A man and wife, a wooden shack, and an empty field. Get to work! Agricola is a deeply strategic farming simulation game.
6
votes
1answer
92 views
What does the Yoke card mean when it says “Plow”?
I played the Yoke minor improvement, and there was some disagreement as to whether it referred to the number of fields currently on the board, the number of times the "Plow 1 Field" action has been ...
7
votes
1answer
233 views
Does mixing decks in Agricola reduce the chance of synergies?
This is in some ways a followup to Is the Complex deck in Agricola strictly better?.
In Agricola, are there many synergies between cards across decks, or do cards which work towards a certain theme ...
3
votes
1answer
79 views
Why do you get an extra point for each fenced stable in Agricola?
Most of the scoring rules in Agricola makes sense because they reward you for doing well in various categories (like crops and animals). However, I haven't been able to figure out why the rules reward ...
7
votes
2answers
138 views
How bad would it to be to allow partial house renovation in Agricola?
In explaining this game to people over Christmas, several people independently balked at the idea that the whole house must be upgraded at once.
Is there a strong reason to enforce this rule? After a ...
6
votes
1answer
243 views
Is the Complex deck in Agricola strictly better?
I've played half a dozen games of Agricola — enough to get a feel for it, but not enough to know all of the cards or really weigh their balance.
It's my impression that the Basic and Interactive ...
12
votes
1answer
316 views
Can you throw animals into the stewpot if you don't have enough pasture room for any of them?
In Agricola, the Fireplace and Cooking Hearth both allow you to convert animals to food "at any time." Can you use this ability to cook animals if you don't have room in your pastures?
In ...
0
votes
2answers
163 views
Are there common themes in “settlement” games?
I'm referring to games like Agricola, Puerto Rico, and Settlers of Catan. But a few themes seem to pop up in each game.
One is the importance of brick/stone/wood for building. Without improvements, ...
7
votes
1answer
126 views
Can I buy an “underneath” Major Improvement without paying for the top one first?
Can I purchase a Major Improvement card that is underneath another Major Improvement without first having to buy the top improvement?
6
votes
1answer
149 views
In solo play, can you play one Special Action every round in addition to placing family?
The rules state: "In each round, the Solo player can use exactly one of the Special actions shown on the face-up card."
My question is, can this be done in addition to placing each of my family ...
5
votes
1answer
132 views
Pieceworker and Landing Net
This came up in an online game I was playing yesterday and I wasn't confident in what would happen...
I have the Pieceworker Occupation:
Whenever you receive wood, clay, reed, stone or grain on an ...
7
votes
1answer
388 views
What are the key card combos to look out for in Agricola draft?
I do quite a lot of Agricola drafting, and one thing I've been noticing is that just taking the most powerful Occupations each pick is often not enough - finding synergies is usually better. To give ...
6
votes
1answer
174 views
Do minor improvement actions have any meaning in the family version of Agricola?
Using the Agricola family ruleset, when a card specifically refers to "minor improvements" (for example "After family growth, play a minor improvement"), do I ignore it or interpret it as "play a ...
11
votes
5answers
887 views
How To Mitigate The Random Factor In Agricola?
Agricola is my favourite boardgame and I'd love to reach a level where I could call myself a master of it. However, having found a place to play it online and gotten a lot more games in, I've been ...
3
votes
1answer
210 views
Can You Choose To Beg When You Have Enough Food?
Normally, in Agricola, it would be crazy not to spend food on feeding your family - at a cost of 3 VPs per, it is difficult to imagine any situation where a food token could be worth more in the ...
11
votes
3answers
310 views
Should You Take “Your Opponent's” Sheep In A 2-Player Game?
As you may well have guessed by now I play a lot of online Agricola; here's a situation that comes up all the time.
If I'm the second player, and sheep come up as the round one action card, quite ...
10
votes
2answers
1k views
Is It Possible To Win 2-Player Agricola Without Taking Wood?
A few months ago I visited a friend who'd recently taken up playing Agricola with her husband. "We think there should be a bigger handicap for going second," she said, "Otherwise the person who keeps ...
15
votes
1answer
484 views
Does each stable in a pasture double the number of animals allowed?
I popped round to visit some friends earlier this week and a 4-player game of Agricola sprang up, as often happens. One of the players hadn't played before so we ran through the rules for her ...
10
votes
3answers
2k views
Evaluating Agricola as a 2 player game: how long would it take, how competitive is it, complexity, etc.
I've been thinking about getting Agricola for a while, primarily due to how much the gaming world seems to love it. But I want to make absolutely sure that the investment will be worth it. Currently ...
3
votes
1answer
120 views
Here Come The Warm Jets
One of the swingier cards in the Agricola X-Deck is "Mind the Jets!". Players lucky enough to have renovated to a Clay house get their dwelling hardened to Stone by the jets of the alien ...
5
votes
4answers
870 views
Agricola Card Organization Solutions?
So I expect most of us Agricola nuts have already got a tackle box for all the meeples and counters. But now that I own the base set, Farmers of the Moor, the Gamers Deck, AND the Goodies, I'm ...
