Board Game Review: Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small

Uwe Rosenberg is a well recognized name in the board game business. His first major hit, Agricola, still sits at #2 on the BoardGameGeek list of highest rated board games. He followed that up with other notable titles: Le Havre, At the Gates of Loyang, and Ora & Labora. His most recent addition in his popular series of work-themed games is a sort of spin-off title of his first game of medieval farming, Agricola.

Rosenberg's new title is Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small. It takes gameplay elements from the original Agricola, narrows down the theme, and simplifies a few things to make a much quicker game. It is also strictly for two players. In effect, this game attempts to capture the basic gameplay of Agricola while making it more approachable, quicker, and better designed so two players can enjoy it. The question is, though... Does it work?

Inside the Stable

Holy cow! Animeeples!

The game comes with all of the bits necessary for two players to play the game. There is an action board, two starting farms, farm expansion pieces, wooden tokens for resources, cardboard tokens for notable buildings, and a big bag full of animeeples. Although there are a significant number of the different wooden tokens, there are also cardboard chits for representing larger numbers of beasts and resources. Running out of bits its generally not a concern in this game as it comes with enough of everything to play the game.

For those unfamiliar, animeeples are little wooden pieces cut into the shape of animals that they are meant to represent. When the original Agricola was released in the United States, it came with wooden cubes for the animals. Although the original publisher provided animeeples as a preorder bonus, it was not until years later that another company shipped an "expansion" for Agricola that included the animeeples. So, for this new Agricola game, animeeples are the standard playing piece.

Old school Agricola animeeples, once highly prized.

The game sets up relatively quickly out of the box after a little cardboard punch out. Each player begins with a farm board, containing a bunch of open field spaces and a cottage. The main action board has a number of action spaces, some of which require placing resources on them every round (refilling, as it is called). Each player takes a set of three worker discs, representing the three workers on his or her farm. They each also get nine border pieces (long yellow wooden pieces representing fences). At that point, the game is set up and ready to play.

The game setup at the start. Liter of beer not included.

Eight Rounds of Farming

The game plays out over eight rounds. Each rounds has three (or, apparently, four) parts. In the first phase, spaces on the main action board are refilled with resources. Every space is filled with a certain amount of resources every turn, such as "3 Wood" or "1 Border." These resource spaces accumulate over time, so if a space is not taken during a round, it will have even more on the next turn. Players of the original Agricola will find this quite familiar. Some of the resource spaces accumulate a bit differently, though. They get one type of resource if the space is empty but a different type if the space is filled. It keeps certain types of things (such as more valuable horses or cows) from accumulating too quickly.

Once the first phase of the round is complete, the game moves into the main part of the game: the action phase. Here, players take turns placing their workers (the red or blue discs) on spaces on the action board. Actions let you claim the resources on the space, get specific resources from the supply, or build things on your farm such as buildings and fences. Everything seems relatively simple and I found it can be a little confusing at first as to what actions are best to take. But, like any Rosenberg game, it does not take long to at least figure out something that looks like it will work for you.

Agricola: ACBaS during the fifth round of play.

Building resources like stone, wood, and reed, can be stored with no limit but animals have to be put in pastures, stalls, or stables. As animals are the thing that get you points at the end of the game, the bulk of the game experience will be creating places to store animals and then claiming animals from the resource spaces. Stalls and stables are special buildings that are built on the farm board and allow storage of a few animals. Pastures are built by fencing in an area and allow the storage of a certain number of animals per space of the pasture. Feeding troughs can be built in a pasture or on a building to double the storage capacity of that pasture or building. The key is to optimize your farm to get as many animals on it by the end of the eighth round.

My farm, late game. Lots of sheep and horses, a couple of pigs, and
one notorious "house cow." Not sure what a "house cow" might be.

The game also provides four "special buildings" that can be built on a farm using a specific action space. These one-of-a-kind buildings are not necessary but provide bonus points, bonus animals, or additional storage for animals. These buildings provide different options and provide a good opportunity for players to diversify their plans from one another.

