Don't lie, you know you pre-ordered Agricola

Friday evening at 5:00 PM I went to see Cloverfield (with one of my work buddy’s QueenPut was too scared to see the movie). I was bored for about 10 minutes of movie from about 5:10 – 5:20 waiting for the monster to attack but than I was rewarded with an hour roller coaster ride of wild fun. I didn’t spend my time complaining about the sub-optimum shaky camera or the so-so acting; I just had fun with the movie.

After watching the movie I drove to the Agricolathon where I got to play my first game of Agricola. I went into with a very positive attitude. I told myself I’m going to like this game. I like farm animals. However, I made the mistake of playing this game with a similar attitude I play Ameritrash dungeon games. Which is you send characters (farm people) out to get stuff. Eventually, you get better weapons and magic (or farm tools and fireplaces?). It doesn’t really matter too much if you win or get killed (or have to beg for food) it’s all about having fun playing the game.

So I looked over my hand, I was disappointed I didn’t get the beer maker. I really like beer. The next manliest cards were the fisherman and fishing poll. So I decided that fishing and raising wild boars was much cooler than growing vegetables and baking bread. The first 20 minutes of the game was pretty good. I played the fisherman and fishing poll and I was catching loads of fish and feeding my little family living in the stupid mud hut. I started to think of myself as Hemmingway the mighty fisherman. I was planning on building a pasture and barn for my herd of wild boars or maybe I'll raise bulls for Bull Fighting. Then me and QueenPut would birth out some little KidPuts and we’d upgrade my house to stone.

But then the game went down hill. Somebody came in the room and looked at my sub-optimal play and told me that there was no way I could win with that fishing strategy. Then I was told that I was helping the player to my left by taking the minor improvement/ start player slot too many times. The spell was broken and I realized my boars and bulls were just little brown cubes and that I had justed wasted 2 1/2 hours playing a stupid Euro.

I came in 5th place out of 5 players but that’s not bad because I did end up with 23 points and 3 of the players had played the game about 20 times each. And besides that I don’t need fucking vegetables or stupid grain anyway. My family lives in stone house and we eat wild boar bacon for breakfast and sushi for dinner every night so there.

Agricola is a game that BGG decided it was going to like before it was even released. Yay.

Ubarose said:

Anyway, I'm thinking, no little magic dudes in Agricola. But that would be cool. You could cast spells on your neighbors, and people could be accused of witchcraft. Add a little negotiation and politics for voting whether or not to burn someone at the stake. Could be fun

Great idea Ubarose!! Sort of a Salem Witch Trials game. Is there a game like this already? If not, lets make one!

BigLizard wrote:

Ubarose said:

Anyway, I'm thinking, no little magic dudes in Agricola. But that would be cool. You could cast spells on your neighbors, and people could be accused of witchcraft. Add a little negotiation and politics for voting whether or not to burn someone at the stake. Could be fun

Great idea Ubarose!! Sort of a Salem Witch Trials game. Is there a game like this already? If not, lets make one!

I think I play tested a game like that.

KingPut wrote:"But then the game went down hill. Somebody came in the room and looked at my sub-optimal play and told me that there was no way I could win with that fishing strategy. Then I was told that I was helping the player to my left by taking the minor improvement/ start player slot too many times. The spell was broken and I realized my boars and bulls were just little brown cubes and that I had justed wasted 2 1/2 hours playing a stupid Euro.."
Sounds like a jerk who needs the concept of Fun Murderer explained to him.
(In a passive-aggressive sub-optimal way of course.)

ubarose wrote:

Harvest Moon has those little magic faerie dudes. And there is some kind of puzzle you have to solve. It's not just farming. Right?

Agricola is in no way "Harvest Moon: The Boardgame". Agricola is yet another resource management game. When you "plow a field", you grab a plowed field tile. Whereas in Harvest Moon you had to watch how plow it in a special alignment so you don't have too much work sowing, planting and watering that field... yeah kinda like a puzzle. And yes Harvest Moon has other stuff going on there's a whole village where you can do various things. I'm talking about the SNES game which I played several years ago...

Agricola is pretty much Puerto Rico with some randomness and "your" role selection doesn't have any influence on other players... other than disallowing them to choose the same. Which is kind of strange farming wise... "you can't build fences this season, because I already did".

I would only buy Agricola if it was about farm-related political strife. You'd have the organized crime syndicate, the aristocratic landowners, the Agriculturalist Fascist movement, and maybe the peasant farmers themselves, all jockeying for political primacy through violence and dirty-dealing. Yeah. And there'd be plastic guys for you to run around and brawl with.