Agricola

Customer Reviews

Great economic game but not for casual gamers Review by Bowie

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First of all it is a must-have for heavy gamer. If you are so used to using your brain playing for points and making sound decisions in short period of time, this is your game. But if you are aiming for sth to have fun with your wife/gf, and your less boardgame-geeky friend, this is not what you want to buy. (Posted on 3/11/12)

Great Strategy Game Review by David

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Agricola has players building their own farms. It's a great resource-management game for strategy-minded gamers. It is a little on the expensive side, but the game offers a lot of replay value for the money, and expansions are unnecessary.

That said, the components really could be better. If the pieces representing resources and animals better resembled those things, Agricola would be more intuitive and easier to pick up and play. What's more, the nondescript wooden pieces detract a bit from the theme, though you get used to them after a few plays.

You can't accomplish everything you wish you could in Agricola, and that makes the game interesting. Your choices are meaningful. Still, the scoring system could be less negative. Instead of penalizing players for not doing things, which to some gamers feels demoralizing, the scoring system could be rejiggered a bit without changing the mechanics. Some people might prefer the scoring system as it is, though, because it makes the game feel more difficult.

A final potential drawback is the lack of player interaction. Agricola is one of those games that will have everyone at the table thinking, agonizing over every decision, but it won't have them talking a whole lot. If player interaction is important to you and your group, Agricola might not be the best choice.

In this review, I've focused on the negative, but the points above are the only negative things I can say about the game. Overall, Agricola is challenging, rewarding, and deep. It's also good fun. Experienced strategy gamers shouldn't hesitate to buy it. But Agricola is hard, so others might want to get their toes wet first with lighter games in the same genre, like Stone Age. (Posted on 1/27/12)

Great game with almost no chance at all Review by Jacques

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Agricola is a great game for people who love strategy games and who are ready to plan their moves in advance. Because there is almost no chance element in the game the whole thing will depend on your brains and on the actions taken by other players.

There are a number of stages in the game, each of which contain a certain number of rounds. As the game progresses, stages get shorter and shorter, forcing you to come up with food to feed your family quicker and quicker. Each round you put out a new action which is available to all players, but these actions belong to a certain stage. The chance element of the game is that within a stage the round cards are shuffled so that you do not know ahead of time exactly what order the round/action cards will come out.

The most precious resource in the game is the number of actions you have. You must make your moves efficiently, because wasted moves will cost you. There are always more things to do than you are allowed to do.

Turns can take a long time if you play with people who think things through slowly like me, but if someone is taking a long time it gives you the chance to plan as well.

Getting to the end of the game is always fun because you get to see what you accomplished and whether you were able to beat your all time best score. The game is challenging, but very fun. (Posted on 11/23/11)

Addictive and great game! Review by Olga

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It took a while to understand rules, but after that we enjoyed it very much. The variations of how the game can go based on different occupations and minor improvements are endless, and it is very alluring. This far I have not really got the same cards twice, but of course we have not played too many times. But you want to play again and again, that is for sure! (Posted on 7/25/11)

Great value in a mid-level strategy Euro game with worker placement, action choices and great replay value Review by TR

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Agricola's the top rated game on BGG at the time of writing and there's a reason why. While not overly complicated; this is certainly not a gateway game. However, for mid-level gamers; this is a great, complex game with tons of choices, a huge amount of strategic options depending on the cards you receive and a lot of replay value.

What gives Agricola the ton of replay value is the cards that it uses to offer what actions are available each game, what minor improvements each player gets and what occupations. Each of these offer players more choices; augmenting specific abilities and resources; thus potentially dictating the strategy each player uses.

The game comes with a Family and Advanced Game. Frankly, the game is much more interesting played in Advanced mode and should only be played in that mode for serious gamers - there's too few choices and options in a Family game for them.

Perhaps the weakest part of Agricola is the lack of interaction. The only way to 'block' a player is to take away their action choices, which can occasionally harm you as much as them. In addition, there's the possibility as in all such games of falling behind; and there are few 'catch-up' mechanisms available; allowing more experienced players to pull ahead of novices. (Posted on 8/7/10)

A complex and brilliant game Review by G

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Agricola is the creme de la creme of complex board games. It is balanced, it is hard, and it can be brutal in its results. That said, it is also excellent.

The mechanic is simple worker placement, but the choices are anything but simple. Players take turns performing actions on the game board; once a player has taken an action, that action is not available to the other players. As players grow their farms, new actions become available, increasing the strategy and 'cut throatness' of the game.

Agricola contains two versions (three if you count solo play): a family game and a regular game. The family game provides an excellent gaming experience that is still complex, but easy enough to understand. The regular game adds another layer of difficulty by giving players cards to play. Personally, the complex game is too random for my liking; playing the family game with minor improvements cards is my favourite way to play.

Agricola is not for the faint at heart. The game is tough, and can be like solving a puzzle. If players aren't into a game that requires thought, you may want to pass this one up. The components are abstract, although they can be upgraded by purchasing add-ons, and the game can, at times, feel like multiplayer solitaire. The MSRP is also a bit steep for a game of this genre, but those who overcome the price hurdle are rewarded with an excellent game. (Posted on 11/4/09)

Agricola: better than it looks Review by Ryan

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Agricola is a very good game that shares its mechanics with other popular Eurogame designs (i.e., Puerto Rico, Zooloretto, Pillars of the Earth). It all seems familiar, but the fluid amalgamation and novel implementations add up to a better, more varied game than its predecessors.

Player interaction is a minor, almost non-existent element. This would normally be a big turn-off for me, but building a well-balanced farm with what scant resources are left available is challenging, though I think the system herds the players too strongly by penalizing victory points for neglecting any developments. What, a farm can't specialize? I'd prefer a trade market or something to simulate the varied needs of the family and the community, plus it would inject some welcome interaction.

I appreciate how difficult it is to juggle short-term needs (food, resources) with long-term goals (expansion, diversification). There's no narrative to the game, but the theme of having to scrape by to keep the family fed with a hopeful eye towards the future frames the mechanics well enough.

The downside, this is some of the ugliest art I've seen in a game. The pieces look like they belong in an early prototype and the cards and boards are bland. Worse yet, the blandness of the pieces (wooden discs and cubes representing resources and animals, respectively) actually inhibit the function of the game! It's hard enough to keep track of everything when you're new to the game without trying to remember what all these pieces are supposed to represent.

Overall, I think Agricola's a great strategy game, especially if a person's not bothered by the aesthetics. I do, however, think the game is overpriced since so many of the components are plain cubes and discs, especially when I look at cheaper games full of beautiful art (i.e., Arkham Horror) or sculpted miniatures (i.e., Doom). (Posted on 8/10/09)

A very complex and intricate game Review by Jasmine

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Personally, I am not much of a fan of games with low levels of interaction, as I like to play socially and interact with friends and family. Agricola, unfortunately is a solitaire-like game and even has a single play rule variant. However, what makes Agricola stand out is how in-depth and detailed the game is.

Agricola comes with many many cards for occupations, minor and major improvements and the like, which offers a huge amount of variability in play. Unlike Puerto Rico, which has been mostly solved like checkers, there is no real best course of play for Agricola. For that reason, perhaps solo play is a bonus as it will allow you to try out different strategies.

This game is highly rated among serious board gamers and is super heavy on complexity and strategy. As such, it may be hard to learn and to introduce to new players, but for serious board gamers, this may be the next big game they're looking for. (Posted on 12/20/08)