balancing taking up the spots that you need and taking up space to block your opponents’ plans.
Joseph Le May yeah I get that, I donno what I am missing. Maybe I have never mastered them enough to see the board position well enough to understand what is going to be a good blocking position that pays off more than the opportunity cost to me of making a sub-optimal move for my own game/VP.
Edit: it could be that I just prefer more randomness so such forward planning is not rewarded as much eg I prefer wargames to chess
I don’t play worker placement games enough to get into the proper headspace for them. I’ve only ever played Agricola on iOS, and the notion of acquiring a starving card for my family at any point is suuuuper stressful to me. And I just can’t plan them out. You have to figure out your end state in advance and several of the steps leading up to it, I suppose. I’m more of a fly by the seat of my pants player – or rather someone who over simplifies the end state to “win condition” and looks at only the current condition versus that. (I need animals, so I’m just going to get animals right now.)
I’m a little better at Lords of Waterdeep, but that is simpler. Here are things that get you points. You always see your points versus potential points and no negatives (without the expansion). Easier for me to make micro plans, I suppose.
Yeah, I love the weird self imposed stress of the Starvation card. A triumph of theme! Amazing.
The first time I played it, I wasn’t a parent yet. 2009ish maybe? Adding kids to my family was gut-wrenching. How do I feed them all? How can I afford this? And then watching the synergies of additional actions and feeling reassured it would all work out.
Honestly I don’t know why I love Agricola as much as I do. Maybe it’s the family stress theme, dunno. Never tried Caverna; tbh it’s hard to rationalize both on my shelf.
They are similar, but there are some important differences. I think the structure of Caverna opens it to a greater array of competitive strategic options. Also, since all the buildings are available to all players, it’s a bit more practical to spoil someone else’s strategy by buying the building they need.
Plus, dwarves. Try it out if you get the chance.
One of my favorites, I should break this bad boy out this weekend once I finish my painting for the day… hmm… yep, got to get this to the table more…