Or it was until recently on the BoardGameGeek rankings anyway. Agricola is currently our favourite boardgame, but since it only recently displaced Puerto Rico from the number one spot which it had previously held for quite a while, I’ve been itching to try the older game. Sean was kind enough to teach to us and join in even though he’s played it plenty of times already. His copy of the game certainly has the wear and tear to show it!
Since we’ve already played Twilight Imperium 3 and Citadels, we’re already familiar with the central mechanic of choosing roles, so we found it to be a fairly easy game to learn. Basically there are a number of roles which gives both the player who chooses the role as well as all other players in the game a specific action. The active player does get a small bonus for choosing the role. Every round that a role doesn’t get picked, money gets added onto it and whoever later picks that role gets it as a bonus.