Agricola

Agricola

A game of Agricola being set up.
Designer	Uwe Rosenberg
Publisher	Lookout Games Z-Man Games 999 Games
Players	1 to 5
Age range	12 and up
Setup time	5–10 minutes
Playing time	30–60 minutes per player
Random chance	Low
Skills required	Economic management, Resource management, Strategic thought

Agricola is a German-style board game created by Uwe Rosenberg, and published by Lookout Games in Europe and Z-Man Games in the US. The aim of the game is to have the most well-balanced farm at the end of 14 turns, with ploughed fields, pastures, grain, vegetables and animals all present, with as little fallow land as possible, with a house with many rooms and higher quality material, and with as many family members as possible.

The game was released at Spiel 2007, where it was voted second-best game shown at the convention, according to the Fairplay in-show voting.^[1] The game was released in English by Z-Man Games in July 2008.^[2]

Agricola won the Spiel des Jahres special award for "Best complex game 2008"^[3] and the 2008 Deutscher Spiele Preis.^[4] It was also the game which finally ended Puerto Rico's run of more than five years as the highest-rated game on the board game website BoardGameGeek.^[5]

Gameplay

Each player begins with a small two-room farm house and a family of two. This entitles them to two actions per round, such as gathering building materials, ploughing or sowing fields, extending their house, building improvements. The initial number of different actions available varies according to how many are playing. An action can only be played once in each round.

Each player is also dealt two sets of seven cards: one for occupations, such as woodcutter, bread seller, rat catcher, etc.; and one for minor improvements, such as a fishing pole, an improved plough, a bean field and so on, which grant them small advantages over the other players. Alternatively, the variant known as the "family game" can be played without the use of Minor Improvement cards and Occupation cards to keep game play simpler.

There are 169 different occupations, and 139 different minor improvements, so the game will play differently every time.

As the game progresses, and players increase their house size, they can then create new family members, which then allows more actions during each round. Also, as the game progresses, more actions spaces become available to take, including the ability to acquire vegetables and animals (sheep, wild boar, and cattle) for planting, breeding and cooking.

Every few rounds there is a harvest turn, where crops are reaped, animals bred and, most importantly, where each family member must be fed. This represents the most challenging aspect of the game, as failure to feed a family member has disastrous consequences on a player's game-end score.

Expansions

Major Expansions

• Farmers of the Moor - Released at Essen 2009, Farmers of the Moor replaces the minor improvements and occupations from the base game with many new major and minor improvements. Horses can now be collected and bred like normal animals, and are worth one point each at the end of the game. Houses now must also be heated by using fuel, which can be harvested from peat bogs now located around the farmyard.

Minor Expansions

• CZ-Deck - 12 Occupation and 12 Minor Improvement cards as part of a Czech Republic-themed expansion deck. Currently available only in German and Czech.
• L-Deck – 14-card promotional deck available electronically; nine were commercially printed and given away individually at Essen 2008.
• Ö-Deck – 12 Occupation and 12 Minor Improvement cards distributed with Österreicher (Austrian) printings of the game.
• X-Deck – Four cards of five different types (Alien Actions, Merchants from Outer Space, Alien Artifacts, Alien Events, and Alien Occupations), released with Spielbox Magazine: 2008 issue 5.
• Z-Deck – 12 Occupation and 12 Minor Improvement cards distributed with early printings by Z-Man Games, and as a promotional item.
• Through the Seasons – Small 4-space board printed on a postcard and given away at Essen 2008.

References

External links

• Agricola home page by Z-Man Games
• Agricola at BoardGameGeek