Agricola Board Game Review

gamesreviews.com:

This is not a how to play for Agricola, but simply an overview and review. You can check out this great How to Play guide from Nights Around the Table.

Here is a bit about the game from the Asmodee website:

The 17th Century Was Not an Easy Time to be a Farmer. In Agricola (Latin for farmer), you’re a farmer in a wooden shack with your spouse and little else. You might think about having kids in order to get more work accomplished, but first you need to expand your house. And what are you going to feed all the little rug rats? Guide your family to wealth, health and prosperity and you will win the game.

Agricola is a game that is solely structured on resource management. You need to produce a certain amount of food to feed your hard working family. You need to produce other resources to build and expand your farm. You need to manage and care for animals to maximize your points. It’s all about building an engine, and managing that engine to the best of your ability.

The game can get quite lengthy, played over 14 rounds. The game is further broken down into six stages, at which point a harvest action occurs and you must feed your growing family, or suffer negative points. During each of the 14 rounds, players will use their farmers (you begin with 2) to take actions on the central board. These actions might allow you to collect resources, build a field, expand your home, play specific cards, and more. Each action is limited to a single player, so knowing what you want and changing tactics on the fly as less options are available to you is key to success.

Each player starts with a hand of minor improvement cards and occupation cards, which they may play throughout the game to drive their engine and build into