Agricola

Today's review is of the 2007 release, Agricola. For 1-5 players, it takes 30-150 minutes.

Overview

You are a farming couple struggling to survive. Starting with a plot of land and wooden shack, your goal is to survive—no, thrive—by building the homestead through plowing and sowing, animal husbandry, home improvement/expansion, and maybe even a trade or two. If you have the most points at the end of the game (14 rounds), you win!

Agricola is a worker placement game. You start with two workers, a 3x5 homestead with two wooden shacks on it, and a common board with ten possible placement positions to start. On your turn, you place one worker on an available slot and collect the resource(s) or perform the action shown. Players proceed clockwise, placing workers until all are on the board. Then workers are removed, resources replenish (additively if none are taken in a given round), a new placement option comes out, and the next round begins (unless it's harvest time—see below). 

Placement options include (but are not limited to) collecting resources (wood, brick, reed, ore, wheat, food, etc.), obtaining animals (sheep, cattle, boar), building (fences, stables, additions to the home), growing the family, plowing fields, sowing crops, and more. You could also play occupation or minor improvement cards (which are dealt randomly at the start of the game), which can provide much-needed assistance. You could also buy a major improvement (like a stove that allows you to turn animals into food); the possibilities are many. You'll need resources of all kinds, so place wisely!

game in progress; image from here

After rounds 4, 7, 9, 11, 13, and 14, it is harvest time. Each player harvests their fields (if applicable), feeds their family (paying two food per member or taking begging card(s) if they cannot), and breeds their animals (if possible). 

At the end of round 14 there is a final harvest and then points are tallied. Highest total wins!

Review

I was excited to finally play this classic game; I wasn't disappointed. It is brutal (I couldn't feed my family one harvest and it cost me), and there is a lot going on, but there are always meaningful choices and interesting options. Replayability is high due to the 1) variability of placement cards and 2) occupation/minor improvement cards. As a new player, I felt like I was stabbing in the dark at a strategy, but I got the hang of things as the game progressed (and sense that your occupation/minor improvement cards go a long way towards dictating how you play a given game). There is a sense of urgency with only 14 rounds, making it play quickly.

A minor downside: the first player definitely has an advantage each round, and you need to spend a worker to take that mantle. Overall, though, this time-tested classic (which saw a revised version released in 2016, many expansions, and a deluxe version come out in the last year) is a winner.

Rating: A-