Is Agricola fun?

[@chinacharltan]

Your presentation is brilliant! Keep them coming. Would like to see some of your top 10 lists!

[@NightsAroundaTable]

Thanks! Good idea!

[@aditmaryadi6678]

Just found out your channel. I love how you describe all the things here because I intended to buy Agricola and also your clear tutorial about some other games on your channel. Thumbs up!

[@hollandcoleman]

Bro, these are your best videos! Great review format. Keep 'em coming

[@NightsAroundaTable]

Thanks, Holland! i've got a new one coming out tomorrow.

[@MegaMuffinManX]

I love your channel! And your game collection!

[@NightsAroundaTable]

Thanks! Here's a more complete view: boardgamegeek.com/collection/user/Untoldent

[@Janjan-p3v]

Not very agree to “bad drawings”. The illustrations some how give a historical feeling to me, like the 90s bad drawing bedtime stories. And I actually thought agricola was a game designed 50 years ago! 😂 Btw love your video ❤ helped me a lot

[@NightsAroundaTable]

Thanks Sizu! Are you German? His artwork may be more familiar to European audiences. Our 90s bedtime stories here in Canada are by Michael Martchenko (to name one person) who did quite an excellent job!

[@rybosomes1]

Ahh. A little something I refer to as "Angry-cola"

[@NightsAroundaTable]

HEY! i KNOW THAT GUY!!

[@johnhoang1993]

I love the theme, mostly because I love history.

[@Bryan-ml]

omg im so glad you did put 'the pressure' in the 'fun' category rightafter being not fun haha i love it

[@diro5910]

Well, “agrícola” in Spanish is also the word for everything something farm related and the kind of activity developed in farms. So for me it wasn’t strange. Good vid!

[@Stat1onary]

losing points? why is this a segment? never happened to me

[@NightsAroundaTable]

(this guy)

[@mohammadmashaka9420]

Love this video. Great seeing comedy integrated with board games! Should love to see this more often.

[@pablogfmovil]

Just my two cents: the name is "weird" in English. But if you speak French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and a whole lot of other languages, "Agricola" sounds cristal clear. In Spanish for example, Agricola is literally translated as "Agrícola". So pretty much no need to know Latin, just not being Anglo-Saxon is required :)

[@NightsAroundaTable]

Ah! Good perspective. i will do my best to stop being Anglo-Saxon as soon as possible.

[@pablogfmovil]

@@NightsAroundaTable As Oscar Wilde would say, if it happens once is a misfortune, but if you insist on your Anglosaxoness it would be carelessness. But at least you are Canadian, there is hope for you

[@pablogfmovil]

@@NightsAroundaTable nice channel by the way, I don't usually make comments but I'm doing my part here to make your videos more likeable to KZbin mysterious algorithms.

[@pablogfmovil]

@@NightsAroundaTable **Pablo starts controversial argument about Anglosaxoness to generate more comments

[@NightsAroundaTable]

Yes! Let's launch into a deep debate to fool the robots into thinking this channel drives eyeballs!

[@sallysmiles3214]

Actually the theme is what drew me in! I went to school for agriculture 😅

[@NightsAroundaTable]

You’re a standout!

[@VoiceofFox]

I know art is subjective but I love Klemens Franz’s artwork so much that I’m more likely to buy a game that features it. It adds so much charm and character to Agricola in particular, that the game could appear deathly dull and dry otherwise. It definitely adds a level of fun to games. The LOOK of Agricola makes me want to play it.

[@NightsAroundaTable]

W.........ow! :P

[@tomkot]

The theme sounds like someone made an obvious joke but it was interpreted by the game maker as a serious suggestion

[@NightsAroundaTable]

Right? See also: The Castles of Burgundy, Keyflower, and Orléans. Can a brother get some ninja pirates up in here?

[@Madgaar]

NEED MORE IN THIS SERIES!

[@NightsAroundaTable]

MORE TO COME! GLAD YOU LIKE IT!

[@shortydancer]

I know you rag on Klemes Franz. He’s done some of my favorite games. But I just got Agricola and have gone through the occupation cards, and I now see why you do. The art on those card suck. Reminds me of those games in the West Kingdom line.

[@NightsAroundaTable]

It feels like they told him "you have to draw 40 characters in an hour. Go!"

[@ryanhamstra49]

The revised version is way prettier, so the artwork is a fun now 👍

[@NightsAroundaTable]

It's a bit of a tradeoff, though. Better wooden pieces, but lower player count. And a vastly reduced number of cards.

