Looking at my 14 BGG logged games, and allowing for those I didn’t capture, I’ve probably played around 20 games, all but one or two I played last year being in 2009. Again, thanks for accommodating and playing a three player game with me. I like it a lot better than two player. And I agree it’s a lot harder to hold all the game information in your head for this one. I think it’s something that would improve with experience to a degree. I can track one game, but tracking the contingencies and counter-picks and trying to remember what my priorities across multiple games is too difficult for me.
Can anyone who is familiar with the board game tell me if the solitaire mode (not vs AI) plays exactly the same as the board game?
It does not. There are all kinds of changes from the base requirement to obtain victory points for certain categories, to the fact that food carries over depending on your final score, to the selection and retention of occupation cards after each successful round which automatically get put into play in the next round. It is a very different creature entirely and makes it possible to earn 100+ points in a solo game by the end if you have chosen your occupations correctly.
The reason I ask is I heard great things about the solo mode in the board game and was hoping they would replicate the experience (I have never played Agricola myself and am more interested in a solo experience without AI, since any AI is easy to beat after a few games). In your opinion, did they improve on the board game’s solo mode or make it worse? Thanks for your reply!
I don’t know if they improved on it, but it’s my favorite part of this app. It does become a little routine after a while.
I felt bad because it wasn’t until the last round where I was actually paying attention enough to block someone. I grabbed the Plow & Sow because I assumed you wanted to sow more. But then you renovated your house and destroyed us. :) I enjoyed the game, just saying. I think with a live environment I’d be more in tune with what you were trying to do.
The random cards are still tough for me to wrap my head around too. I see someone play an occupation or minor improvement and think “whoa that’s the best card ever!” But I have my own options as well. This is probably the first iOS boardgame conversion where I feel compelled to play the boardgame, even though I’ve played plenty of iOS games with similar mechanics.
Undoubtedly. I benefited greatly from the Fisherman occupation. I think I grabbed 6 food twice and 8 food once from the fishing spot, which greatly reduced the pressure to feed my family. In a face-to-face you guys might have noticed how effective that was and snatched the food out from under me. And on the final renovation I benefited from the fact that you had already renovated to Stone, so I didn’t need to worry about you taking those spots, and Bruce wasn’t threatening to Renovate. So I was able to leave them for last and cherry pick high positive point moves.
As you can probably tell that’s where a lot of the depth in the game comes from. There are some well worn analyses of the minor improvements and occupations on BGG you can find, but their value is quite variable according to what other cards you have. I actually was quite unhappy with the occupations and minor improvements I had in our game. But I definitely grew to understand the value of Fisherman. In my current game I have Conservator (upgrade directly to stone house skipping clay), Mason (once you get a 4 room stone house add a room for free), Master Builder (once you get a 5 room home add another room) which all seem to work together much better. :) I also have Fisherman and Raft which is a nice combo.
Yeah, I really blew that game - I think we went a week at one point where I hadn’t moved, which was solely due to work issues. When I picked the game up again I honestly couldn’t remember what I was doing. I really love Bulge for the reason that you can pick the game up at any point and have everything in front of you. Brief History of the World is similar in that you can look at the map and understand the situation at a glance as well, since each turn is pretty self-contained. I struggle with involved asynchronous games like this and Le Havre for exactly these reasons, but Agricola is the one I find most troublesome after a long layoff.
Anyway, I do appreciate the game. I think I will have a short electronic m/p Agricola career.
Ha ha, Bruce Geryk sucks at Agricola!
But, yeah, some games really aren’t suited to async very well. Which is one of the reasons I’m enjoying History of the World. Each turn is (mostly) a self-contained challenge with a whole lot of tough self-contained choices. It’s not like Agricola or LeHavre where you need execute a long-term plan over successive moves.
-TomOk, I think I am done:
I liked the mason/master builder/chief combo, with the carpenter assist. I only had to build 2 rooms at reduced cost to get up to 6 rooms, which, with the chief, were worth 3 points each. I used clay for the rooms, since wood (you need 8 for stables and 14 for fences) and stone are quite limited. Plus I had clay mixer, possibly my worst occupation.
Strategy was to do Day Laborer (with Seasonal Worker giving grain) and plow for the first 3 turns, then sow and take wood. After that, get a clay oven and build rooms as soon as possible. I usually ended up with Pottery and Basketweaver for extra points. I would always end up with 4 plowed fields, 4 pastures taking up 5 spaces (all with stables), and six stone rooms. The pastures weren’t quite enough for all the required animals, I would only end up with 3 points for cattle; and 4 fields is only enough for 3 points as well. But it was still the most efficient I could come up with. Giving up the 6th room doesn’t help, since that’s 3 points for me.
Quarry is totally broken in solo series, but the way. It gives you 3 stone when you take day laborer, it costs nothing to put down, but you have to have 4 occupations (if I remember right). That’s the game I got 83. I probably should have gotten more.