Whats the perfect set for Agricola solo series using E, I, and K decks?

Question

Agricola solo series is all about your occupations. Often I have a great card that will help my current game, but I am always thinking about what is the long term significance of keeping it forever. I've found the biggest problem with solo series games is the lack of wood. Without a fence builder or extra wood card, you will never be able to build 15 fences and 4 stables (which you need to keep the max number of animals).

Ideally, these are the best categories of cards I've found so far:

• Tutor (played first) - worth up to 6 bonus points
• Lord of the Manor - worth up to 8 bonus points
• Church Warden - worth 3 bonus points and gives 4 free wood to start the game
• Merchant (critical to give opportunity to play as many improvements as possible)
• Either Hedgekeeper, fence deliveryman, forester, or some other sort of extra wood, extra free fences, or free stables card
• At least 1 card giving additional actions (like Adoptive Parents, which gives an extra 3 actions throughout the course of the game for the low cost of 3 food)
• 1 card that provides either extra goods (like pieceworker) or extra plowed fields (like field watchman) or extra goods on your fields (like fieldsman). These cards save actions which I consider to be the most valuable currency in the game
• Extra stone is very very helpful through stone carrier or similar
• Extra clay is very helpful or a card that makes all clay improvements and rooms cheaper (like clay mixer, clay deliveryman, or bricklayer)

As you can see I'm listing 9 categories, and we only get 7 so you can't obviously do EVERYTHING and you may get improvements that take the place of these occupations from time to time.

Any thoughts?

Answer 1

The way I like to play Agricola campaign mode is to pick 7 occupations and then play through sequentially. Each game I leave one more in play as permanent and leave the others in my hand in future games.

Probably my favorite seven to start with are:

• Field Watchmen
• Wet Nurse
• Church Warden
• Lord of the Manor
• Manservant
• Grocer
• Pieceworker

I generally like them in this order (and leave them in descending order, too, so the first permanent one is Field Watchmen). First game get the Stone Oven for food production, doing double baking bread, by sowing 3 grain fields before the first harvest.

My first turns normally are something like:

• Occupation (Field Watchman) / Take 1 Grain
• Take 1 Grain / Day Laborer
• Take 1 Grain / Sow
• Clay (4) / Fishing (for 4 food)

At this point you've got 3 sown fields of grain, clay, and your next turns can look like:

• Fireplace / Wet Nurse (with grain-->food)
• Wood (12) / Reed (6)
• Sheep to food (7x = 14 food) / build rooms (+2 people)

At this point you have some leftover food from the sheep still (only needed 8 that round) and are pretty setup. The rest is pretty straightforward.

Also, I normally setup the board slightly, forcing:

• Sheep = round 1
• Stone = round 5

The rest don't matter as much.

This combined with the above normally lets you get 65-70 points your first game, which then gives you 10+ food for your next starting game. Wet Nurse is critical in the campaign because once you get food supplies you can always add two rooms to your house on Turn 5.

Once you start getting significant quantities of food at beginning - which you will after your first game because it's pretty easy to have 15+ points over the game point values initially and you get 1 food for every 2 points over - the Pieceworker/Grocer become very useful and powerful, because you can buy extra resources earlier in the game (such as vegetables and stone).

After a few games of occupations, Manservant becomes very useful - it's easy to get a Stone House with 5+ turns remaining in the game after a few solo rounds so you get basically 15 food for this.

Generally, I like to also leave all the animals on the board until the last round (except I normally take sheep for food around turn 6/7, early enough when the food is helpful but also can let them replenish to 7 by the game end). Your first game this is often harder because you normally need to raid one of the animals for food and often can't swing the 4x Stable/3x pasture combination to give you space for all of them.

There are a lot of minor improvements that can make this strategy go on steroids too (like Axe, which means you can reliably add family members prior to the first harvest if you start with Church Warden and get the 4 immediate wood). Or Straw Thatched Roof which gives you three extra rooms with people pretty early with Church Warden, Wet Nurse, and Pieceworker.

Answer 2

I find that this combination for LATER on in the solo series is pretty clutch.

Tutor - 6 pts if you get him first
Clay plasterer - kind of like a combination of the renovator and the carpenter
Field Watchmen - great opener in the game, if you have a cooking hearth or clay oven with this guy you can cook hella food.
Church Warden - great to start with wood and get points at the end for family members
Lord of the Manor - can definitely capitalize on 8 points with the right minor improvements
Piece Worker or Grocer or Resource Seller - so that you can get some extra stone, and other resources

If you include the G deck I'd definitely say the Food Critic, but otherwise the Chief is a good call. Chief on average gives me an extra 5 points, but the food critic usually gives me 6.

I think the Clay Plasterer kind of eliminates the need for having too many other occupations that give you extra resources.

I can pretty consistently get up in the 80's and 90's with these occupations together, depending on the minor improvements that I get.

I used to be a big fan of the wet nurse, but honestly I with the clay plasterer I can almost get family members up just as fast, and using "family growth and a minor improvement" helps get a lot of points later.

Just don't extend your home with wood, only with clay, and that's how you can really optimize the clay plasterer's abilities. You'll have plenty of wood for building stables and fences and getting the joinery.

I can post some screen shots of recent solo series I've been doing if you want to see.

Answer 3

I think that stacking the deck in your favor to have the best possible outcome is in some sense, and I'm using this word ever-so-gently here, cheating. I think the fun part of the struggle is knowing that each season brings a mystery depending on the cards I have in my hand at any given time. Putting your cards in your hand so that you have an advantage against the flow of the game isn't fair to the game.

Answer 4

Tutor
Lord of the manor
Church warden
Pieceworker
Forester
Chief
Chiefs daughter

Gets me to 40 games ... more if I am lucky with minor improvements.