Puerto Rico VS Agricola

Sweetslut wrote:Would like to see a review from Wei Xun, since he is a caylus fan and have played both games considerably.

Wah...pressure leh! I really've inertia playing Agricola again man...

redevil13 wrote:

Sweetslut wrote:Would like to see a review from Wei Xun, since he is a caylus fan and have played both games considerably.

Wah...pressure leh! I really've inertia playing Agricola again man...

lol. Damn funny imagining wat u went thru. not asking u to play thou. How abt a critque of agricola against its precendent caylus?

Sweetslut wrote:

redevil13 wrote:

Sweetslut wrote:Would like to see a review from Wei Xun, since he is a caylus fan and have played both games considerably.

Wah...pressure leh! I really've inertia playing Agricola again man...

lol. Damn funny imagining wat u went thru. not asking u to play thou. How abt a critque of agricola against its precendent caylus?

If we were to compare Agricola with Caylus, firstly we'll start with the element of chance.

Clearly, Caylus has less of it and everyone experiences the same amount of it. Both games have a random starting play order but the starting player is given a disadvantage so nothing more to say to that.

The remaining chance event for Caylus would be the order of the starting buildings, and every player's equally affected by it, so there's not much of a problem. In fact, this randomization ensures that each game's different from the previous due to how early a certain resource or action is available.

For Agricola,I still've to harp about the random distribution of minor improvement and occupation cards. If you haven't heard about my bad experiences in my 3 games of Agricola (3, 4 & 5-player game), then I'll briefly elaborate. Basically, I's dealt cards which weren't synergistic with one another. I did enjoy a few "one-off" combos but there's nothing compared to combos which my friends had that lasted throughout the entire game! In DotA and similar games, it's kinda like me having gotten a scroll while the others a passive skill. Final result, I never got past 15 victory points.

If we were to compare mechanisms, Agricola & Caylus have their similarities and their differences. Both employ action-taking with "worker" pieces, one at a time, and each action only available to a single player. As such, denial of action is a common feature. However, as compared to Caylus, denial in Agricola isn't as inherent in the game because of this unknown element of minor improvement and occupation cards. You simply don't know what to deny. In Caylus, everything is laid out clearly so it's not hard to guess what a player wants to do next and hence, you've the option of planning around it. If you're to do the same in Agricola, you'll probably end up wasting your action as it pays better to maximize your actions according to your minor improvement and occupation cards.

If you're to compare player interaction on this aspect, I'd say Caylus provides greater player interaction through it's inherent "denial" nature. In Agricola, if you're to try to deny, it can take an impossible process because you'll have to guess what cards do the other players have and in what order're they going to play them. It might just come to a point whereby you'll just aim to get whatever actions you want and not care too much about others. In my games, I hear more of "I need this more" as oppose to "that's to deny you" when someone realizes that a previous player's taken an action he/she'd wanted.

For those who wish to bring up the drafting variant of the cards in Agricola, I'd just like to say why didn't the designer include this "variant" as an "expert mode" in the rulebook? I'm sure he'd have considered the great possibility that you can end up getting crap cards, considering the thick stack of cards available. The option of "7-choose-5" isn't all that great.

However, I haven't played enough of Agricola to critique on the planning required right from turn 1. In Caylus, you can roughly plan out which royal favour track you wish you aim for and change accordingly if you're facing competition. In Agricola, I think it really depends on what cards you draw to plan your strategy. Furthermore, the stacking of resources and the reproduction of animals makes planning more complicated.

Though I may seem to favour Caylus more than Agricola, I do enjoy the flavour of Agricola more than Caylus. It's much easier to picture yourself collecting resources, building a fence and having your animals breed as you take your resource tokens from the board, place down the "fence" blocks and take a new animeeple or animal token. Caylus appears more dead in this sense maybe because you just can't relate to the buildings that you've built and the actions that you've taken.

Till I've played more satisfying games of Agricola, I can't comment more.

Interesting review wei xun,come to think of it, the key difference to the two games are the theme,IMHO.

Fetching the animals here and there is quite some fun, while i cant possibily see how fun it is in caylus and puerto rico. lol.

Anyway had a game of caylus yesterdae with my fren, oh my do i like caylus.I have not played it enough, coz the beginner's variant itself is a gd game.

Look forward to caylus,and definitely agricola if you dun mind.I intend to get the animeeples and vegemeeples if agricola scales off nicely in 4-5 players for me.

yea...xun xun...

PR n gaylus is e way to go...!

saw jerry 2p gaylus...his friend is gd man...
maybe a new kaki for gaylus or even PR...?
haha...

he is a smart person, but dislike changing games, so probly i can jio him for a permanent caylus or PR convert. Lol

Agricola more balanced? As in, new player friendly coz you there wont be too much of a power gap.

E.g. in Caylus, usually when you're winning , its bloody obvious and hard to catch up. Agricola, its like so much to do, so little time (& family members)

Drafting MUST be used to enable skill in the occupations and minor improvments. Because with any form of dumb luck, any good player well obviously abuse their best combo if the cards were to be given out randomly

Hatekeeper wrote:
E.g. in Caylus, usually when you're winning , its bloody obvious and hard to catch up. Agricola, its like so much to do, so little time (& family members)

In Caylus, it's still possible for everyone to deny the leader and still not waste your turn but you can't really do so in Agricola.

Hatekeeper wrote:Drafting MUST be used to enable skill in the occupations and minor improvments. Because with any form of dumb luck, any good player well obviously abuse their best combo if the cards were to be given out randomly

If drafting must be used, then isn't it a flaw with the game design already?

agree to both.

but thats the intriguing part, why do i still enjoy agricola? lol.

u know why boss...
cos its stil new to everybody...
yur cards n combos u haven got everything yet...
wait til u play it lik PR n open 5 tables...
u will get sick of it soon...

i think it is a flaw in the game design, the people i play with also agree as well because of the 'unfairness' if someone gets a good combo.
There will be a lack of skill there.

just played another game tonight with jason. won by a margin of 1 point. Yipee!!

21-20. The more i play the more i feel its like caylus. However, it is more punishing in agricola becoz of the begging cards. It has hidden surprises in occupation cards and minor improvements.

Caylus is more accessible, agricola is more thematic, and puerto rico is definitely a different comparison to agricola. To each his own.

Selling me 2nd hand Agricola set... only played twice and both times with the stupid Yaohui who ask me to open it!! Cheap cheap!!!!

lol, u suck thumb la chap, anyways, u can try sell it off on boardgame meetup forum.

I did some trading there too.

haha got to agree with chappy

agricola suck balls