10 Board Games in 10 Days - Day 3 - Agricola

AGRICOLA

Z-Man Games - 2007

picture from BoardGameGeek.com

I have a confession to make. I purchased Agricola because I wanted to look cool. That’s right, I bought a game about farming to look cool. Just look at that box art, what’s cooler than that? Agricola is one of those games that the board gamer’s board gamer talks about being the best in the industry. Words like “Ameritrash” are used to describe the two previous games I wrote about. Games that are all flash and no substance. Betrayal at House on the HIll is too random. Flash Point: Fire Rescue has all these cute images and figurines to play with and is almost as random as Betrayal! Euro games are where strategy is king. It’s difficult to be “good at” playing Betrayal and Flash Point because of the random factors, but with Agricola, the random elements can be mitigated with excellent strategy and forethought.

Agricola was designed by Uwe Rosenberg. He is the first designer I learned the name of and is one of the most well known and respected designers in the board game scene. There are actually quite a few designers in the board game world that many are fond of. Reiner Knizia, Vladmir Chvatil, Stefan Feld, Steve Jackson, just to name a few. There’s also Corey Konieczka, who I happened to go to high school with. Uwe Rosenberg is a name you’ll see associated with consistently high quality games. When I went to the store to buy Agricola I walked up to the counter like, “that’s right, I’m a legit board gamer now.”

When I got home I called up my buddy Joe Donnelly, as usual, to come over and give this thing a whirl. With previous games we were able to set up and play without much issue. We had someone teach us Betrayal at House on the Hill and Flash Point: Fire Rescue isn’t exactly a mind bender. A little bit of hubris lead us to having a completely horrible experience with our first game of Agricola.

The game is all about creating a sustainable farm, growing crops and tending to livestock to ensure the survival of your family for the coming seasons. You accomplish this by assigning your family members to various tasks. Each player has their own personal board where they manage their farmstead, you will never interact with another player’s farm. Instead, fights happen on the central board where all the available actions are located. This is what’s known as a “worker placement” game. For example - say it’s my turn and I want to go to the forest to chop some wood. I grab one of my workers from my home and place them on the “collect wood” action on the central board. Any wood pieces on that action now belong to me and are moved to my resource pool. Next, it is Joe’s turn. He also wants wood but he is unable to take the “collect wood” action because I already have a worker there. Instead, he takes his next best option and goes to collect some food from the pond. As time goes on, more actions become available like increasing the number of family members you have or collecting ore. There is also the harvest phase which requires you to not only reap your crops but to also feed your family. If you are unable to feed your family at the end of a season then you must suffer the consequences.

Joe and I suffered those consequences many times in our first game. Agricola is shockingly brutal. Despite its cute box art and lovely components it will slam your face in manure and hold it there if you aren’t careful. Planning many turns ahead is paramount. Having alternative plans is necessary. One misplaced worker could mean the difference between feast or famine. We also realized we got most of the rules wrong. The game introduced mechanics completely foreign to us. There are no dice like the previous two games I wrote about and most things are an abstract representation rather than a modeled token. While the cubes and cylinders didn’t add to the complexity of the game it was a visually different experience.

Our second game was entirely different from our first. Our final scores were markedly higher and we managed to get most of the rules right. We knew we could still do better so we reset and played again. And again. And again. Each game ends right when you feel like you’re about to break through and have an amazing harvest in the next season. This is clearly by design. It leaves you wanting to go right back in to it because you know what you did wrong and you’re positive you can get to that perfect harvest one season earlier. Of course, putting that perfect strategy to action is easier said than done because surely someone is going to swoop in and take that wood right out from under your nose when you needed it most.

Uwe Rosenberg designed a spiritual successor to Agricola called Caverna. It plays nearly identically to Agricola, there’s just more. You start with a humble farmstead and you work to grow it and your family by choosing actions from a shared board. There are plenty of actions to choose from and so many ways to score points that it’s pretty easy to pivot and change course. It is far less brutal than Agricola, even new players don’t seem to have much difficulty feeding their families in their first game. In that way I almost prefer Caverna to Agricola, it is less demoralizing for new players on their first game. The amount of options is also where Caverna fails and Agricola succeeds. A new player looking at a fully set up Caverna is easily overwhelmed, whereas a fully set up Agricola isn’t nearly as huge and intimidating. With so many options there is almost no conflict for resources in Caverna. You don’t have to pay as much attention to other player’s turns because even if someone takes the wood you wanted there are two or three other ways to collect the same resource. For this reason, Caverna can sometimes feel like a group of people playing their own games alone rather than a shared game together.

