Raanana Session Report, in which I teach Agricola

Participants: Laurie, Jon, Daniel, Rochelle

Ellis was in the middle of moving. He should be back next week.

Race for the Galaxy

Laurie 40, Jon 38

I arrived early and Laurie chose this as a two-player game for us. We played with no specific two-player rules, just one role each round.

I picked too many 6 point cards early on and had to toss most of them out. Still, I didn't fare too badly. I played the 6 pointer that makes other developments cost 2 less early on, and then I mistaken played a development which I thought gave me another 2 discount on further developments, but I noticed later that it gave 2 discount on worlds, not developments. That put a kink in my plans.

Laurie meanwhile started taking victory points early and ended the game when I only had 9 buildings out. My second mistake was not to realize that this was going to happen and to build in what was sure to be the last round, instead of uselessly produce. Really, the only thing that bothers me about this game is the way that it suddenly ends and the way one player can rush the ending out under another. I would like the game a lot more if it simply went 12 rounds or something.

Agricola

Daniel 34, Jon 29, Laurie 26, Rochelle 23

We started the explanation for this at around 8:30 and finished the game at just before 12. It's an odd game in that it has a lot to explain, and even during the game there is a sense of being overwhelmed, but the basic flow is easy to grasp. This is in contrast to other games that are difficult to explain but not overwhelming once the game is in play, like Princes of Florence, or remain overwhelming and also hard to understand the flow, like Puerto Rico.

Daniel insisted that we draw and keep our fourteen cards, rather than do something to ameliorate the luck factor, since it would only do to help the newer players. In fact, I drew reasonably well; nobody had any real game killers.

I played unusually with a lot of occupations and minor improvements, all of which helped me get points but not food. I didn't have a good food engine and so occasionally had to scramble for food at the last moment. I played a card early on that gave me four wood but also gave any player who ended the game without any negative points a five point bonus. That seems like overkill, since the person who has no negative points is typically winning anyway. I often end the game with no negative points, so I thought it couldn't hurt me.

Unfortunately, in the last two rounds when I needed at least one of the Plow actions (I had an improvement that let me plow three fields, rather than one), both were taken before I could get them. Not only did this leave me with negative spaces, it also left me scrambling for food, lacking points in the food items (I was also going to plow them, and no one else could effectively plow), and forced me to give up several other items since I had to use my actions elsewhere. It represented at least a 10 point loss for me.

Laurie also experienced people blocking what she needed on various occasions. She finally took the Start Player action, but didn't feel like it did much for her. Daniel is the only one who finished with no negative points, and the five points he got from my occupation card handed him the clear victory.

Day 18: Shabbat in Dallas

Shabbat

Shabbat was with my friend David. He made a vegetarian meal for us (pizza, with a tofu one for me). Friday night we also went to a "tish" reception for a visiting rabbi. Many of the other synagogue members were away for another member's wedding (or something), so it was a low-key reception.

At the tish the ewish geography was thick. I think there comes a point in Jewish geography when it's just a way of turning the conversation back to yourself. "I went to Cornell and ..." "(interrupting) Oh! I have a cousin who went to Cornell!"

Lunch and several shiurim at the synagogue, and I still felt sick, so I slept for nearly the rest of shabbat. We packed up and raced back to BGG.con with the expectation that I was supposed to finish up the scoring and present the award for Spare Squares.

Back at the Con

Like my arrival on Tuesday, everything was already done by the time I got back. Participation in the game was good (over 50 submissions). Most of the entries were in track A, which had 12 perfect scores. The rest were in the other tracks, each of which had a single winner. Owing to wanting to get through the awards ceremony as quickly as possible, Aldie simply announced the winners. I didn't get to tell a joke I had prepared for the announcements.

Still, I shook hands with the winners and heard some good things about the game, which appeared (despite the color problem) to have gone fairly well.

After this, I finally got in touch with the remaining people who were selling me used games.

Nadine and I played a game of Agricola with Jim Ginn and Chris Brooks. Jim played some amazing food production cards, but didn't follow through with the rest of the goods (animals, farm spaces, etc). Nadine didn't seem to move anywhere, except for her clay house. Chris did well with animals and house, etc, but I managed to squeak a 2 point victory over him in the end.

It was a good game, especially the company. Chris and Jim are just two of the nicest people I know.

We left early to go back to the hotel room, eat some kosher frozen dinners, repack for tomorrow, and sleep.