[@ryanhamstra49]

That’s true. Idk how you would get anything done with 5 players tho, 4 seems excessive as is. Granted I’ve only had the game a week, so still learning

[@NightsAroundaTable]

@@ryanhamstra49 You add more worker placement spaces to the board at higher player counts. But it's a tight, challenging game at any player count!

[@quibily]

I think the mechanic I love the most is the mix of short- and long-term objectives--that pressure to fight an immediate threat at the end of the round while also figuring out how to get dem points! I recently learned Vikings on Yucata. It has that same mechanic, and I love it! (Except, instead of fending off starvation several times throughout the game, you need to hire warriors to protect your ever-expanding colony of vikings--otherwise, you can't score them at the end of the several scoring rounds.) Have you ever played it? I actually like the art. It has personality (And Alec Guinness's Obi-Wan Kenobi)! And I like the theme--a little peek at what our ancestors' lives were like. It's easy to get suckered in and think these were the simpler times before life got too dang complicated and just revel in that for an hour or so....

[@NightsAroundaTable]

i haven’t played, but i initially read “Vikings OF Yucata,” and my already unsteady knowledge of Vikings went right out the window for a hot minute.

[@xfoolsgoldx]

Agricola is my favourite Euro

[@NightsAroundaTable]

Its staying power is amazing! i'm working on a How to Play video this week and next.

[@xfoolsgoldx]

@@NightsAroundaTable Look forward to it👌✌

[@ramirotapia2217]

1:01 wow, realmente con este comentario uno se puede dar cuenta del nivel educacional de los gringos.

[@NightsAroundaTable]

Well, agrícola is a Spanish word, so that’s not entirely fair.

[@irenesukandar859]

How about solo play? Pros and cons?

[@NightsAroundaTable]

i've still never played solo! But i might during Uwe Rosenberg Month (November).

[@b.2194]

Oh dear, we just started playing Agricola and I can ´t decide whether to hate or like the game… I think I ´m more on the I-hate-it-side 😮 The artwork is terrible, but you should see the artwork on „Glasroad“ - it ´s even worse🤢 though in order of the mechanics I like Glasroad better.

[@NightsAroundaTable]

Yes - you've nailed Agricola perfectly. It's polarizing. And those who love it probably also enjoy adult-style spanking, if you get my drift.

[@tmikuljan7396]

yes!! the pressure!!! i always feel frustrated after this game.

[@PlumpyThimble]

Oh man, I love that pressure, but my wife is not a fan of it. We both love the game.

[@NightsAroundaTable]

She's still a fan, despite the pressure? How does that work?

[@PlumpyThimble]

Nights Around a Table we'll periodically use the extra played board that adds a few spaces which helps. Even when we don't though, as long as she's able to figure out that puzzle well enough I think that enjoyment overshadows the stress.

[@NightsAroundaTable]

Ah! Clever.

[@Zeppelinfaktor]

What would be the best game to buy after Catan?

[@NightsAroundaTable]

i think the next game i bought was either Carcassonne or Ticket to Ride. Both are very popular, at around the same complexity. i can also highly recommend Everdell, Lords of Waterdeep, Concordia, and The Castles of Burgundy.

[@arthursimsa9005]

« Agricole » means « agricultural », « farming-related » in Romance languages. Nothing to do with Cola. I’m surprised English speakers are confused. The name is legit for anyone with a knowledge of a few European languages.

[@NightsAroundaTable]

We’re… talking about Americans here.

[@arthursimsa9005]

@@NightsAroundaTable Who is talking about what? Is your audience only American? I'm not. Are you? I've read that you were Canadian. French is one of the languages of your country. Half of the comments on this video are reactions of Spanish speakers surprised that you would spend time complaining about the supposed weirdness of a name that is not weird to us, so clearly I'm not the only one who found that uncalled for. Even dismissing the fact that your audience is international, you're still forgetting that Spanish is spoken by millions of people in the United States.

[@doity]

The theme is great

[@NightsAroundaTable]

i'll fightya!

[@SembeiNorimaki]

Except that the term Agriculture exist in English which gives an idea of what the game is about. And in Spanish the word Agrícola is an adjective to mean belonging to agricultural world. So pretty much all occidental world knows what Agricola means.

[@NightsAroundaTable]

i think you’d be hard-presses to find many people in the occidental world who know what “occidental” means!

