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The Game Depot (can't find a URL for their store) was holding their monthly Saturday night gaming, and I needed a break from the stress of moving and unpacking. I headed out to meet up with Mike Gingold and/or Bobby Warren and play some games. When I arrived, Matt Cullinan was punching out the copy of Agricola he'd just purchased. Mike really wanted to play (to see if the game was worth the hype), so the two of us sat down with Matt to play. As we were explaining the rules, Dion Garner walked in and asked to join. Mike was the only new player (though the rest of us have only played once or a handful of times), and we butchered our way through an explanation. Mike, being a smart guy (and Agricola not really being that hard to grok after a turn or two), picked it up quickly. After the food-less fiasco of my first playing, I went to town on getting occupations into play quickly. My first let me grab a minimum 4 food anytime I took the Traveling Pants(?) action. The next occupation I got down let me grab a veggie anytime I did the day laborer action. My first minor improvement let me exchange one reed for 3 food during the harvest. These three cards pretty much set me up for the game for food. It also meant that I could spend the rest of the game concentrating on other things. I eventually played a card (riding plow), that let me plow 3 fields instead of 1 twice in the game. I used this to slap down 6 fields (and I sowed veggies twice). Since I wasn't in dire need of food, I was able to eventually build up a store of wood for fences and slapped out three pens (one for each animal). I also put down a guy that reduced my stone costs by one - basically making my upgrade from clay to stone house cost 1 reed (though in retrospect, I wonder now if I played that right - probably not, though I don't think it would have changed the outcome). In the end, my initial beating helped me to play better (it also helped that my cards didn't suck ass) and I won. Charles: 39, Mike G: 19, Matt: 24, Dion: 33. Mike not only had the new player disadvantage, he apparently also had sucky cards - he only had a few that he ever played.
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3 comments:
I don't miss the 112 degree heat for 3+ months.
I do miss the gaming group and all of you guys.
*sigh*
The Game Depot, amazingly, doesn't have a website.
The Traveling Pants are in fact the Traveling Players. Handy card, I had it last time.
Lastly, welcome back! See you Friday, hopefully.
Traveling Players makes more sense, since the occupation was Dancer. It was nice in that you get a min of 4 no matter what, so when its 1 food and nobody wants it, I was practically guaranteed it would be available for my last action (should I want it).
Glad to be back - I don't mind the heat too much (though its already killed both batteries in my cars) and I'm glad to be back in the land of nearly perpetual gaming.
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