St. Pete expansion finally here?

Thanks to Boardgamenews for this article, detailing the cards of the new St. Petersburg expansion.

I like St. Pete a lot, but have played it face-to-face maybe twice? I have played it probably 100 times on brettspielwelt.de. I have been getting beat regularly lately too... Maybe this expansion will give me a better chance online (I doubt it).

Who's buying this expansion when it's available? Leave comments below and let's discuss.

Uwe interview

Interesting interview of Uwe Rosenberg (creator of Agricola) can be find here. Uwe really has a smash hit on his hands, Agricola is clearly a world-wide phenomenon. And he has a new game coming out shortly: Le Havre.

When asked about it, he said: "I hope, that the friends of complex games, also like LE HAVRE. But the target audience is a bit smaller than for AGRICOLA, even if the rules are explained faster."

Solitare Agricola

I've logged about 10 full games of solitaire Agricola now, and am having a lot of fun. I cracked open what appeared to be the "E" deck (which stands for "beginner" for some reason), and played about 6 games. I discovered quite a few more "E" cards in the shrink-wrapped pack of "I" cards, and have played 4 more.


So far my scores in the first four games are: 60, 63, 70, and now 76. I kept the Carpenter from the first game, Chief from the second game, Plow Maker from the third, and will be keeping Seasonal worker from the fourth.

What is fascinating is the different shortages and challenges you are faced with in the game as you progress. Food is scarce in game 1, then stone begins to become an issue. Depending on what occupations come up, you may have problems finding reed or clay - or at least "over-spending" for them and facing a lower score.

Reading some posts on the 'geek, I've taken a much more critical eye on the benefits (or lack) from different minor improvements and occupations. For example, Wood Cutter sounds like a good deal (+1 wood each time you pull wood) - but when you count the fact that you are only pulling wood 4 times in a game, and you must spend a action +1 food to actually place the Wood Cutter - you might as well just pull wood a fifth time and save yourself the 1 food!

Plow Maker is an awesome occupation, as it clearly saves you 1 extra move, usually two. You can plow three times and place 6 fields, saving you 2 full actions for the cost of 4 food (1 for the placement of the Plow Maker, and 1 each for the 3 extra fields you generate). That is a clear winner, and so much better than Mushroom Collector, Clay Mixer, Hedge Keeper, etc.

An exception is Stone Carrier, which might pay you out only 2 stone for the cost of an action and 1 food - this is probably well worth it if you plan on a high score, as stone is the ticket to Well, Stone Oven, Pottery and all the other "bonus" Major Improvements.

I did not do very well in my first game of Agricola with Kevin, but after 10 solo games I think I will be very competitive the next time we square off in this one...

What's latin for fun?

What a good time I am having with Agricola! Single player, unfortunately. But I have really been getting a kick out of "puzzling-out" different strategies, trying to optimize my score under different conditions.

I haven't timed myself yet, but I am thinking it's taking me about 30 minutes a game. Most of the early moves are easy of course, which is a great thing about Agricola that clearly will make it more approachable for young people and non-gamers. Rosenberg has made the game extremely scalable by using cards to carefully increase the resource production for 1 - 5 players. Since the different options are introduced somewhat randomly (4 different cards revealed in the first round, 3 in the second round, etc.) and one at a time, the players are shown progressively more options.

Advanced players can fuss about what cards come next, but even a successful guess may only uncover a small advantage. Newer players can blissfully take the most obvious choice, and as long as the keep the overall goal in focus, should feel like they are making progress.

And the gorgeous theme of the game means that players who are not into competition can feel like they are just "bettering their best score" with each game, not even competing.

I'll give it a few more weeks, but I am thinking this game moves to a nine on the 'geek in my ratings.

Check out this excellent single-player "record sheet" available on the 'geek.

Desert Island games

This was a popular "geeklist" a while back if I recall. Playing Agricola with Kevin and discussing whether it was better than Puerto Rico led me back to wondering what my absolute favorite game would be, if stranded on a desert island.

Of course, we'd have to assume that we had (ahem) and adequate number of players available. And I supposed that would make you think about the conditions you'd be playing in (a tent? under a coconut tree?), etc.

But check out the poll on the right side, and if you see a game that you think significantly out-ranks the others, give it a vote. Then click "comments" below and lets discuss it. ;)

X-deck

Thanks to BGG for point this out... there's a new deck coming for Agricola in the next issue of Spielbox. Check out this article.

Agric-o-lah

It's here. Possibly the greatest game in the world, Agricola (apparently pronounced "Agric-o-lah", latin for "farmer").

First play at Kevin's on Wednesday, 3-player "family" game, plus 3-player "occupation/minor improvement deck" game. Kevin, Jared and I faced off in Northampton.

