# Agricola



## MerricB (Sep 3, 2008)

My copy of Agricola arrived last night. I've played it before, but this is the first look I've had at the English edition. It's not that different from the German version, except everything is in English!

It remains a great, great game - worthy enough to dethrone Puerto Rico as the #1 game at Boardgamegeek.com







Here's the session report for the solo games I played last night: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/337684

And, for my experiences further back, you can see
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/306204
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/306369

Cheers!


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## Wycen (Sep 3, 2008)

When I first saw those scores I was like, "How?" and then I saw those were solo scores.

I've played it twice.  Got about 30 points the first time and 18 the second.  Really had too many open fields, but I was dealt a crappy hand that I didn't know how to play.


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## Blackrat (Sep 3, 2008)

So it's a boardgame about being a farmer? Intriqueing... Sounds just absurd enough that I might like it. Thanks Merric, I hadn't even heard about this before, but you got me interested. Have to try it out.


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## bobthehappyzombie (Sep 3, 2008)

It is a very good game, well worth the £40 I payed for it at Gencon.
It always seems to end too soon, just when everything starts comming together the game ends... If you are thinking this is a easy game, think again it is easy to learn but is very complex strategically.

Oh and how come I only got coloured cubes and not fluffy sheep in my version .... outragious!


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## scitadel (Sep 4, 2008)

bobthehappyzombie said:


> Oh and how come I only got coloured cubes and not fluffy sheep in my version .... outragious!



Not a joking thing for me.  Mistakenly thought the first edition had it, and then realised it didn't unless you pre-ordered from Z-Man. And told some customers that. Luckily, caught one but missed the other one. *sighs* Fun, fun.

As for the game itself, a friend bought their copy and I've played it a few times. I definitely like it more than PR (though I must admit, it was never the #1 game for me anyway) but yeah, it ends way too soon. Still, the fact that it plays so fast is cool. Let's it get onto the table a lot more.


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## Wycen (Sep 4, 2008)

I play with board game geeks.  That is, they order Euro games before they are available in the US and then get translations.  So both my games so far are with the Euro version.  It doesn't have meeples, just blocks.

The US version has nice pieces apparently and also has a few more cards from the Euro version.  I would also hope the translation is smoother than ours.

The BGG's in our group went to Target and bought bunchs of barnyard animals to represent the various animals and chickens to represent food.


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## MerricB (Sep 4, 2008)

I first played Agricola with Melissa's translation (she's almost a neighbour... only a couple of hours drive away), but now have the new Z-Man set. My copy has the Z deck, a few bonus cards, but no animeeples. I believe the animeeples will be available from other retailers separately, but I'm fine without them.

I can always use the camels from _Traders & Barbarians_, I guess...

Cheers!


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## Jan van Leyden (Sep 4, 2008)

Blackrat said:


> So it's a boardgame about being a farmer? Intriqueing... Sounds just absurd enough that I might like it. Thanks Merric, I hadn't even heard about this before, but you got me interested. Have to try it out.




Yes, it's about being a farmer - in Germany after the 30 Years War, that is. You start out with two persons, a small wooden hut, and a handful of food points.

Each member of your family can take one action per season, each action on the expanding board can be taken by one person ony; similar to Caylus, e.g.

At the end of the game your farm will be jugded according to a set of criteria, each criterium gaining you from -1 to +3 points. You score additional points for the number of family members, the size and quality of your house, and several other factors.

The basic problem is that you have to regularly feed your family, but on the other hand want to invest their turns in building your farm up.

Say you want to go the bread route for feeding. You have to plow a feed (1. action), get some grain (2. action), and plant it (3. action). Oh, and you'd better have an oven to be able to bake some bread from your harvestend stuff. This three actions in a given sequence are not alway easy to pull of.

This is the basic set up for every payer. Additionally you are dealt a set of cards: 7 Careers, and 7 Minor Investments. These cards give you advantages, but you have to - you guessed it - invest an action and possibly some food (the game's currency) to bring it into play.

