26th Feb - down on the farm again...

A couple of weeks ago (or three); me, Nick, Keith, Julian & Ester had played Agricola. We all wanted another game, so had arranged it for last Thursday. Nasty Nick had borrowed my copy of the 'Gric the week before to take a proper look at the cards & Paul B let Nick's secret out; he had been practising! Apparently it was a couple of games, but who knows what the truth really is...!

I decided to try out a combination of the E, I & K decks; dealing out 3 from E, 2 from I & 2 from K for each player's Occupations & Minor Improvements. The early part of the game was notable because the action boards suddenly filled up with bonus goods/food. Nick had a couple of great Minor Improvements that were also cheap; Private Forest (cost 2 Food - get 1 Wood on each even-numbered space) & Chicken Coop (cost 2 Wood/2Clay & 1 Reed - get one Food for the next 8 Rounds), while Ester also played the Pig Whisperer Occupation (giving her 3 Boar at various Rounds).

At first, it seemed as though me & Nick were doing better out of the 5 of us; I had got a good field/grain supply & conversion (to Food) going courtsey of my Field Watchman (when you take 1 Grain, you may also Plow one Field) & my Wood-Fired Oven (convert any number of Grain into 3 Food with the Bake Bread action). Nick was swimming in resources - I can't remember if he had also played any further cards or whether he had been taking them when they had stock-piled at least once, but whatever he was doing was clearly working so I had no doubt he would be putting them to good use! Keith, Julian & Ester were also chugging along fine without looking like they were really struggling.

Now, I don't know what happen to me but it somehow went belly-up for me at some point. Perhaps I hadn't developed my farm enough or didn't have enough Family members, but suddenly it seemed as though I had too many things to do and - the horror! - my Food supply looked like drying up as I was committing my workers to other actions than Bake Bread. In an effort to salvage my farm, I played the Ceramics Minor Improvement (receive 2 Food, the Pottery (Major Imp.) now costs you nothing) & this is where I think I was beginning to have a bad day; somehow, I missed the words 'costs you nothing' & so didn't pick up the Pottery until near the end of the game - D'OH! That would have been a big, big help had I taken it earlier. To make things worse, on the penultimate turn, I forgot all about Food & did other actions... then realised I didnit have any Food for my two Family members. Nada, zilch, zero! So I had to give up FOUR Grain to feed them & then on the last turn, I took lots of Clay which gave me 2 Food & 3 Bonus points with the Pottery. I still had to take TWO begging cards!!! I felt like throwing my toys out of the pram as a result of my own stupidity...!!!

By game end, both Nick & Keith had got a larger Stone Hut with 4 or 5 Family members each & approximately the same number of unused spaces. Though I thought it was most likely Keith had won since he had something of everything & Nick had no Fields, Grain or Vegetables...

Final scoring;

(Fields/Pastures/Grain/Vegetables/ Sheep/Boar/Cattle/Unused Spaces/Fenced Stables/Clay Hut rooms/Stone Hut rooms/Family members/Points for cards/Bonus points)

1st - Keith: (2/4/1/1/2/2/1/-3/2/0/6/15/1/0) = 34pts.
2nd - Nick: (-1/4/-1/-1/2/1/1/-4/2/0/8/12/8/2) = 31pts.
3rd - Ester: (2/4/1/-1/1/4/1/-2/1/2/0/6/2/0) = 21pts.
4th - Matt: (3/2/-1/-1/2/3/-1/-4/2/3/0/6/4/-3) = 15pts.
5th - Julian: (-1/4/-1/-1/3/-1/3/-5/2/0/0/6/1/0) = 10pts.