Agricola has arrived... not yet played, however.

[viktor_haag]

The most anticipated game since perhaps Puerto Rico or Caylus has finally arrived on my doorstep via express post (after waiting almost nine months since I pre-ordered it): the special edition of Agricola with the extra cards and the handsome little deluxe animal shaped meeples. I have now read the rules, and it does, indeed, look like it could be a wonderful game with every bit as much replay value and fun as Puerto Rico, but only playing it will reveal whether it has the balance and long-term interest that's in the best of the german-style games. I suspect that by this time next week, I'll have at least a couple plays under my belt, but I don't anticipate I'll have anything meaningful to say about the game for some time yet.

For now though, it does have the first-glance earmarks of an excellent german-style game: handsome bits, fairly easy basic rules to get into, and a pretty hefty layer of variability that can keep the game rich and interesting for awhile. (In that respect, it reminds me a lot of the venerable Cosmic Encounter, without the nasty, cut-throat, overt interactive elements; in that sense, the game's rules seem a lot more like Puerto Rico: rather than assaulting players with direct confrontation, the game's structure seems to promote more subtle interaction that can also be nasty, but still, with balancing mechanisms to keep players involved and interested.)

Just from reading the rules, I don't think there's anything revolutionary in Agricola; but it does have the feel of something very well engineered from a set of known parts. Only time will tell if that feeling bears out in actual play.

Comments

[doc-mystery.livejournal.com]

(Emits waves of envy) I've ordered this from my FLGS, but the place is closed while the owner is away two weeks in Germany on vacation!

::B::

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

My sympathies. This is probably the last time I'll preorder a game. Yes, it was nice to get the little extras (cards, animeeples), but I'm not sure it was really worth the (considerable) amount of extra money I paid out compared to what stores will be charging for this game. I appreciate that a bunch of people pre-ordering a game gives a publisher some seed money to get a game made, but I suspect that the methods used by GMT (where they wait for 500+ people to commit to purchasing a game, then produce, then charge everyone once they know they can actually fulfill the orders and ship the game) or Deep Thought (where you pay for your copy of the game, and then you wait while they build it for you) are a bit more palatable. It was also a bit annoying to watch the so-called "exclusive bonuses" for pre-order customers slowly show up as available in other ways.

But, in the long run, I don't mind having done this once, and I'm looking forward to playing Agricola. With luck I'll get it played two or three times by next week, and I'll be able to get a recently played column up for it before too long... 8)