Agricola is basically a game of ressource management and planned growth. While the opponents can not actively hurt you (there is only one card in the german game which causes players to lose something), there are only so few of the interesting/absolutely neccessary actions per turn, and so many players wanting to use them.

If you like games like Puerto Rico or Caylus, you'll probalby love Agricola, too.


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## bobthehappyzombie (Sep 4, 2008)

MerricB said:


> I first played Agricola with Melissa's translation (she's almost a neighbour... only a couple of hours drive away), but now have the new Z-Man set. My copy has the Z deck, a few bonus cards, but no animeeples. I believe the animeeples will be available from other retailers separately, but I'm fine without them.
> 
> I can always use the camels from _Traders & Barbarians_, I guess...
> 
> Cheers!




I wondered what those Z cards were.


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## Cadfan (Sep 4, 2008)

Actually, you can actively hurt your opponents if you want- if you realize that they need, say, two cows to finish their cattle breeding program, you can buy the two cows before they can and make tons of hamburger.  Then you eat delicious hamburger while they shriek in rage.


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## Jan van Leyden (Sep 5, 2008)

Cadfan said:


> Actually, you can actively hurt your opponents if you want- if you realize that they need, say, two cows to finish their cattle breeding program, you can buy the two cows before they can and make tons of hamburger.  Then you eat delicious hamburger while they shriek in rage.




Right, but not "hurting" in the sense of killing their family members, torching their fields or slaughtering their animals, i.e. actively taking something away from them.

The only thing you can take away is their chance do to something by blocking that action. This _can_ really hurt because of the long sequence of actions you have to perform to achieve something, but this usually happens because the active player needs this action too, not because he wants to hurt someone.


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## Cadfan (Sep 5, 2008)

Jan van Leyden said:


> The only thing you can take away is their chance do to something by blocking that action. This _can_ really hurt because of the long sequence of actions you have to perform to achieve something, but this usually happens because the active player needs this action too, not because he wants to hurt someone.



That all depends on how you play.


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## MichaelSomething (Sep 20, 2008)

I also must say that Agricola is a very good game.  It's totally awesome!


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## blargney the second (Sep 20, 2008)

I can't read about this game without thinking about:
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8c5zcntb8AU]YouTube - Ricola TV Commercial[/ame]
-blarg


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## Korgoth (Sep 22, 2008)

This may seem shallow, but I opened a demo copy at my FLGS (non-RPG) and... there weren't any little sheep!

See, the cantankerous-looking sheep on the cover of the box makes me want the game. But the absence of any actual wooden toy sheep makes the game seem totally boring.

I can play with blocks without paying 70 dollars!


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## Zoatebix (Sep 22, 2008)

Expecting some sheep, eh?  At least you weren't expecting a game about the campaigns of Gnaeus Julius Agricola


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## Korgoth (Sep 22, 2008)

Zoatebix said:


> Expecting some sheep, eh?  At least you weren't expecting a game about the campaigns of Gnaeus Julius Agricola




No, I know my latin well enough to know that an agricola is a farmer. And I can tell that the guy on the cover isn't a Roman.


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## scitadel (Sep 22, 2008)

Korgoth said:


> This may seem shallow, but I opened a demo copy at my FLGS (non-RPG) and... there weren't any little sheep!
> 
> See, the cantankerous-looking sheep on the cover of the box makes me want the game. But the absence of any actual wooden toy sheep makes the game seem totally boring.
> 
> I can play with blocks without paying 70 dollars!




Well, if you want to spend another (MSRP) $15, in October you should see some "WOODEN FARM ANIMAL SET(s) (60PCS)" on sale.  Aka Animeeples.  Just got the pre-order sheet from our distributors.