At the end of each round, players take all of their workers back (the "Home phase") and then have the "breeding phase," where new animals are born. If a player has two or more of a type of animal, they can get one additional animal of that type. Thus, investing in an animal early will yield bonus animals throughout the game. The only unfortunate part of the breeding phase is that animals for which there is no room "run away" and are lost. So, a player has to ensure that there is room in the stables for the new creatures. After breeding, the round is over and play continues to the next round, starting with the refill phase.

At Game's End. As it ends up, we tied, but I lost because I had the starting
player token in the first round. My farm was cooler, anyway.

The game continues for a total of eight rounds, readily tracked by the extra border space. At the beginning of the game, eight extra border pieces are set aside and one is placed on the extra border action space each round. Thus, when you place the last border on the space, you know you have come to the last round of the game. Once that is over, final scoring occurs.

The game scores relatively simple. You get one point for each and every animal you have. You also get bonus points for certain buildings on your farm. There are bonus points (and potential negative points) dependent on how many of each type of animal you have. Finally, there are fixed bonus points for filling every space of any expansion boards that you may have picked up through the game. Generally, your points come from getting lots of animals.

In Comparison to Agricola

Agricola: ACBaS captures a lot of the gameplay principles as its predecessor, Agricola, with a few notable changes. Some of those changes are actually quite pleasant while some of them feel somewhat limiting. For those unfamiliar with the original Agricola, these comments may not have much context, but they illustrate some interesting features and unfortunate parts of the game.

No need to fear the
Begging card!

Where the original Agricola required that you feed your family members, ACBaS has eliminated that. There are no feeding requirements in Agricola: ACBaS. It tends to make the game less frustrating because you no longer have to spend every few rounds worrying about food. Instead, you can focus entirely on getting the most animals.

Not having to worry about meeting some minimum resource threshold every turn does change the overall feel of the game round. In a game like Agricola or Le Havre, it often feels like most of the turn is spent stressing about meeting the end of round feeding requirement. Some players may find that kind of situation engaging or interesting as it continuously gives you short-term challenges to face. After a few games of ACBaS, I actually came to find the lack of a feeding requirement to lead to a much more entertaining game. I could put together more coherent long term strategies instead of constantly stressing about avoiding the starvation penalty. So, in that regard, it was a nice change.

Agricola: ACBaS has no random elements in it. Agricola itself had randomly dealt "Occupation" cards and "Minor Improvements." Le Havre had randomly selected "special buildings" which could impact your potential strategy. Several of the people I played with felt that although the game had a lot going for it, the lack of any sort of random elements as in Agricola or Le Havre created a certain lack of depth. I could imagine a pro Agricola player finding a "best" strategy, or perhaps a small number of "best" strategies, and continuously repeating those strategies. Perhaps Rosenberg already has plans for a ACBaS expansion that includes something akin to the Occupation/Minor Improvement system in original Agricola, but its lack here does seem to limit the game experience.

Fans of the original Agricola will also notice that this game has brought horses from the original Agricola expansion, Farmers of the Moor. As with the original Agricola, horses are simply the most "valuable" animal in the gaming, granting the player bonus points at the end for an overall smaller number of horses. As the game focuses exclusively on animal husbandry, it would have probably been too limiting to only have the original three animals (sheep, pigs, and cows), so the inclusion of horses was nice.

That's right. This horse has a bum leg. I spent some time
trying to find the Glue Factory special building in my set.

Agricola makes Medieval Farming fun (again?)

After a few games of Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small, I can honestly say that it is a really good contribution to the Rosenberg library of games. It is a quick game in comparison to most of his titles, it plays well with two, and it has enough going on to give you quite the Rosenberg worker placement experience. Playing ACBaS really does feel like playing any other Rosenberg worker placement game, but a bit lighter. Further, it's quick to set up (unlike a game such as Le Havre). It also falls considerably cheaper on the price range, coming in at roughly $40 USD.