Raanana Session Report in which Abraham wins Agricola because he had better cards

Participants: Jon, Abraham, Ellis, Peleg

Quest Adventure Cards

I promised the company who sent me this game to give this a review. I had tried it once before and found it lacking, so I was determined to try it one more time. It was still lacking.

Abraham and I gamely gave it a go. We drew random cards and played them whenever we could. We ran into some rules questions, which didn't matter too much.

And then, simply by luck, the game ended before we could score the  last quest, which resulted in a tie. Even though I was winning by a great number of points. Even if Abraham could have ended it, he had no incentive to do so.

Agricola

Abraham 39, Jon 24, Ellis 24, Peleg 21

First plays for Ellis and Peleg, something like third or fourth play for Abraham.

I found it a challenge to explain the game as simply as possible, even though Ellis and Peleg are both pretty smart gamers. But we started without too much trouble and everything ran pretty smoothly. Still, a few finer points of the scoring rules tripped at least Ellis up around the game's end.

Since it was the first play for two out of the four players, we simply dealt 7 occupations and minor improvements to each player, rather than do any kind of draft, which is what we would normally (and really must) do. As a result, everyone but Abraham had one or two good cards and the rest mediocre of useless cards. Abraham ended up with god-like cards, including a free early family member, lots of free early food (and the Well, nearly for free), and bonus points up the wazoo.

Abraham scored more bonus points than I've ever seen in a game - 19, but we all really thought he would be scoring even more than that. As we watched them pile up, I was sure that he was at least 10 to 20 points ahead of the nearest competitor, who I was pretty sure was me. (In fact, he would have scored another 5 bonus points if everyone didn't allow me to take back a play I made on the last round in favor of a better play that blocked him.)

Abraham's board was complete, but mostly minimum, and he scored only 12 points for people and nothing for buildings. Ellis also had an even, mostly minimum board with a full people count but only 1 bonus point. Peleg also had an even, minimum board, but he had 8 empty board spaces, which counteracted his 4 room stone house. And only 1 bonus point. I had minimum in most things, maximum vegetables, a full board, a clay house, full people, and 8 bonus points.

Ellis wasn't looking terribly impressed, mostly because Abraham had a good early lead from his cards and there wasn't much we could do about it. However, the prospect of drafting cards appeared to spark his interest in giving the game another go.

Agricola Gone Bad

I taught my brother how to play Agricola this afternoon, taking off a few hours of from working.

Two-player is certainly tougher than three-player. Wood and clay are in short supply. We proved that some occupations are simply better than others. I had the one that, whenever I took a wheat, I got a free plowed field. Come on. That's better than an extra clay or stone when taking the clay or stone action, without question.

I had a food supply chugging fairly early, while my brother had to struggle for food for most of the game. Partly this was due to my occupation, but also because at a certain point I took the fireplace he needed, and he didn't have the extra clay to take the other one. From his perspective of having played only one game, he blames that action for his inability to catch up the entire game. I'm not so sure about that. I think he just doesn't see the available options in the game, yet.

I ended at 46 to his 28, but he should have had more; we forgot that he was supposed to get 3 foods for free on the last three turns, which would have made quite a difference in his last actions. So give him another 6 points or so, and I still won, but after all, it was his first game and my seventh.

He seemed willing to try it again, at least. Despite being pretty sure that once you've fallen behind, you can't catch up. Which is not always a bad thing, although it may be frustrating.

Webcamming the BGG.con: Intercontinental Agricola

Chris Brooks, Jim Ginn, and I sat down to play Agricola using two games, two computers, and 8,000 miles of network connections.

Agricola is the number one game on Board Game Geek, displacing Puerto Rico a few months ago. Is it that good? It's very, very good, but perhaps not quite as good as Puerto Rico. It surpassed Puerto Rico on Board Game Geek partly due to the "cult of the new" effect: a more recent item scores somewhat higher than a less recent item. More people are now on Board Game Geek and submitting rankings, there has been less time for backlash to the game and for known problems to crop up, and there is more hype in the online world than there used to be.

I played in my dining room in Jerusalem. Chris and Jim set up in a side room at BGG.con in a Westin hotel near Dallas Fort Worth airport. The connection was a little squawky, the video a little fuzzy. My dog took inopportune moments to bark at the top of her voice. And it took a second or so for the information to travel the 8,000 miles of wired and wireless connections.

But in the end it worked really well. I could see them and a bit of their layout, and they could see my handsome face. We could hear each other well. We played at a good pace. The game was a great game, we all had around the same experience level, and we all scored fairly closely in the end.

