Review #1: Agricola

# of Players: 1-4 (up to 6 with 5-6 Player Expansion)
Playtime: 2-3 Hours

Core Mechanic: Worker Placement

Theme: Farming
Type: Euro

Weight: Heavy

Year: 2007

Rating: 10*

This is the game that began it all. Well, not really, but more on that in another review - let’s just say that this game opened my eyes more than any other and has stayed near the very top of my favorite games ever played. I purchased it based on the recommendation of a friend and from that first play, it was unlike anything I ever experienced.

The theme of the game is farming, which as a new gamer at the time did not seem like it would make for a fun game. However, looking back there seems to be a game for every theme and I think I sometimes prefer abstracted themes where I have to fill in some blanks rather than ones doused in characters and environments.

Over 14 rounds, you will use your family members (two to start) to take actions, which include growing grain and vegetables, raising livestock, and expanding your home and family, which allows you to take even more actions.  At the end of the game, you tally up your victory points based on what you have accumulated in your farm. The more you have in each category, the more points you will get for that category but you also want to build a well-rounded farm as you lose points for nothing in a category.

If this sounds like it will be a relaxing and pleasant game about farming, you are very wrong. This game is tough and you will likely be stressing out most of the way through with the feeling that you have barely accomplished anything.  By the time the end rolls around you'll be wishing you had just a couple more actions to collect those last few points.  

There are six harvest events in the game which occur at the end of certain rounds - spread out at the start of the game and closer together near the end. During the harvest, you can reap the benefits of your planting and breeding, but there is also the dreaded “feeding phase”, where you need to feed each of your family members and suffer severe victory point loss if you cannot. For the first couple harvests, you will probably be spending the majority of your actions collecting scraps of food to just survive and contemplating whether or not growing your family to get more actions is worth the additional food it requires (it is). Hopefully you will eventually be able to get a food engine going so you can focus on other improvements.

As a worker placement game, you will not only be taking actions that benefit yourself but will be denying those actions to your fellow players. In a game with limited action spaces (though a new one comes out each round), this requires careful planning and back-up plans to your back-up plans as you see precious actions you need yourself being taken by others. If you think about it, if you stick to  two family members, you only have 28 actions in the game so you better make sure each one counts.

There are a few other things I haven't mentioned, such as improvements and occupations that keep variability high and help direct your strategy.  There's also a simpler family version if you want to dip your toes before the deep dive, although I would recommend against this as I feel it deviates from the core experience and would require you to buy the full game later on if you like it (the older version of the game included the family variant but now it has been spun off into its own game). 

As it says on the box, it isn't easy to be a farmer. The game is stressful but it is definitely fun. Seeing your final farm and the fruits of your labour is a rewarding experience and knowing you had to overcome adversity is a big part of that.  For me it has consistently ranked highly as not many other games have been able to deliver that same, agonizing decision-making in such a complete package.

So what collection is this game for? Without a doubt, as one of my favorite games I think it belongs in the Essentials and Collector collections. It is also a heavy game, so definitely belongs in the Heavyweight collection. And as much as I enjoy the game, I think even the Agricola: Family Edition is too heavy to be a gateway game, so for now I would put this version into the Middleweight collection, although I think there might be some other worker placement games to take its place as I review more games.