Publisher: Z-Man Games, 2012
Players: 2
Time: 30 minutes
Mechanics: Worker Placement, Area Enclosure, Tile Placement
In Agricola All Creatures Big and Small each player begins with a small farm with a cottage, 9 border markers and 3 family workers. There are 8 rounds in the game. In each round players use their workers to select 3 of the 16 available action locations on the main board. The action locations allow players to acquire resources (wood, stone, & reed), build borders, expand their farm, construct buildings, build troughs, and acquire animals (sheep, pigs, cows & horses). The trick is to somehow balance the acquisition of animals with places to house or pasture them. There is tension in every round as you only get 3 actions and actions are limited to only one worker no matter whose worker it is. Buildings added to your farm can provide additional housing for animals and/or victory points. However, most of your animals will have to be held in enclosed pastures. Each animal scores a victory point. Bonus points are awarded for having large herds of a specific animal. Additionally, a player will receive minus 3 points for each animal type that they have 3 or less of. Adding troughs to your farm will double the animal capacity for the location where the trough is placed. Troughs are much needed as there never seems to be enough room for all of the animals. Quite frankly, there never seems to be enough buildings, or enough resources, or enough workers. Definitely there are not enough rounds. This game feels strangely like another game – – oh that’s right – – Agricola!
We found this to be an enjoyable quick-playing intense little game. It is small enough to be a travel game.
We have an open copy of Agricola All Creatures Big and Small available in our Store Demo Library for you come in and try out.
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Come and visit us at 30 NW 2nd Street in Historic Downtown Gresham. We have a full range of family games, strategy games, Euro-style games, war games, card games, dice games and more. Also for the puzzle enthusiasts we carry quality puzzles from Ravensburger, White Mountain, and Cobble Hill.
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