I lay out my board and kept the family tokens for Chris and Jim near the boards to mark actions as they played them, as well as the cards that they played. I didn't keep track of their boards, relying on general memory and my fuzzy view of their setup. I knew about when they were filling up their board, and I knew roughly when they had room for more family members. They lay out a complete board for me, and we synchronized once in a while to ensure we both had the same layouts. A few times we needed to correct.

They dealt out my cards, reading me the numbers and holding my card up to the screen so I could find it in my own deck (we only played the "I" deck). They didn't know the deck well enough to gain any advantage from glancing quickly at my cards to read the numbers. Whenever they played their cards, they read out the name and number of the card and I found the copy in my deck; they did the same for my cards.

Chris Twittered before the game, and I Twittered before and during the game. As a result of Chris's tweets, we got a few visitors before and during the game, including Aldie and a host of people, and Derk, and Mischa. Aldie and someone else took pictures of our setup, including Chris's Macbook with my picture in the video window.

Jim played a lot of cards with very high synergy, something I've never managed to achieve. Most of them weren't worth any victory points. But they gave him bonuses for plowing and sowing, and he had the stone oven, so he had no food worries throughout the game. One of his cards also gave both Chris and me several wheat during the game, so we also had little in the way of food worries, too. I solved the rest of my food worries by fencing in four sheep, buying a fireplace, and fishing once for 7 food. Chris had a few more worries, as he never got to a fireplace, although he did get a well and fish once for 6 food.

I swiped a lot of the early wood, which allowed me to expand my house first and add family members first. The others soon followed, however. I was one round ahead in my family members, which helped. Somehow, I finally managed to get to a clay house. The stone house was easy, as one of the few cards that I played let me take extra stone when I took stone. I also took two other major improvements, purely for the victory points.

Three-player turns out to be somewhat less tense than four- or two-player. I didn't feel hindered very often during the game. Once or twice Chris or Jim took something I wanted, but only once or twice. I had a slew of stuff ready to go on the last round of the game, expecting to get most, but not all, of it done, but I got all of it done. This was because Chris's first three moves on the last round were all on the basic board, taking one reed, one occupation, and one minor improvement. That left the major actions free for me and Jim.

In the end, Jim scored maximum for food items, some animals, plowed fields, and no empty spaces, but only a few points for bonus cards. He won with 44 points. I had one empty spot, filling in four of my last spaces with a plowed field and a three space pasture. I had one or two of all the animals, a few veggies, one grain, all my people, four stone rooms, and seven points in bonus cards for a total of 43 points. So close, but I'm used to losing by one point. I didn't see Chris's point breakdown, but his having to scramble for food in a few of the rounds hurt, and he ended with 37 points.

Thanks again to Chris for taking the time and effort to help me be a part of BGG.con . Still too bad I can't pick up my BGG.con door prize, though.

2 Player Agricola is as Good as Multi-player

I got in a game of Agricola with Nadine this afternoon. Works very well with two players.

The game felt nearly identical to the two four-player games I had played. The biggest difference was the severe lack of wood, which is needed for so many things, from building early houses to fences to many minor improvements.

I'm guessing that you're supposed to steal the first-player token in order to solve this problem. But nearly every time one of us wanted to do this, we had no minor improvement to play, which would have meant an entire action just to take the token. Which felt wrong.

Speaking of which, a slew of the cards that say they play for 1+ players looked like they should really have been marked for 3+ players only. I'm going to go through them and assess them and maybe make some corrections.

But otherwise, it was as good as the multi-player game. For what it's worth.

Session Report, in which our group is introduced to Agricola

The latest Jerusalem Strategy Gaming Club session report is up. Games played: Agricola.

They liked it.

Hungarian Gamers Taught me Agricola

I played with Scott (originally from England), Miki (from Nikolaus), and Akos (pronounced Akoosh) on the second Saturday afternoon at my apt in Budapest. All three were lovely, fun players, and nice socially, a perfect combination of serious play while keeping the atmosphere moving and fun. If this is what the Hungarian gaming scene represents, I want more of it.

Their game group meets biweekly and attracts 20 or so participants.

Scott brought me a quite unexpected gift: a Hungarian board game called Atilla vagy Aetius? which is not on the Geek, is in Hungarian, and has no English translation. I'm waiting for Scott to send me a translation so that I can give it a try.

We played It's Alive, Agricola, and one round of the Mu (and More) games.

