agricolaThe storyline, the game mechanism, and design are the three main elements in determining the quality of a board game. If a board game has an interesting background story, a creative game mechanism, and proper design of the board game certainly is a very interesting board game to play and unfortunately for us not miss (too good not to be Played). The author will discuss three very popular board game and pity to miss: Pandemic, Agricola, and Dominion.

Too good not to be Played (2): Agricola

We live in a country with vast agricultural land and led by a president who raised the topic of agriculture as a scientific thesis, but Have we really interested to know more about agriculture?

Maybe what we need is a creative media to raise agriculture become more attractive themes, like board game called Agricola, a very interesting board game and love to pass just like that (too good not to be Played).

Agricola, from the Latin word meaning farmer, is a board game by Uwe Rosenberg phenomenal results and then published by two well-known publisher of board games: Lookout Games (Europe) and Z-Man Games (United States). Board games are the theme of peasant family life in the 17th century has also managed to obtain a variety of prestigious awards, including: Spiel December Jahres (for the category of the best complex games) as well Deutscher Spiele Preis (2008), an appreciation for the board game with a relatively mechanism complex (gamer’s game). More broadly, Agricola succeeded in providing an exciting and challenging picture associated with the life of the peasants in the Middle Ages.

As we discussed in previous articles, a board game becomes very interesting if the board game has a background / story ideas are interesting, unique mechanical / creative, and the right design, and Agricola have all three, even above average board other games.

When playing Agricola each player acts as head of European peasant family in the 17th century who must perform various activities (farming) to be able to develop their agricultural business while maintaining and fostering family. There are so many interesting aspects of the lives of farming families who are appointed by the board of this game, grow crops, raise, develop agricultural land, families, and provide food for the whole family are some of them. Idea / background story about the life of family farmers and all its activities makes this board game becomes very challenging.

Components and Design

Agricola component consists of 9 board game (5 for players, 3 main game board, and a special board), 360 game cards (of whom 169 work cards and 139 cards fixes), 217 tokens (wood), and 106 special components (tiles .) Type of job cards and repairs that so many causes Agricola able to give a different variation each time the game is played.

Each component Agricola (board, cards, tokens, and special components) show a very interesting design. Each board game featuring picture of agricultural land and each card displays the images of particular interest. Because such a large number of components and comes with a very attractive design, Agricola was also known as one of the board game of high value.

Mechanism Games

At the beginning of the game, each player is equipped with a small house with 2 rooms (pictured with specific components) and two members of the family (token). The number of these family members then determine what action could be done by a player in a phase of “work”. Agricola is divided into 16 round game in which each rotation always consists of four phases of the game: 1) start the round game (put the card), 2) add items, seeds, and animals, 3) work, and 4) back to the house.

In the working phase each player can perform various actions in accordance with the number (token) family member has. Every action should only be done by one individual player. Various actions that are available can be grouped into 4 main types of action are: to build and renovate houses, bring in new family members, preparing the land, and breed.

In each phase, the card game into components that were most responsible. The ability to optimize the cards each player has, take the right decision in each phase, and the ability to analyze the strategies of other players into the major key to winning this game.

At the end of the game, the player with the highest points, determined by the land area of work, the number of cattle sheds, the amount of food stocks, and a large house, be a winner.

More Than Just Games

Agricola succeeded in showing that the board game is a very innovative media. A theme that is so complex, the lives of family farmers in the 17th century complete with all its activities, can be shown to be very interesting.

Through Agricola we can slightly feel the weight of challenges to be faced by the farmers. In addition we also can get some idea about the activities of farmers. Various information, directly or indirectly, will be able to increase our appreciation of the profession of farmers and agriculture generally.

The same of course we can apply in Indonesia, to package a variety of themes (cultural, political, economic, educational, legal) into a board game that attractive and affordable. The author believes, if it can be done, appreciation as well as the public interest, especially young people, against these themes are greatly increased.

Could you first make it?

quoted from detikinet