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## DonTadow (Sep 26, 2008)

scitadel said:


> Well, if you want to spend another (MSRP) $15, in October you should see some "WOODEN FARM ANIMAL SET(s) (60PCS)" on sale.  Aka Animeeples.  Just got the pre-order sheet from our distributors.




I've been dodging this game with my wife.  she loves it. I think its good, real good, and its a top ten game, but I am not a fan of the setup and the small selection of the 400 cards you use every game.


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## Felon (Oct 1, 2008)

Played it at DragonCon a month ago. It was pretty great.


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## oni no won (Oct 6, 2008)

It looks interesting but the price turns me off though the price seems justified (lots of components).


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## Cadfan (Oct 6, 2008)

oni no won said:


> It looks interesting but the price turns me off though the price seems justified (lots of components).



That's fair.  Although you can probably get it for a little less than 50 bucks if you buy from an online discounter.


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## MerricB (Oct 6, 2008)

oni no won said:


> It looks interesting but the price turns me off though the price seems justified (lots of components).




I have trouble getting everything back in the box, and it's a pretty big box.

Tons of replayability as well.

Cheers!


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## Simplicity (Oct 14, 2008)

I have this game and I love it.  Strategically very intense, yet easy to understand and explain.  Also it's playable in a fairly short amount of time.
I'd really like to try it with more than two players, but I've never found the opportunity.

My wife (not someone who likes boardgames) tolerates it, which is a nice plus.  We've played the family game a couple of times and played the E-deck once.  I've also played a couple of solo E-deck games.

As for the pieces, I went the FIMO route and built myself a nice set of farmer families and resources.  I was rather surprised that they came out so well considering I'd never even touched FIMO before...


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## MerricB (Oct 14, 2008)

Glad to hear it!

Game time is about 30 minutes per player; our 5-player games last over two hours.

Cheers!


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## Shade (Oct 24, 2008)

We played our first few games of this the other night.

A few observations (on the 3-player game):

1.)  He who controls the wood, probably wins.
2.)  Don't get caught up in occupations (unless you have the occupation that gives victory points for all successive occupations played).
3.)  Grow those families fast!

All in all, a great game, although the components leave *much* to be desired.  It's difficult to tell wood from clay.  If you can get animeeples, by all means get them!


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## Simplicity (Oct 28, 2008)

Shade said:


> We played our first few games of this the other night.
> 
> A few observations (on the 3-player game):
> 
> ...




Oh, my.  I once thought as you did...

My wife and I were playing and she acquired the "Hedge Keeper" occupation.  Basically, it gave her three extra fences whenever she built one.  So, she took almost all of the wood in the game and had a HUGE number of animals at her disposal.  I, on the other hand had a few sheep, a couple grain, and a couple of vegetables.  I won the game because I managed to upgrade my house to stone using my occupations and because I got a lot of card bonus points.  

Wood is not the be-all end all.  But it does help...


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## Agamon (Oct 31, 2008)

I've only played the game once, but some of my buddies at the club have played many times and own the game.  They seemed a bit peeved at the outrageous price for the vegemeeples.  $15 seems a bit much for some meeples.  At least they pre-ordered and got the animeeples.


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## Cadfan (Oct 31, 2008)

Meeples are surprisingly expensive when they're made in limited runs.  Check out meeplepeople.com to get an idea of the pricing.  Even in bulk, you're looking at 15 to 20 cents a meeple, and there are a lot of vegetables and grain in the game.


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## Agamon (Nov 2, 2008)

Cadfan said:


> Meeples are surprisingly expensive when they're made in limited runs.  Check out meeplepeople.com to get an idea of the pricing.  Even in bulk, you're looking at 15 to 20 cents a meeple, and there are a lot of vegetables and grain in the game.




Makes sense, it's just like anything else that's normally mass produced.  But still, you'd have to be diehard to spend what amounts to a quarter if the game's price to make it look cooler.

Then again, I've spent enough on Rock Band DLC to buy the game twice over again, so I can't say the offer to sell tiny pumpkins and grain for the game is illogical.

