The first time I laid eyes on Agricola was a few years back. I found the theme to be not terribly interesting (you’re a farming household on a plot of land with a two-room hut) and the little marker tokens to be impenetrable. Cubes, disks, and little dowels. It turned a game about farming into something that felt about as fun as farming would be.
Agricola
Now, having played the new version with the new and improved meeples, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s got some downright brilliant design inspiration (this game launched a thousand others), it still has theme issues, and I’ve established that you need to set up your Food Engine then start having kids and, having done that, the game plays itself. With that said: this is the “Candyland” of worker placement games. If you’re introducing worker placement to friends? This is the game to do it with. Additionally, the theme, while not particularly interesting to me, is safe and family friendly. D&D might raise eyebrows with some of the gramma types, after all. (You may have to worry about jokes about how kids are made, when the time comes that you need to make new workers. There’s also the potential for the “I have wood, now I need sheep!” joke that anyone who’s played Settlers of Catan is already familiar with. If you can get past those two things, you’re golden.)
While it’s not to my taste, I can see how tons of folks out there would *LOVE* to have this on a shelf. If you’ve never played a worker-placement game: start with this one.
So… what are you playing?
(Photo is “The Game” taken by Mo Riza, used under a creative commons license.)
I am cleaning out my DVR, and my OCD prevents me from being able to delete something without at least having it play in the background.
So, the GoBowling.com 400 is on my TV right now.
At the risk of sounding like @saul-degraw , how can anyone voluntarily watch this horseshit?Report
Well, since none of us are watching it …Report
Turns out their entire target audience is OCD people who accidentally DVR it.Report
The sad part is that I DVRed it on purpose.
The race was held at Pocono Raceway, which is a track shaped like a triangle, so that made the race a bit more interesting.
Also, Dale Jr ended up taking the lead in Lap 147 (out of 160) and held on to win, even though it was close on the final restart on Lap 157. It was his 2nd victory at Pocono this year, in the first he was in 2nd place when the leader had a hot dog wrapper on the grill and had to slow down as to not overheat.Report
Went to visit the granddaughter today. She’s walking everywhere now. My daughter says the “breakthrough” happened when she realized that if she walked, her hands were free for (a) carrying things to places they shouldn’t be and (b) pushing back at the big dog when he got too close. Interesting to watch the 20-pound human shove and fuss at the 120-pound dog, and the dog’s body language is all “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be in your way.”Report
LOL @ Boston College, whose kicker hooked a PAT in OT in the Pinstripe Bowl.Report
The Pinstripe Bowl?
Football is dead.Report
Between those Eagles and the green-and-silver ones, football is dead for @kazzyReport
My boyfriend and I gave his brother the co-op game Forbidden Desert, and we got a chance to play on Christmas day. Other Christmas boardgames include the Underground expansion for Small World, the Escalation expansion for Eminent Domain, and the Wonder Pack for 7 wonders–though we haven’t had a chance to play any of them yet.
Agricola is probably the biggest foundational/classic board game that I have yet to play. Generally when Agrigola is on offer at game meetups, there are also worker placement games with cooler themes that I can choose instead.
Most recently, I got a chance to play Euphoria, which was quite nice. It’s a worker placement set in a dystopian society–most of your actions will advance factions in addition to providing you with resources–Your followers will score points and provide better action opportunities if they belong to factions that advance, but you don’t know what factions the other player’s supporters belong to. And you can’t get away with just advancing your own faction, because you need the resources provided by the actions that advance the other factions.Report
You should play Agricola once, at least. You’ll appreciate Lords of Waterdeep so much more the next time you play.Report
I finished Dragon Age: Inquisition (just over 90 hours) just before I headed up to Auckland, and now I’m back I’m starting a second game.Report
Finished up Saints Row IV, and started Shadow of Mordor. I have died like four times,mostly because I’ve been playing Xbox for 10 years so I can’t remember which controls are which.
Triangle? Circle? IS THAT X OR Y.Report