It's Alive

I introduced them to my game. I think it went over pretty well, although they didn't ask for a second game.

We did the occasional buying and dumping of cards, but they were all very into auctions. A great number of the cards were auctioned off for their face value, sometimes higher. I eventually picked up on this and did some auctioning of my own. Money kept going around, but I only managed to get a little of it.

Miki ended the game by completing his board, But Scott had a vast reserve of cash (he couldn't count his last two coins), and he won the game by two points. Akus and I were further behind.

Agricola

This was my first play of the pretender to the BGG throne for most desired game. Luckily they had an English copy; much of the game is language independent, but the cards are intensively language dependent, and they are integral to the game.

Rules

The goal is to earn the most points by the end of the 14th round. Each round players place workers on available actions. One new action, and all previous actions, are available each round. Each action can hold one worker, and so can be used only once per round. Each player has two workers, unless they acquire more during the game.

When you place your worker, you get the benefit of the action: one or more resources, tiles, cards or activities. Resources such as wheat or stone allow you to feed your workers or do activities. Tiles, such as plowed fields, allow you to do other activities. Cards give you benefits when you perform actions or take resources, but cost resources to utilize. Activities net you resources, workers, or tiles, but cost resources or tiles to utilize.

After turns 4, 7, 9, 11, 13, and 14 you lose three points for each worker you can't feed (food gets used up). At the end of the game you lose a point for every resource or tile type that you don't have, or unused space on your board. You gain 1-4 points each for each resource and tile type you possess, and for having played certain cards.

Since the limit is 4 points for each type of resource and tile type, there is no sense ending with more of any resource or tile type than is necessary. A minimum of one of each type is recommended, since the first not only eliminates the -1 point but gains you 1 point; any subsequent one gains you only 1 point, at most.

That's the nutshell, and if you see Caylus in the above, there's a good reason for that. The worker placement, and thus the heart of the game is Caylus.

There is one very important additional mechanic: the cards. While a few cards are available to all players like Puerto Rico buildings, most of the 200 or so cards are not. Each player is dealt 14 cards at the beginning of the game, and those are available only to them. These private cards function a bit like alien powers in Cosmic Encounter. They not only give you special abilities (if you play them) that others don't have access to, they also shape the strategies and tactics you will use during the game. Since there are so many cards, and so few used each game, and so many different combinations that may be available to you, each game you play will be somewhat different. Very nice.

Reactions

I enjoyed the game, as I expected, but the real question is: is it better than Puerto Rico? My short answer is: I don't think so.

I've only played one game, so it's rather too early to tell. My first game took around 3 hours; that is too long for Caylus, a game I liked the first time I played it, but fairly quickly grew to dislike. I'm fairly sure that I won't grow to dislike Agricola quite so fast, and I fairly hope that I will grow to like it even more. It's too soon to tell.

There were a number of things I liked about the game: I liked the personal cards, and I liked the tight choices you had to make. The game appeared to be nicely balanced, with many many possible routes to take. As such, it looked hard to really screw someone by taking what they needed most; that's actually not necessarily a good thing.

There were a number of things I didn't like about the game, but, being that this was my first play, it may be that I'm mistaken about them: Because of the -1 points for every single type of resource and tile, and the general low scores of the game, you simply need to have at least one of nearly everything, and most of your game board covered. That makes a whole lot of decisions in the game moot, since you may spend the last few rounds taking all the things you didn't take at the beginning or middle of the game, which makes for dull play.

The second is that all of those options look pretty similar to me. I spent a number of rounds looking at the available options and saying "2 points if I do this, 2 points if I do that, and 2 points if I do this other thing. Hmmmm..." This might be my inexperience, however.

I'm already thinking of reworking the scoring in the game, but I will prudently hold of until I've played a few more games and read some articles on the Geek.

Our Game

In our game, I came in last, but only by a few points, so I felt ok about that. Final scores were something like 34 to 33 to 31 to 28. I concentrated on stone buildings, cards with points, and gaining new workers as soon as possible (which is just not that easy). I pretty much ignored all farming. Meanwhile, others were farming or fencing a lot of land, which gave them points in those areas. It was close, as you see, so I'm not entirely sure that my strategy wasn't a workable one.

Mu

We had little time left, so I learned one of the games from Mu and More, and we played one hand. I did spectacularly poorly again. The game was a fairly simple trick taking game, fun enough but nothing extraordinary at first glance. Lack of partnerships was a big factor.

Yehuda