All that being said, the game does have a few negative points. For a two player game in a relatively modest box, it seems bit pricier than I would have expected. Everything about the box says "$30 game" except the price tag, but Rosenberg games have always had a history of being priced in a seemingly high fashion. The lack of any random elements like Occupations or Minor Improvements distresses the long-term replayability of the game, but we all felt that this will be quickly remedied in some sort of expansion.

Overall, I consider it to be a really great title and I recommend it for anybody interested in worker placement games, especially if you wanted something a bit lighter than the typical worker placement fare. It's biggest flaw will likely be remedied over time, whether it be through new "special building" expansions or some new random element, making the game a worthwhile purchase and worthy contribution to practically any game library.

Board Game Review: Le Havre

Uwe Rosenberg is something of a divisive name in tabletop gaming. Although his first big success was a bean planting game called Bohnanza, he is perhaps best know for his 2007 release, Agricola, the game that quickly shot to the top of the BoardGameGeek list and, if only for a while, dethroned the classic Puerto Rico.  [Note: Eventually, GMT's Twilight Struggle would usurp this position, almost as if part of some sinister Soviet conspiracy.]  Rosenberg's games would eventually become well-known in the board game community.  From medieval farmers to medieval monks to Chinese farmers to French dock workers, his games all simulated work and challenged the player to optimize the workflow better than all others.  Despite sounding a lot like the worst job you have ever had, these games have sizable groups of fans, each excited to tell you how Rosenberg's games are great games.  They are also well thought out, well designed games.


His second big-box work game was based on the French port of Le Havre, aptly named Le Havre.  [Note: I call them "big box" because they come in the same sized box that generally retails at approximately $70.]  In Le Havre, each player is a business person trying to make the most money working the port.  The game is divided into a specific number of rounds (based on the number of players), with each round consisting of seven turns.  Players take turns in order.  On a turn, a player does two things: move a wooden ship to the next space on the ship track (which places two new goods on the docks of Le Havre) and take an action, which can either be claiming a dock full of goods or using a building.  At the end of each round, players have to pay a cost in food (or Francs) to support their workforce.  This process continues until the end of the final round.

Gameplay in progress.

Le Havre is interesting because what sounds like a pretty basic game mechanic (place new resources, take a single action) can be both surprisingly frustrating and surprisingly fun.  The first few times I played, I quickly discovered that feeding my workers at the end of the round was harder than I thought.  There are only so many fish that appear on the docks and a lot of people want them.  The cost to feed slowly rises from round to round, so whatever strategy worked in the first round would not be as effective later.  Yet, as the game proceeds, new buildings appear that allow for a larger range of actions.  Pretty soon, you develop the ability to bake countless loaves of bread or slaughter a herd of cattle sufficient to feed your workers.  Eventually, you hope to find a "groove" that you can fit into where you can spend your last few turns turning out a sizable profit by "turning the crank" on your economic engine.  It does not always work, of course, which makes the game interesting.

Yak shaving.

As a tabletop board game, Le Havre can become quickly frustrating because of the setup (having to prepare a specific deck indicating what occurs at the end of each round), the enormous number of little bits that need to be pushed around the board, and the surprising amount of seemingly repetitive process necessary to get places in the game.  Some players find that it can feel a bit like yak shaving.  I may find that I have to go to the Fishery to get a good catch of Fish, then the Wood Pile to get wood, followed by the Smokehouse to smoke my Fish with a piece of Wood, a trip to the Ironworks to get Iron, and finally a visit to Cannery Row to trade 1 Iron and 4 Smoked Fish for 18 Francs.  Wash, Rinse, Repeat.  It is not for everybody, unfortunately, but it can be very fulfilling when you find a "good combination" that makes you big Francs. The key is finding a good series that you can repeat enough times to make more money than your opponents.