I was thrilled after the first game, and immediate felt the influence of Princes of Florence, Caylus, and Puerto Rico, as well as a little Age of Empires. Had the same desire for replay as I did after my first game of AoE, with no negatives like I felt with Caylus (length, dry).

The pieces were excellent. Kevin had the highly controversial "pre-order" edition, with the extra cards (called "z-cards" for "z-man games" edition), and the "ani-meeples", or animal pieces. His instruction was outstanding, I didn't pull the manual once, and only had to ask a couple of clarifying questions during the game. The game felt very "natural", and the theme was very rich and made actions very intuitive. Your goal to enlarge your farming family, grow cattle, sheep, enlarge your farm and plant fields for victory points was interesting and fun.

Playing my second game with the expansion deck was not quite as impressive as I hoped, in that it made the game somewhat more "solitaire" than it felt in the family version. Each of us chose our own path and I can only remember one move in the entire game that one player could dramatically affect another (and he ended up choosing a different space anyway). In the first play, because of more limited choices (no cards), it felt that your move choices could block out those of your opponents, making the game more like Caylus or even Puerto Rico in that respect.

In any event, I rate the game an "8" immediately, and suspect it could climb to a "10" and take out Puerto Rico (or at least tie it) for me.

============

There is more "buzz" about this game than any I can remember on the 'geek. The number of forum posts, reviews, articles and photos for the length of time this game is on the market is unbelievable. As I write this the game is battling for first place on the boardgamegeek ratings, a legitimate contender to take out Puerto Rico for number one in the world, a feat that I would have thought impossible for several reasons.

There is a site that apparently will be producing more of the wooden animal pieces, which do a lot of richness to the visual nature of the game, and make it more conversational for non-gamers here. Apparently, you can purchase plastic animals from Target, and maybe from craft stores as well.

State of BSC

Here's what's been going on this year at Brett Spiel Cafe. I originally built this site for three basic reasons: 1. To provide a place for friends to gather and discuss boardgaming. 2. Provide a central location for game news that I uncovered during my routine surfing and scouring the web. 3. Provide an outlet for my creative writing "itch", and exercise my web skills.

In the last several years, there has been a huge increase in the amount of material available on the web about boardgaming. A google search today nets 214,000 hits just on the word "boardgaming", and 89,000 on Klaus Teuber (of Settlers of Catan fame). NOTE: I used the "10-year anniversary" google search on 10/08/08, and 10 years ago, there were only 1,080 hits on "boardgaming" and 3,590 for Klaus! Boardgamegeek.com has improved tremendously as a resource for gamers, and has had some major technological improvements that make it not just the best boardgame site on the 'net, but one of the best catalog/archive/information/community sites on the internet.

Boardgamenews.com is another fantastic site that has had a major facelift, and now supported by advertising and a large list of news contributors has done a fantastic job on highlight what's new and upcoming in the hobby.

During the last few years before these sites really took off, I would use them and others as a place to find news and nuggets of gaming info, linking to them from Brettspielcafe. Eventually their content grew to a point where I could not keep up with them, and it seemed they were a better source of regular direct news for myself and our readers here.

I made a decision to close Brettspeilcafe.net to outsiders for a while in 2006, and it seemed that this eliminated several regular readers, and comments on my posts began to disasppear even after I reopened the site as an open one a month later.

Time has limited my "creative writing" this year significantly, and has even cut my actual boardgaming down one session perhaps once a month now.

What's the future hold for Brettspeilcafe.net?

I hope to keep the site open as an archive for our past events, and some opinion pieces and post-mortems I am proud of and would like to stay up. I suspect that in the next year or so there will be a resurgence of "Euro" or "German" style gaming in my home and in my group of friends. This might give me the "boost" that I need to start writing again.

In the meantime, please check us out at least once a month. Feel free to comment on any posts you enjoy. Create a profile on boardgamegeek.com and join me there for a game of Tigris and Euphrates!

Quiet

It has been a while since I've posted, and there's a reason for that... I have not been boardgaming very much! Some different things going on have kept me away from it, unfortunately. A game of Chess here or there, played Probe the other night with the family (Tammy crushed us). That's about it. Agricola is on it's way apparently, that will no doubt inspire a get-together.

Texas Hold'em has been popular, and our once-a-month gathering with 6-8 people has taken care of a lot (most?) of my table time I suppose. I keep finishing in second place, I think 4 of the last 7 times we've played. I cannot seem to figure out how to win the game 1-1.

I still played Tigris and Euphrates on the 'geek, checking that site every day. It is one of my two
"perfect 10" rated games, along with Chess. My"9's" are: Bridge, Twilight Imperium 3rd Ed., Puerto Rico, and Mare Nostrum.

Ticket 2 Ride: XBox Live

Yet another boardgame conversion. Another good article on the subject, thanks to BGN.

Check out the early review of Ticket to Ride, Xbox Live edition here.