Funny they went with pumpkins, I always thought of the veggies as carrots.  Pumpkins look better and stand up more easily, I guess.


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## caldariprime (Nov 8, 2008)

we've played a few games of this so far, noticed that although it's the game of farming, the best (seemingly) strategy for a win revolves around the stone house route, you can pretty much ignore all of the other things, maybe picking up a grain or veggie here and there, once one player starts on this route, it's almost always a runaway victory with points in the 40s or 50s.
Building enables you to get extra actions (building rooms to house more family members), which then allow you to gather even more materials to build with, and house even more family members. 
fences appear to be strong as a way to get around having empty farmyard spaces (generally as an action in the last couple of turns after stockpiling wood)
If you haven't done so yet, take a look at the "x" deck, it's hilarious.
occupations are really important at the start of the game, especially the interactive ones, or any that give free food or ways to get free goods (a good food engine is important, even if involves leeching from other playes via occupations, the sycophant is great at this, as is the slaughterman) 
minor improvements appear to be unimportant, the only time it seems viable to play them is on some of the spaces that allow you to do other things as well.


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## Cadfan (Nov 8, 2008)

You can't do just a stone house strategy.  You have to eat.  Anyone who is winning with the points from a stone house is also running some other strategy.


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## Simplicity (Nov 17, 2008)

Cadfan said:


> You can't do just a stone house strategy.  You have to eat.  Anyone who is winning with the points from a stone house is also running some other strategy.




I've won with just a large stone house and pretty much nothing else.
Although I had occupations that helped.  Sometimes I try to get a clay/stone oven so that the food is taken care of and THEN go for the stone house...


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## Wycen (Nov 20, 2008)

Played my first game with the english version this week.  We had originally set up a two player game with the Euro version, then a 3rd person showed up and we dealed him in.  

Then the owners of the english version showed up and we decided to check it out.

So we had 6 players, 2 being on one team, the owners.  They've played who knows how many times so I expected I wouldn't be winning.

With 5 players it was much more competitive.  I couldn't get wood, or at least not big stacks until I took the 1st players mark.  I never got beyond wood rooms and small fenced pastures.  

I also learned something "new" or something that I hadn't learned from previous plays.  Of course, I don't usually read the rules to the games we play, so I'm at the mercy of those who did, so I still have no idea if this is correct or not.  Apparently, when 2 animals are in a space they make a baby and continue until the end of the game.  All my previous plays held that they would reproduce once.  And/or 1 animal multiplies in a space by itself?  But maybe I'm mixing up Zooloreto or something.

I think I came in last, maybe 2nd to last.


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## MerricB (Nov 21, 2008)

Wycen said:


> I also learned something "new" or something that I hadn't learned from previous plays.  Of course, I don't usually read the rules to the games we play, so I'm at the mercy of those who did, so I still have no idea if this is correct or not.  Apparently, when 2 animals are in a space they make a baby and continue until the end of the game.  All my previous plays held that they would reproduce once.  And/or 1 animal multiplies in a space by itself?  But maybe I'm mixing up Zooloreto or something.




The harvest phase works like this:

1) Field Phase: you take the top grain or vegie off every stack planted in your fields and add that to your supply.

2) Feeding Phase: you feed your families. Each family member needs 2 food, 1 if newborn. Each food you don't have means taking a begging card (-3 points) which is bad.

3) Breeding phase: If you have 2 or more of any type of animal, for each of those types you get another of that type providing you have the room to hold it. So, if you have 2 or more sheep, you get another sheep, but not if you have 0-1 sheep. If you have 4 sheep, you still only get one new sheep. The animals don't have to be together in the same pasture to make a new animal.

Cheers!


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## Wycen (Nov 21, 2008)

Thanks Merric.

Of course now I'm remembering something else.

