Double game of Agricola!

This evening was a bit of a double whammy - two games of Agricola being played at the same time around Nigel Woods house :) We split the table down the middle into basically Basic Agricola and Advanced Agricola - which used the Farmers of the Moor add on. Playing advanced was Nigel Wood (The undisputed champion of Agricola), Brian, Steve and Andy whilst Paul, Nigel Heather and myself played the basic version. It went off really well because it gave the more experienced players a chance to play together whilst us lesser experienced guys could muddle through the rules together and ask the others if we got stuck.

Our game progressed smoothly and Paul turned out to be an adept player, even though he had only really played solo. Nigel's farm packed a punch in the end, but Paul won with me coming up 3rd as I couldn't seem to generate enough wheat or veg!

Nigel Wood (left) and Brian thinking about their next move
whilst Steves hand goes to pick something up

Our gaming table - Paul red, Nigel Heather blue and myself red

Across the pond, the other game progresses

Nigels farm suddenly seemed to increase in size whilst mine stood still!

Up coming dual game of Agricola

Nigel Wood posted around an email stating he was setting up a game of Agricola for this Friday (30th) and would be using the latest add on sets. The places were quickly snapped up and I thought I'd lost out. But a few people were also having a few worries about playing the advanced rules. So I had a mini-brain wave and asked if Nigel had enough space to play another game of Agricola using my own copy - but using only minor rules. Luckily there is and a few more people have been added to the play list. Some have decided to play the advanced rules whilst a few have decided to play the less advanced, but still as good, rules. The other good thing is if we find a rule were are unsure of, we have Nigel the undisputed king of Agricola on hand to ask. Looking forward to getting down onto the 16th Century farm again!

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

Pre-Christmas Gaming

 So Christmas is coming and it's time to get some games done and the festivities to begin! Firstly we had a game of 7 Wonders to get back into the swing of gaming. That was won by Kavita with her Hanging Gardens of Babylon wonder. We then had a good game of Apples to Apples - always a great laugh; the current player puts down a card with noun on it and the other players look at their cards with items on and try to match the most appropriate (or funny) card to the noun. Very funny game. Then later in the day we played Agricola - we had a few rounds as Roshni, Kavita and Anita had not played before just so that they can get used to the rules. 

End game - Anita won!

A game of Agricola with Maya!

I have been wanting to play this with the family since it arrived and the other day I managed to play a few rounds with Maya as a test of my knowledge of the game and to see if she could get on with it. Luckily she enjoyed the game enormously and understood the strategy and how to play quite quickly. Today she and I sat down for a full game. In all it took about and hour and half to play but that was because of our lack of experience with the rules. Maya really enjoyed herself - managing to cover her entire farm area with fields, pastures and extra homes! She had a massive amount of sheep and wheat at the end and three family members; I didn't manage to cover my entire farm, also had three family members but also managed to buy up 5 Major Improvements to the farm opposed to her 1 which is what tipped the balance in the end to my win; otherwise Maya would have taken the prize! This is a great family game that looks more complex than it is due to the two stage nature of the rules - the Family set and then the Normal/Advanced set. The Family set is perfect for family play and you could go many times without having to jump up to the Normal/Advanced rules. Glad I bought this!

Agricola! Going cheap!

So I was ULTRA tempted to buy Agricola from Andy on Thursday night - it is a weighty game and contains lots of nice pieces and is well made and a great game - I think the family will get on with it well. Only two things held me back - the high price tag £52 and the fact that all of the markers, animals, food etc are just different coloured cubes - a sheep is a white cube and some wood is a brown cube.

How this would translate whilst teaching the game I didn't know - Nigel and Matt who both have the game suggested getting the wooden "meeples" set, describing them as essential. These are essentially carved wooden pieces representing the animals, wood, food etc. So a sheep looks like a sheep, a boar looks like a boar. The only problem is the cost - about £20! On top of the already £52 of which 50% of the cost would be assigned to the wooden blocks that I wouldn't be using anyway, I could not justify the £72 expenditure. For less than this I can get "Railways of the World" or "Fortune and Glory" - two huge box games.

So I thought, oh well, I'll use others and get it cheap some how. I didn't have to wait long! A few days later, I spotted a second hand Very Good condition copy on Boardgamegeek complete with the wooden meeples! For £30!! Bargain - yes please! I ummed and arrred as usual about buying something - then went for it after Nigel Heathers suggested that I do before someone else snaps it up!! Had that too many times in life; so it's on its way now - £37 including postage, not bad at all...

Games evening at BattleQuestGames

 

Another night of games at Andy's Battlequestgames shop on Thursday night - I want to go and play a demo game of Agricola - a game about family in the 1700's - which doesn't sound that exciting, but its a worker placement game in the same theme as Stone Age and Eketorp which I like. It was a good game made better with the carved animal/wood etc pieces. I almost bought it, but didn't and lucky I didn't! See next post.

We then played a game of Incan Gold - a revamp of Diamant, but last time I played I didn't get on with it. But this time around, with 4 of us, including someone else who had Diamant, it played much better and I enjoyed it.