Agricola: Farmers of the Moor

So it was the last games night of the year, and the leader board was delicately poised with Adam and Sam level on 40 points. We settled down to the choice of Colosseum or Agricola: Farmers of the Moor. Yet again Colosseum was overlooked for a newer, more enticing, complex game, a decision that caused some cussing about three hours later.

Adding horses, forests and clay pits to the basic game there were also new actions that could be taken without using a family member and even more confusing (yet apt) a need to heat your house during the winter. This was particularly hard until about the eighth round when we discovered that wood burns, at which point we stopped just using piles of peat as blankets.
 

Quentin quickly established his crop growing strategy with occupations that gave bonus veg and grain whenever he took food. Sam struggled after being dealt a hand bereft of useful improvements and created some beautiful rolling pastures that were only missing animals. Andrew’s board had a little of everything, but not enough to pile up the big points. I started with a card that deducted 4 points at the end of the game but gave me one of every item and a nice leg-up at the start. I built up a stock of sheep for food and horses for points and renovated as soon as possible to reduce heating costs. Joe looked to get his crops going and his house expanded and renovated into the most magnificent neo-gothic original-feature-filled 17th Century barn conversion you’ve ever seen. By playing the yeoman farmer he was able to completely ignore livestock and concentrate on maxing out all the other scoring categories.

In a seasonal interlude the crisps and beer were interrupted by a round of some quite scary (but delicious) biscuits and tasty warm mince pies, giving the gang just enough energy to get to the end of what would be a long night.
 

If your answer to the question “Is Agricola confusing enough?” is "No, I understand every aspect of it perfectly and never have to ask for something I should have collected last round." then FotM is the answer to your prayers. It turns out though that (apart perhaps from Quentin) our answer is "Yes". Maybe as a two- or three- player game it will liven things up, but a mind-mangling range of options isn’t lacking in the original game...

As we drew to a close Quentins board looked most balanced and but for missing out on the riding stables in the last round it should have handed him victory. Only the poor workmanship of his house counted against him, while Joe scored big on house, family and garden, and I scored on horses and bonus points. The final scores saw a tie for first place:
 

Joe 45

Adam 45

Quentin 44

Sam 36

Andrew 19

The Leaderboard

All of which means a decisive two-point win this year for me (unless you count points per game in which case Sam just pips Steve, but we don’t, okay?)

	Played	Points
Adam	20	45
Sam	15	43
Joe	19	41
Andrew	23	29
Steve	6	16
Quentin	5	11
Jonny	7	10
Will	2	4
Hannah	1	1
Jon	1	1

So next year our more egalitarian points-scoring-system is going to be 1 point each for turning up as we all know that games should just be played for the joy of playing. Right guys? Group hug!