Agricola, 27th September 2015

Base game, 5 players, K deck with drafting

Having drafted the House Steward, Wooden Strongbox and Mansion I was going for a massive stone house, pretty much at the expense of everything else.

The Reed Net kept me in food, along with the occasional sheep that was taken when possible.

Note that in this game we were mistakenly playing with the 5 player family game version of the card which allows you to take two different building resources of your choice (with Family Growth from round 5 onwards), instead of the flip side which allows you to play an Occupation (with Family Growth from round 5). This meant that there was more reed available in the game, which made the Reed Net slightly better. It also meant that occupations were more difficult to play.

Focusing on my house meant my farm ended up like this:

One lone boar in it's own field, two unused stables, an unsown field, but a nice house for my family members.


Final scores:

Mansion appeared to be worth the effort there!

Agricola, 18th October 2015

Base game, 5 players, K deck with drafting.

Another player played the Constable fairly early, so going for a completely balanced approach was worth 5 bonus points. This led to my final board:

Improvements and Occupations:

Animal Tamer was great as I was planning on building a fairly large house anyway due to the Constable player also having played the "3 bonus points for the player(s) with the largest house" occupation (which I got on my own), so I could take animals at convenient times and not worry about where to put them.

I was first player to Family Growth which helps immensely.

Horse was of no benefit (due to Constable), just played as part of another action as it was free.

Plowman was good, got me three fields.

Didn't use Frame Builder.

Turnip Field is a VP on its own and got me an additional VP for a sown veg.

Fireplace was fantastic with the Animal Tamer and just in general.

Sawmill has a one start out of five rating on the BGG card-by-card thread, but I really liked it. I prioritised wood and was able to get 3 food per harvest from it, which was excellent, and it was worth 3 bonus VP at the end.


Final scores:

Won by 5 points over David, who was playing along similar lines to me. He was on my left though, which was obviously to my advantage, particularly as I think he only had First Player for one or two rounds during the course of the game.