How many animals can stay in a square which: has no fence around it, hasn't been plowed/sown and has that little building on it, (barn or stable)?  I had 2 pigs in 1 field with the stable.  Someone then moved one of them into my other field with stable at the end of the game scoring phase.


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## MerricB (Nov 21, 2008)

Wycen said:


> Thanks Merric.
> 
> Of course now I'm remembering something else.
> 
> How many animals can stay in a square which: has no fence around it, hasn't been plowed/sown and has that little building on it, (barn or stable)?  I had 2 pigs in 1 field with the stable.  Someone then moved one of them into my other field with stable at the end of the game scoring phase.




Entire house: 1 animal
Stable with no fence: 1 animal
Fenced square with no stable: 2 animals
Fenced square with 1 stable: 4 animals
Fenced pasture with 2 stables: 8 animals

The last is possible if the stables are in two separate squares, and the fences enclose both squares in the same pasture.

Cheers!


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## Wycen (Nov 21, 2008)

Hmm.  Thanks.


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## Crothian (May 26, 2009)

Played for the first time today with one other person.  Neither of us had played so we muddled our way through.  

One question we didn't have an answer for is when fencing an area is there a limit to the amount of area?  For instance I had just stacks of wood and it was late in the game so I was looking at scoring and saw that empty spaces are bad.  I then used 12 pieces of wood to fence in a 3 by 3 square.  I don't know if it was legal, the rules don't say anything about it but all the pictures we've seen at most have only 2 squares fenced together.  

We played the simple rules, so no occupation cards of minor improvements.  It was a good game and once we were most of the way through it we understood what we needed to do.  We both were able to feed everyone all the time but little else was being done till the late game.  I won by points because I got a third family member and a stone house.  He was trying the animal route but seemed to always have to slaughter some for enough food.  Our strategies were non existant as we were really clueless.


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## MerricB (May 26, 2009)

Crothian said:


> Played for the first time today with one other person.  Neither of us had played so we muddled our way through.
> 
> One question we didn't have an answer for is when fencing an area is there a limit to the amount of area?  For instance I had just stacks of wood and it was late in the game so I was looking at scoring and saw that empty spaces are bad.  I then used 12 pieces of wood to fence in a 3 by 3 square.  I don't know if it was legal, the rules don't say anything about it but all the pictures we've seen at most have only 2 squares fenced together.




A 3x3 square is quite legal. In fact, one of the cards in the full game gives you bonus points for fencing a really, really big paddock!



> Our strategies were non existant as we were really clueless.




Clueless were our early games as well. In fact, I'd say we're clueless (occasionally) in some of our most recent games, too!

Cheers!


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## Crothian (May 26, 2009)

It was kind of funny.  I had misread the amount of food the famers eat so I was expecting to need just one per person and not two.  I was rereading the harvest rules during the final round before the first harvest and then realized I needed more food.  I scrambled for some and thanks to having some farms barely had enough.


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## Crothian (May 26, 2009)

Stables

Do they take up their own space or can animals be in the same space as stables?  Do they have to be inclosed in the fence area, adjacent to the fenced area, or just anywhere on your board?


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## Cadfan (May 28, 2009)

Stables can be in an otherwise empty space, or within an enclosed fence.  If they are in an otherwise empty space they hold one animal, and at the end of the game are worth zero points (though the animal is scored normally, of course).  Stables inside an enclosure double the animal holding capacity of the enclosure, and are worth one point at the end of the game (and of course the animals are still scored normally).

You can build a stable in an empty space and then later enclose it.


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## Crothian (May 28, 2009)

Thanks, that's helpful


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## bobthehappyzombie (Jun 4, 2009)

I find the thing that most heavily influences the game is the combination of minor improvements and occupations that you are delt.
Some of the cards seem >> than others.
Having a stone house is nice, but I've won with a 3 room wooden house.
Having a big family is nice, but it's not critical to get it early, I often just take family growth for the 3 points in the last round.
Getting livestock early as a food source can be an effective stratergy... but it is one amongst many.