Le Havre for iOS (iPhone and iPad)

This is actually one of those board games that always made me think that it could be quite a bit better if they eliminated the fuss of moving cardboard chits around and arranging the deck in a specific order every time.  What this game needed, I thought, was some automation.  It needed a computerized version.  Lucky for me, somebody thought the same thing.  From that thought comes Le Havre for iOS.  Finally, a version of this game exists where I do not need to think nearly as much about the fussy little bits and instead worry about playing the game.  But how does it measure?  Is it comparable to its venerable tabletop progenitor?  More importantly, is it worth the $4.99?

The layout resembles the original Le Havre pretty well and has full color versions of every card that appears in the game.  For people familiar with the board game, the iOS version puts everything in the same "place" as you would expect it to be on the tabletop.  I considered that a nice feature as it made playing it more intuitive for an old-hat tabletop gamer.  In addition, the game does allow for multiple human players.  It also allows them to be seated on either side of the iPad (you select each player's relative position when starting the game).  That way, I can play on one side and my friend can play on the other and each of us sees it "facing us."  Overall, it feels like it turns a two to three hour tabletop game into a twenty minute iPad game.  That, in itself, is nice.

Setup.  It allows 1-5 players with AI opponents of varying difficulties.
The arrow by the Human Players indicates orientation of the player
around the iPad.  It even allows for the "short game."

The game sets up the round deck, three building piles, and special building pile for you.  No fuss, no muss.  The three most laborious parts of setup have been automated to the point that I forget what it was like to play on a table.  The screen layout gives you a good look at resources, wealth (score), and Francs held by each player.  As buildings are bought or built, they appear beside the owning player's resource area.  It does become somewhat difficult to determine which player has built which building, but I found I got used to scanning over the stack of names whenever I wanted a specific building.  Also, it helps to remember, "The guy to my right has the Cokery."

Second Round of my First Game of iOS Le Havre

After a few games, I feel the urge to say that this game does a good job at capturing the tabletop board game.  I will admit that this game did not take long to show me that I am bad at playing it.  Even with two AI opponents playing on the lowest difficulty, I have a pretty terrible win rate. But, that being said, I had fun doing it.

This is me by Round 13, not winning.

The game looks good, although this opinion may be colored because I normally expect computerized versions of board games to look backwards and "difficult."  Every card I saw was an accurate representation of the original game card (with a few peculiarities in symbology here and there).  The resources look like their original cardboard chit forms, something that is bound to upset a few people that got fancy resource tokens for their game.  The board looked like the board.  Furthermore, it was relatively simple to figure out how to interact with things on the board.  Tap here, tap there.  Green checks and Red Xs represent "Go" and "Back."  Intuitive enough, although the game kept trying to insist I try the tutorial.

Oh, and it has music.  The music is ... French harbor music?  I am not sure that a better name exists.  At least the game has an option to allow create a playlist from your MP3/AAC collection that plays instead of the French harbor music.  So, if you want to convert Wood to Charcoal while listening to Rhapsody of Fire, you can do that.  At least they are considerate of your musical needs.

As of the current version (Version 1.0 on the iTunes Store), there are still occasional bugs.  I played it on an iPad 2 and had the occasional "card freak out," where the card decided to stall in the wrong place.  The game continued and it resolved itself by the time that player's next turn arrived, but it is a bit frustrating to have the peculiar image of a Wooden Ship card stuck in the corner of the screen.

So, is it worth it?  Well, as a person who owns the original board game, I would say it was definitely worth my $4.99.  It is a relatively intense worker placement/labor management game, something that may not appeal to every player, but I think conversion into iOS has definitely removed some of the less pleasant fidget and twitch from the game and made it more about making decisions.  It is an attractive, faithful reproduction of the board game that takes out some of the worst parts of the game (setup).  However, as the Uwe Rosenberg games are notorious for upsetting some players, it probably warrants a play-through prior to purchase to make sure you like this kind of thing.

[Note: For the avid Le Havre players, I do not believe that this version contains the small Special Building expansion, Le Havre: Le Grand Hameau.]