Game(s) Played:
Agricola
Race For The Galaxy
Session – Agricola
Player(s):
Hayen
Mo
I was feeling somewhat lonely on Sunday afternoon and thinking that this weekend might be my last chance to play boardgames in a while I put out the boardgame signal... Only Mo answered the call, I guess that speaks of the amount of social life the boys in our family have as compared to the girls.
We decided to take a break from Through The Ages and Mo suggested Agricola as a worthy replacement. Well, perhaps not so worthy but definitely a more light-hearted replacement.
Game 1
My first game was exceptional (actually I think Mo was rusty) where I had an extra room to steal First Player from Mo and take the Family Growth Action the minute it came out. I had a teeny bit of trouble with food in the earlier rounds, which I realize tends to happen if you're going for a farming strategy first as opposed to animal husbandry but once my animals came in, it was just a matter of maximizing the space I had on my farm. My Flail (it doesn't actually look like a real flail) came in super handy since I had so much grain and I could plough my fields and ensure I had food using my Stone Oven Improvement, saving me probably 2-3 Actions.
Just a little bit of everything
Mo stuck with having 3 Farmers whilst I went all the way to 5 Farmers and you could see the disparity in our Farms due to the difference in number of Actions each round between us. I think the mistake we sometimes make is assume that we can make it when in actual fact you need to achieve just as much in shorter number of rounds and each Action really counts. The other tendency Mo has is to focus way too much on the Occupation & Minor Improvement Cards. He ended up having 5 Occupations, 4 Minor Improvements & 1 Major Improvement. Yes, they were useful stuff but at the cost of improving his Farm & with the limited number of Actions Mo had, those Occupations & Improvements came at a very high price. Still, look at the amount of Veggies he has, he could be Bugs Bunny.
Actually, that's a lot of potential Shepherd's Pie
I may have mentioned this before, but I managed to find a storage system that manages to fit everything into the original box! Such joy! (Yes I'm one of those type of gamers)
Game 2
The second game was miserable. I've never had a farm so full of weeds in my entire Agricola gaming history. I don't know whether it was because Mo kept hindering me, particularly by stealing all the Wood everytime I was just about to grab some but on my part I think it was because I held out far too long for the Clay Starter Occupation [Automatic Upgrade to Clay Hut]. I was waiting for enough Clay to accumulate so that I could start expanding after I had played the Clay Starter but Mo kept taking Clay for some reason. Then having given up hope I wanted to fence up all the excess farmland that I had but like I mentioned earlier, Mo kept one-upping me in that area as well causing me to curse inwardly.
Weeds everywhere!
Mo wasn't doing too well himself either. He certainly cut down on a lot on the Occupations & Minor Improvements but could only snag himself the Wild Boars and no other animal. His Seed Spreader certainly gave him an advantage farming wise although it was quite late in the game by the time he got it. Once again, having one less family member than I did probably made the difference. Not just in terms of the number of actions in the final rounds of the game but in terms of scoring as well. I had exactly 3 points more than Mo did. When Mo gets into his grove, Agricola can be a real frustrating game and oddly enough it's the tension that makes the game great, within 15 - 20 minutes you have to start counting your actions and I had to triple guess what actions Mo was going to take and whether I could risk not taking the First Player away from him to perform another equally crucial action. It's just brilliant stuff.
This farm sure is porky
Time Taken: 120 minutes
Results Of Game
Game 1
Winna – Hayen (41 Points)
Dead Last – Mo (33 Points)
This isn't my best score
Game 2
Winna – Hayen (28 Points)
Dead Last – Mo (25 Points)
Well at least I still won :P
Rating: 9/10
Session – Race For The Galaxy
Player(s):
Hayen
Mo
We haven't played Race For The Galaxy in a while now and the worst part is that, although I've done up the summary rules for the game including all its expansions, I haven't had the time to print it our properly as yet. And the game has a ridiculous learning curve, particularly after you haven't played it in 3 months or so. Still, there wasn't enough time for another round of Agricola, so Mo would have to try and look for his maiden win here.
I started out with the Galactic Scavengers, which is an interesting Planet supporting the use of the Production Action, which is kinda unusual. I was looking to build up my tableau with Alien Planets seeing as not only did I have some in hand but I had some Alien Discount Planets as well. However I only managed 1 Alien Planet and just couldn't find the right combo to throw down all my other Alien-y stuff.
Poor synergies
Mo however had a brilliant combo using the Diversified Markets together with Alien Oort Cloud Refinery's multi-colour goods production, he was drawing cards and used his extra Prestige to nail a Consume x3 action that gave him all the remaining VPs for the win. I still can't believe there was a point in time when we thought the Produce / Consume actions were weak and kept trying to win Militarily.
Curse you Tom Vasel and your enlightening video reviews!
Time Taken: 30 minutes
Results Of Game
Winna – Mo (40 Points)
Dead Last – Hayen (23 Points)
Rating: 9/10
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