Agricola isn’t a game that hits the table very often. I’ll bring it around to a board game night but the set up and clean up time is often just too much trouble to bother with. Yet, I still love it and when people ask me what my favorite games are I’ll often add Agricola to the list. While games like Betrayal at House on the Hill and Flash Point: Fire Rescue got me in to board games because of their accessibility, Agricola pulled me in deeper with its rewarding experience. Agricola certainly wouldn’t be considered a gateway game, it lets other games do that. Instead, once you’re through the gate, it will shut it and lock it behind you.

Sports Photography... at Night!

Successful sports photography requires pretty much only one thing... a high shutter speed.  We're talking upwards of 1/1000th of a second.  The problem is, a fast shutter speed like that requires a lot of light.  With the power of the Sun, you won't have to worry about much, that's pretty much a no-brainer.  But once the Sun goes down you have to make your own light sources.  Photographers do this regularly with their own lights or with lights they rent.  They can control them by moving them around, adding filters, flags, scrims, silks, whatever you have to throw in front of the light, it's up to you to use.  There are unfortunate circumstances where you are required to shoot in a dark place and you have absolutely no control over the light.  This is the challenge I've been facing once a week for the past month as I've been photographing for Gotham Soccer League.

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While the fields they use are illuminated, these are not professional stadiums they're playing in, so they're still a little dim for my liking.  One challenge I've faced is that I have to decide between a really high ISO, practically the maximum ISO my camera can handle, meaning all the shots will have more "noise."  This will allow me to use a higher shutter speed, reaching my target of 1/1000th of a second.  Or I can use a lower ISO, experiencing less noise, but I might encounter some motion blur.  I decided a little blur isn't the end of the world, as motion blur in sports simply shows motion.  I mean, these are action shots after all.  The 1/1000th of a second shutter speed will stop time.  So sometimes I switch back and forth getting a little with more blur and a little without.

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For these games I shoot at an aperture of f/2.8.  This allows for more light to hit the censor and creates a nice depth of field.  The only issue is that, depending on the subject's distance from the camera and what millimeter my camera is zoomed to, the depth of field can sometimes be pretty narrow.  When a player is running directly at me, I only have about of meter or less for them to be in focus.  So I often hold my autofocus button (which I've remapped to the back of my camera) and hold the shutter down and hope for the best.  It's during free kicks and goal kicks when I can take my time to set frame and focus.

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One important thing to include in sports photography is the scenery.  As I stated before, I'm not shooting in stadiums.  There's rarely an audience and usually it's just friends and family of the people playing.  These players are playing for the love of the game, not for the fame and fortune that comes with being an athlete.  But, we do live in NYC, which offers amazing views from time to time.  After living here for years it's easy to forget the beauty the city has to offer.

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Onderdonk House

The neighborhood where I live is a hotly contested spot.  Sometimes it belongs to Queens, sometimes it belongs to Brooklyn.  As of right now, the border forms a zig-zag pattern down one street.  So when you walk down the street you can say "I'm in Brooklyn.  Now I'm in Queens!  Now I'm back in Brooklyn!" without leaving that same street.  But there's one building in Ridgewood, Queens that Brooklyn can't lay its hands on, and that's the Onderdonk House.

The land was acquired by Hendrick Barents Smidt as a grant from Peter Stuyvesant in 1661.  At that time, Stuyvesant was the Director-General of the Dutch Colony New Amsterdam.  Which, of course, was renamed New York in 1667 after a trade with the English. 

In 1709 Paulus Vander Ende purchased the land from Hendrick Barents Smidt and built the stone house that currently sits on the land, just next to the foundation of Smidt's house.  "Onderdonk House" is the shortened version of the full name, which is Vander Ende-Onderdonk House.  Smidt's name is not included because techincally, the house that currently stands, isn't the one that Smidt built.  The Onderdonk family adds their name later.  

1769 is when the border disputes between Newtown, Queens and Bushwick, Kings (Brooklyn) which resulted in the zig-zag pattern we have today.  Although the zig-zag has changed a few times over the years as the dispute rages on.  Some buildings even begin in Brooklyn and end in Queens. 

1820 saw renovations under new ownership.  Adrian Onderdonk extended the house to include the foundation of the Smidt's original structure.  The house has seen little changes since then, despite a fire in 1975 which destroyed large portions of the house.  After years of pulling together funds and getting crews to work, the house opened again to the public in 1982.

You can visit the house on Saturdays between 1 and 5pm with a suggested donation of $3.00.  A small price to pay to see New York's oldest Dutch Colonial house.  A piece of history few get to see, or even know exists.  I'm sure there are people in this neighborhood where I live who have no idea the rich history that is just down the road.  Along with tours there are all kinds of events that take place.  From live music to various holiday specials, it's a place of rich history that every New Yorker should experience.

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