4
votes
1answer
136 views
The Simplifier vs The Snitch
We played with Agricola: The Goodies for the first time last night, and while it was very silly, it didn't have the negative impact on gameplay that I'd feared. However, the Occupation cards from the ...
3
votes
1answer
107 views
How Does The “Franz” L-Deck Occupation Work?
We played with Agricola: The Goodies for the first time last night, and while it was very silly, it didn't have the negative impact on gameplay that I'd feared. However, the Occupation cards from the ...
5
votes
2answers
216 views
Hand Order In Agricola (and Bohnanza)
We played with Agricola: The Goodies for the first time last night, and while it was very silly, it didn't have the negative impact on gameplay that I'd feared. However, the Occupation cards from the ...
10
votes
2answers
979 views
House Rule for Minor Improvement/Occupation distribution?
I'm in a group that regularly plays together. We love Agricola, but we tend to play the family version because we feel the minor improvements and occupations are a bit too unbalanced. Or sometimes one ...
5
votes
1answer
231 views
Can sheep farmer perform multiple exchanges at once?
We were playing Agricola last night and I ran into an unusual situation. I had three pastures, each able to contain four animals. I also had the House Goat minor improvement, which means I was not ...
8
votes
1answer
171 views
Agricola - Land Parcel point
The card Land Parcel states that:
When you play this card, you receive 1
forest tile that you must immediately
place on an empty space in your
farmyard.
At the end of the game, you
...
5
votes
2answers
292 views
Do cards that supply bonuses trigger on actions modified by other cards?
Many cards in Agricola give you bonus resources under certain circumstances. For example, the Stone Carrier occupation says:
Whenever you take Stone with an
action, you can also take 1 ...
10
votes
1answer
389 views
Agricola - After/Also rule
For an action space which states:
After A, also B
such as:
After Family Growth, also 1 minor Improvement
Does it mean that I must do both Family Growth and Minor Improvement?
9
votes
1answer
269 views
Agricola - Acreage minor improvement
The Acreage minor improvement in the K (complex) deck states that:
When you
Sow, you can plant 2 grain fields on
this card.
(This card does not count
as a field when scoring.)
Does ...
5
votes
1answer
169 views
Surveyor's Map in Agricola Farmers of the Moor
In a game we just finished one player used the Surveyor's Map minor improvement. When the field came up in round 11, he couldn't place it adjacently to his existing fields. Should we have allowed ...
14
votes
2answers
1k views
How does Le Havre compare with Agricola?
At my gaming group, we are looking into getting a new boardgame. We're all relative novices with boardgames but not with games in general.
Among our options are two games that seem rather similar: ...
10
votes
1answer
103 views
The Pilgrim in the Pine Forest
I just bought the new Agricola "Gamer's Deck" from my local store - hooray! 119 sweet new Occupation / Minor Improvement cards that will keep me happy while I wrestle inwardly with the question of ...
14
votes
7answers
1k views
Disadvantaging an overly good Agricola player
One of my friends and I often play Agricola, and he's considerably better than me at it - I'm getting better, but he seems to be advancing at a faster rate, and it's getting to the point that although ...
11
votes
1answer
461 views
Agricola Solo “Campaign” professions
In my solo campaign I played the "Home teacher" (The card that shows Obi Wan) and chose that as my first fixed profession for the following rounds. The card says something like:
At the end of the ...
8
votes
3answers
248 views
Does my Carbonite Cousin need feeding?
For Christmas, I received Agricola - The Goodies. It's a fun expansion that provides new themed farm boards, shaped resources and animals, stickers for your people, and four interesting decks of ...
13
votes
4answers
724 views
How do you pronounce Agricola?
I played my first game of Agricola yesterday. Naturally, I'm left with a bunch of questions, but chief among them is: How do you pronounce the name of this game? Our group was split pretty evenly ...
7
votes
3answers
842 views
Agricola: Traveling Player?
What the heck is the "Traveling Player" space for in Agricola (family game)? Besides gaining the food there, is there anything else significant about that space?
17
votes
3answers
3k views
What are the most busted cards in Agricola?
There's quite a few Occupations in Agricola that elicit a traumatized shudder from hardened Agricola players. I'm thinking of cards like the Taster, which basically allows one player to be in a ...
14
votes
1answer
311 views
How does the Outrider work in Agricola?
At the weekend I was playing Agricola and played the occupation Outrider. The rule for the outrider is "Whenever you use the most recent Round card with one of your people, you receive 1 additional ...
11
votes
4answers
6k views
Agricola Online
Does anyone know of any online (or iPhone, iPad, PC, Xbox, PS2, or PS3 for that matter!) versions of Agricola - or know if any are in the works?
20
votes
4answers
9k views
Good General Strategies for Agricola?
What are some good general guidelines for strategies when playing Agricola? I know it will depend on the exact games, but are there any typical dos and/do nots?
John
7
votes
2answers
298 views
Alternative major improvements for Agricola
Are there any (official/unofficial) alternatives to the major improvements in Agricola?
16
votes
3answers
1k views
What are the most useful Major Improvements in Agricola?
What Major Improvements do you see as most useful in Agricola, and why?
