17th Century farming amongst friends - that'll be Agricola

The first get together of the group of us that game at Brians - that's a pretty poor name, but we don't have one so far - the Horsham Gaming Group?? Anyhow, what matters is that we get together and game, so Steve, Nigel W, Nigel H, Brian and myself got together for a game - Nigel W brought round several games he got for Christmas, including an add-on for Agricola. Since Steve and Nigel H hadn't played Agricola before, we thought we'd give it a go. This time we played with the Minor Improvements and Occupations cards which did have a big effect on the game play as they combined with the Round cards - for example Nigel W had a card that meant every time he collected wood, he also got a food token.

It was a good, but long game - totalling about 3hrs from talking about the rules and explaining game play to finishing and score; the game was won by Nigel W; with Brian, Nigel H, Steve then Me - I use illness as my excuse as I had a head and chest cold coming! :-)

Agricola is a great game - although I am used to the Family Rules and found that the Occupations and Minor Improvements cards made a fairly complex game slightly harder to play, but that is probably down to inexperience on the cards - although the cards do introduce a further element of chance to the game because the cards are dealt randomly.

Look forward to the next game!

Mid game - I place a mid board pasture for my sheep!
Brian is top and Nigel H is to the right