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## Crothian (Jul 23, 2009)

edit: Had questions but found a decent review of the game on you tube that was very informative.


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## Dimitris (Jul 24, 2009)

I like Agricola. I think it is one of the best games I've played.


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## Crothian (Jul 24, 2009)

The solo version is pretty good.  It would make a good little computer app though since messing with all those pieces ao one's own is a pain.


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## Cadfan (Jul 24, 2009)

Crothian said:


> The solo version is pretty good. It would make a good little computer app though since messing with all those pieces ao one's own is a pain.



Here you go.

Agricola Solitaire | Agricola | BoardGameGeek

It isn't completely automated, because you have to retain some degree of manual control in order to make a lot of the cards work.  But its far more automated than the real life game board.


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## John Crichton (Aug 13, 2009)

Excellent game.  I picked up the all the animeeples, food, family and resource meeples shortly after.  It's weird but it certainly makes the game much more fun than with the little colored blocks.


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## Crothian (Aug 13, 2009)

Agreed.  We have the animal ones and it makes a difference.


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## Cadfan (Aug 13, 2009)

All MeeplePeople.com Products

I added those.  It also makes the game more personable.  I paid under $10 for my human-meeples, and got many more than I actually needed.  I use them for D&D monsters.


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## N0Man (Sep 8, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> All MeeplePeople.com Products
> 
> I added those.  It also makes the game more personable.  I paid under $10 for my human-meeples, and got many more than I actually needed.  I use them for D&D monsters.




That's funny because I was thinking of using D&D miniatures and monsters as Agricola people. ;-)

I just played this game last weekend at Dragon*Con with a group of strangers.  It was the first time playing for each of us, and we all loved it!  I liked it so much that not only have I since ordered the game, but also the whole slew of Euro token replacements (resources, meeples, and animeeples).

The folks I played with mostly unanimously preferred the animal shaped tokens to the cube animals, though we did have one player who preferred to use, as he called it, "sheep bullion cubes".

I'm really looking forward to getting my friends to try this game, I feel confidant they will love it too.


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## MichaelSomething (Oct 2, 2009)

Hey there's an expansion coming out!  It's just been announced so there isn't much news on it.  It's mentioned in this month's Game Trade Magazine as well.


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## Drawback (Oct 6, 2009)

Hey, "Le Havre" got the "International Gamer Award 2009"... It's supposedly similar to Agricola.

Anyone has played that?

I was thinking about buying Agricola, but if Le Havre is similar... I'll have to consider this game too.


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## Cadfan (Oct 6, 2009)

I've played a fair amount of Le Havre.

Le Havre is a little more low key in certain ways.  In Agricola, I tend to find myself playing pretty close to the edge, where skillful play by an opponent could cause me problems.  In Le Havre its really tough to block someone from what they need, because of the nature of the turn system means you can just go elsewhere and get something similar, or wait a short time and get what you originally wanted.  You feel less time pressure in Le Havre.

But Agricola is more friendly to new players, I think, because the theme works so well.  And the cards give a lot of variety that Le Havre doesn't have.  Le Havre uses special buildings for variety, but they just don't have as much of an effect as a hand of cards.

They're both good games.  Its kind of weird, really- Le Havre feels more like a gamer's game, with its ships and boats and strategies that only make sense if you pour over the cards on the table for a while and learn how buildings that won't exist for another hour of gameplay will affect the table once they're constructed.  But its actually a lower pressure game in a lot of ways, because the worst that can happen to you is you having to take out loans, and those aren't that big of a deal to pay off.


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## Crothian (Oct 6, 2009)

MichaelSomething said:


> Hey there's an expansion coming out!  It's just been announced so there isn't much news on it.  It's mentioned in this month's Game Trade Magazine as well.




Awesome, I'll have to pick that up for my buddy.


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