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Agricola Family
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After the overwhelming popularity of 2007’s Agricola, it was only a matter of time before Uwe Rosenberg provided a ‘family’ version. And sure enough, Agricola: Family Edition provides exactly that. It’s a streamlined, family-weight variant of the classic worker placement game. Once again, players get to build their own farm… Many things remain the same, in parallel to Agricola. You start with two farmer workers, one for each room of your starter farmhouse. Each round you send these out to locations to do actions, or pick up supplies. Some locations are ‘accumulation’ spots, where goods get placed at the start of each round. These build up over time if no one claims them, making them rather appealing later on! You’ll aim to collect wood to build fenced pastures so you can keep and breed livestock in them. You’ll want to plough fields grow wheat (and, later on, to feed your workers). If you increase the size of your farmhouse, you can get more workers to live there! There’s fourteen rounds to this game, which again is Euro-style in nature (most points wins). After certain rounds there’s a harvest. You have to feed your workers, your fields produce wheat, and your animals breed. So far, so Agricola. But a major difference here is that players don’t have their own restrictive player mat. You add (pasture, building and farmhouse) tiles adjacent to your starting house. Also, while new action spots get added each round, these are always in a predetermined order. (They get added in a relative shuffled order, in regular Agricola). There are no Occupation/Minor Improvement cards in this version, either. There’s no punishment for not fulfilling certain categories like in Agricola. This is a ‘Family Edition’, after all! You score points for having animals, wheat in your fields, and many other things. Agricola: Family Edition is a lighter, quicker version of Agricola, ideal for younger or less experienced board gamers. Player Count: 1-4 players Time: 45 minutes Age: 8+
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Description
After the overwhelming popularity of 2007’s Agricola, it was only a matter of time before Uwe Rosenberg provided a ‘family’ version. And sure enough, Agricola: Family Edition provides exactly that. It’s a streamlined, family-weight variant of the classic worker placement game. Once again, players get to build their own farm… Many things remain the same, in parallel to Agricola. You start with two farmer workers, one for each room of your starter farmhouse. Each round you send these out to locations to do actions, or pick up supplies. Some locations are ‘accumulation’ spots, where goods get placed at the start of each round. These build up over time if no one claims them, making them rather appealing later on! You’ll aim to collect wood to build fenced pastures so you can keep and breed livestock in them. You’ll want to plough fields grow wheat (and, later on, to feed your workers). If you increase the size of your farmhouse, you can get more workers to live there!
There’s fourteen rounds to this game, which again is Euro-style in nature (most points wins). After certain rounds there’s a harvest. You have to feed your workers, your fields produce wheat, and your animals breed. So far, so Agricola. But a major difference here is that players don’t have their own restrictive player mat. You add (pasture, building and farmhouse) tiles adjacent to your starting house. Also, while new action spots get added each round, these are always in a predetermined order. (They get added in a relative shuffled order, in regular Agricola). There are no Occupation/Minor Improvement cards in this version, either.
There’s no punishment for not fulfilling certain categories like in Agricola. This is a ‘Family Edition’, after all! You score points for having animals, wheat in your fields, and many other things. Agricola: Family Edition is a lighter, quicker version of Agricola, ideal for younger or less experienced board gamers.
Player Count: 1-4 players
Time: 45 minutes
Age: 8+
Agricola – Family Edition
I will start by saying I have played the full version of Agricola. In truth, it’s nearly 3 hours of my life I will never get back. 45 mins of that was reading the rule book!
So, in all honesty, when asked to review this the family edition, I was quite sceptical of to what I would encounter and how much joy could be encountered with a euro game based around farming.
Pleasantly Surprised – Never Judge a Book by its Cover
Firstly, the rules and setup to this game are best being done before you sit down to play. Although the game is a lot more light weight compared to the original, sorting the component does take time. The kids may lose interest before they start the game if you spend the first 20 mins organising it all and checking the rules. Remember we are trying to make farming fun here!
However, me and the wife knowing are 6-year-old boy and 3-year-old daughter made sure we did the pre prep.
To start, this game benefits greatly by lessing the load on components. Don’t get me wrong there are still lots of lovely produced pieces which you come to expect from a well published euro style game, but a big plus with the family version is that there are no cards in this version of the game. All the focus is on the board and the components around it. This is a big plus point in terms of engagement, especially for younger kids like my two children.
I found that once we explained the rules to our eldest and did a few dummy rounds, he really caught on to the strategic aspect of this game, while also being engaged from an enjoyment point of view (Especially when it came to getting little wooden sheep into his pastures!!).
Time Length and keeping them entertained
So how do you keep the kids entertained, when at the end of the day it’s a game about Farming?
My Son’s Favourite game is King of Tokyo, so this would surely be a challenge, right? Yes, in truth this couldn’t be any more further away from the type of game my little ones usually like (Chalk and cheese and all that). However, Agricola – Family Edition did leave a mark.
The components helped, not just admired by our kids, I must say also how beautifully this game is produced.
The game is not just about pretty/cool components though. There is a nice balance of fun and competitiveness which comes when playing this game. The simple rules and dummy round really got my eldest into the game. Before I knew it my son had more Pastures full of Animals than me!
In a nutshell, once you get the round structure of this game, you cannot go wrong, its just what approach you take in trying to win the game by scoring the most points, and off course don’t forget to feed your people!!!
Crucially, its not just for Kids!
As I stated at the start of this review, I have played the full version of Agricola and everyday of the week I would always opt for this, the family version. Its great to get to the table, it plays in under an hour and it has enough meat (No pun intended) to keep all (Young and old) engaged and entertained.
A Classic, made a whole lot easier and streamlined for all the Family. This is the best way I can sum up this version of Agricola.
Me and my wife would quite happily play this ourselves with and without the kids. Game time as mentioned is a big bonus especially when we have a hectic day to day lifestyle with full time jobs and kids. Sometimes you really want to chill and play a game but you’re that tired you just don’t get the time to play a game for a couple of hours, even at the weekend. Agricola – Family Edition perfectly solves this Issue.
For the Price, I would highly recommend picking this game up, whether you have kids or not.
Happy Farming!
Zatu Score
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