[@blabarsris6012]

In Swedish it’s jordbruk so not that similar

[@Bryan-ml]

Not fun: depreciating someone's art. yeah you can say that you do not like it but at the end of the day was Rosenberg's decision to use Franz's art. Blame Rosenberg.

[@NightsAroundaTable]

i’m causing his artwork to go down in value? Doubtful. Or did you mean “denigrate”…? Whoever decided to hire him, whether it was the designer, or (more likely) the publisher, i’m merely saying that i think his figure work is poor to the point of being amateurish, and that if i were the creative director on a board game project, there’s a long list of artists i would hire before Franz.

[@grog3514]

@@NightsAroundaTable Calling his art amateurish is an insult to amateurs. Hunter Biden could've done a better job drawing their faces with one hand smoking a crack pipe full of parmesan cheese.

[@Gallasl666]

@@NightsAroundaTable Yeah. Makes the game look very boring and unappealing. My wife is my main board gaming partner and its taken me many years and many trials to get her into this stuff. Stone Age and Viticulture hit the mark. Agri-cola. Still not so sure. Id like it for the higher level strategy. But I'm not so sure even I want to play it. It just looks blaahhh.

[@NightsAroundaTable]

@@Gallasl666 Diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks. There's a handful of games that tend to hit more reliably with wives. i should do a video about them. Viticulture is one for sure, but also check out Everdell, Obsession, and Wingspan. My own wife Cheryl really enjoys A Feast for Odin as well.

[@oddminority6696]

dude, i love your speaking about klemens franz :D

[@1Galaron]

Just discovered the channel and was really impressed by this video. In many regards, Agricola is a "This is Spinal Tap" satire of board gaming, and you nailed the reasons why. It's got a laughably awful theme, ugly art, starvation and begging, a terrible scoring system and a truly terrible name. One other thing I wish you had mentioned was the jarring disconnect between the mechanics and it's tacked-on horrible theme which leads to arbitrariness. Vegetables don't come in until the 3rd round! Fields can't be plowed diagonally! No matter how many animals you have, they only breed 1 more! The year gets shorter through the game! Whee!! What fun!!! However, playing Agricola truly forces tough decisions and to me is like listening to "This is Spinal Tap"; it's genuinely enjoyable despite, or perhaps because of, its awfulness.

[@NightsAroundaTable]

Such great points.i had forgotten about the bizarrely shortening year (is the world spinning faster all of a sudden?) or the weird single female animal orgy rule that trips up so many new players. But i do warn new players that for a game about farming, it's shockingly difficult to obtain, plant, grow, harvest, and finally eat a goddamned vegetable. ♪ Talk about bum cakes/ this game's got 'em! :) ♫

[@1Galaron]

@@NightsAroundaTable Damn, you're a witty so-and-so. Guess I'll have to become a Patreon now. And as a new backer with an inflated sense of my own worth, I hereby demand an obligatory Top 10 List but this time of the most aggressively boring Euros of all time. Of course, this will simply be a discussion of the gameography of a Martin Wallace and Stefan Feld, but the world needs the definitive "somebody made a train game about delivering cheese in Yorkshire" list.

[@NightsAroundaTable]

@@1Galaron Thanks so much for your patronage! That's a fantastic idea. And keep in mind that we also have board games that are literally about watching plants grow.

[@scottie771]

Agricola is the opposite of fun as are most of Mr. Rosenberg's games, dry, themeless, extremely punitive for every non-optimal move you make.

[@NightsAroundaTable]

Which some people find fun. But then, some people also like going to the gym.

[@anonimoum7474]

You think the name is not fun because its not english? Seriously? Man you need to think better before talking

[@NightsAroundaTable]

Did you know that when they translated and marketed the film The Shawshank Redemption to French speaking audiences, they retitled it "Les Évadés"? Do you know why that is? i'm really hoping you can tell me, because i don't think good.

[@Gallasl666]

Yes, seriously. Lame name for a drab looking farming game. Not if you want an English speaker to buy it. I've been aware of this game for probably 10 years and just now heard how its supposed to be pronounced.

[@hudeduge9240]

NOT FUN

[@NightsAroundaTable]

Show your work!

[@hudeduge9240]

@@NightsAroundaTable oooh frosty! Learn to take it on the chin or your going to have a hard time on the Internet. Someone will always dislike something.

[@NightsAroundaTable]

@@hudeduge9240 i just mean "show your work" (as in math) because it's perfectly fine to say you don't find the game fun, but that's kind of a low effort comment to drop and walk away. You're not bringing much to the conversation.