Brood Oath

Post GenCon has been a bit of a bumpy road for Hex.  Trading and the new UI were both implemented, though not without a slew of new bugs and downed tournaments.  While the tournaments are back up and most of the card bugs have been addressed, the delays involved with and leading up to the King Gabriel Patch have in turn delayed the launch of Hex's second PvP set Shattered Destiny, initially announced for an August launch.  The good news is that interest appears to be renewed with the reveal of several Shattered Destiny spoilers on Hex stream.  Hopefully this means we are close to an actual Set 2 launch, preceded by Open Beta.

In the mean time, one of the concerns most new players (who were lucky enough to snag a beta key) have upon entering the game is the huge disparity in deck building options they have compared to Kickstarter Backers.  Many players are hesitant to invest heavily into a game still in Beta, particularly if they enter the proving grounds only to get stomped by Vampire Kings and Soul Marbles.  Booster Drafts and the Community Rock League are excellent resources for these players, but some of them are looking for a more competitive deck, or just something fun and unique to run in the proving grounds while Grinding Gold.  This is something I'm all too familiar with from my TO days.

For those of you that don't know, I come from a rather impoverished city in the rust belt.  Years ago when I was a tournament organizer for our Friendly-Local-Game-Store, I knew lots of kids that couldn't afford to run the top decks for a number of different card games like MTG, Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh!  I was lucky enough to have a weekend job dishwashing in addition the store credit I got from running the tournaments, so between the extra boosters and trading I had an influx of commons and uncommons, so in an attempt to keep the community going I tried to build budget decks from my own collection and let people borrow them, or brew a deck from their own cards and give them some of my cards that I wasn't using.  I tried to make them competitive enough to sneak a win against a top tier deck every now and then, but also interesting enough that the person playing them could actually appreciate the strategy behind them.  I mean, not every player is going to want to play a budget Gore Feast deck, which seems to be the go-to suggestion for budget players (though I do love me some Gore Feast).

So knowing that some of the new players were either cash-strapped or reluctant to drop the money, I decided to try building some budget decks for Hex.  I had initially set my limit for spending on a deck at 1000 platinum (or $10), taking data from the Auction House analysis over the last two months along with prices from logging on today to come up with a rough price for each card that reflects what you could probably get one at with a little patience (give or take a few platinum).  While I ended up going slightly over my target, most players will have some of these cards already from their starter decks or be able to buy them with gold earned from their starter trials.  Hell, you'd probably be able to acquire most of the commons simply by asking nicely in chat.

Brood Oath

...and bunnies... don't forget bunnies.

Champion: Dimmid

4 Adamanthian Scrivener (4p)
4 Darkspire Priestess (4p)
4 Shroomshaw (4p)
4 Righteous Paladin (11p)
4 Spearcliff Pegasus (4p)
2 Hop'hiro, Samurai (130p)

3 Incantation Righteousness (63p)
3 Oath of Valor (47p)
4 Wretched Brood (61p)
4 Solitary Exile (20p)

10 Blood Shards
10 Diamond Shards
4 Shards of Fate (5p)

Approximate Total Cost: 1022p

One of the things I like about this deck and why I would suggest it for players new to Hex is that it incorporates some of the unique things about Hex that you don't get in other CCGs (transforming cards like Hop'hiro & Incantation), along with combos that I had fun playing in the Alpha, like Righteous Paladin, which can get out of hand quickly with the life gain from Dimmid & Adamanthian Scrivener.

The main combo in the deck is using Oath of Valor to make the Battle Hoppers from Wretched Brood & Shroomshaw strong enough to overwhelm your opponent, while using the life gain to ensure you don't die from your opponent's troops (or your own Wretched Broods).  The Sentinel of Light can also help in this regard, giving all of your troops a +2/+2 boost when your life is above 20.  Oath of Valor isn't just strong on the Battle Hoppers though.  Playing it on turn 3 after a Darkspire Priestess can make an annoying 2/1 into a speedy win condition.  An early game 4/3 can be difficult to deal with, and the fact that it can replace itself makes the orc an unappealing target for removal spells.  Naming Spearcliff Pegasus will let you race in the air and give you enough power to trade with both Angel of Dawn & Vampire King if necessary.

One of the big weakness of the deck is the internal conflict it has over threshold.  Brood and Paladin, two very strong cards in the deck, require double threshold, which makes it hard to play both early without a little luck on your side.  While you would traditionally want to maximize the number of times you get to use Dimmid's power, Shards of Fate is a necessary evil for ensuring some level on consistency.

Expanding

Because the deck incorporates both a Shin'hare swarm strategy and a life gain strategy, there are lots of different options for customizing the deck and expanding upon it.  Protectorate Defender socketed with the Prime Diamond of Solidarity can permanently buff your Shin'hare and other troops.  Princess Victoria is a solid option for getting your troops Lifedrain and your Paladin growing earlier.  If you're feeling particularly experimental, you can try getting the undead abominations of Zombie Plague to take the Oath.  Sure, they don't look valorous, but when you're the only one alive to write the history books, people will believe what you order them to dammit!  And of course, I would be remiss if i failed to mention Dimmid's best friend Droo's Colossal Walker, whose eight life payment to ready him suddenly becomes much more manageable with your charge power. 

Looking Ahead

This deck will also get some love from Shattered Destiny, most notably with Shard of Retribution, which fixes your threshold a bit and lets you keep your Dimmid charges.  Paladin of the Necropolis is another strong addition and can be particularly nefarious if you have a Scrivener out, as suddenly your opponent will be the one paying for your Wretched Broods every turn!  Exalted Victory is another strong card.  While only a few of your troops will benefit from the Swiftstrike and Steadfast bonus, the +2/+0 will be more than enough if your Hoppers are numerous enough.  And these are only the cards we know about.  There's still a bunch more cards that haven't been spoiled from Shattered Destiny that could easily find a place in the deck.

I'm hoping to get into a habit of blogging a bit more about Hex.  The feature drought has hopefully ended now that the new UI is in place and with the influx of spoilers I can probably start talking a bit more about Shattered Destiny Spoilers and conjure up some possible decks (and maybe discuss some info regarding the Frost Arena if any more trickles out over the next month or so).  However, with Civilization: Beyond Earth launching next week, I'll probably switch to doing Hex bi-weekly after next week to make room for that, which may give me a workable pace to discuss feature releases.  I'll also be doing a bi-weekly Monday Board Game article, continuing my new player's guide to Agricola next week.  Until next time.

Card Links from the Hex TCG Browser & Deckbuilder

Build-A-Civilization Workshop

  One of the major changes to Civilization: Beyond Earth from its predecessor Civ5 is the wealth of diversity players get in crafting the bonuses they start the game with.  Previously your unique abilities, units, and buildings were all tied to your civilization, which can vary significantly in power level (Babylon, I'm looking at you).  In Beyond Earth however, you aren't following history, you're creating it!  As such, rather than being saddled with a package of unique abilities, players will choose from among a list of starting bonuses, including an augmented spaceship, specialized colonists, and helpful cargo to help them survive the alien planet.  Since the release of Beyond Earth is only about two weeks away, I wanted to theorycraft some ideas about how I want my start to look on my ventures into space opening weekend, which I will be streaming on my Twitch Channel.

One of the starting screens featuring spaceship augmentation options.

Sponsors

Sponsors are the eight major earth nations you can get to fund your expedition.  Each offers a strong passive ability that will influence your overall strategy throughout the game.

African Union: +10% Food in growing Cities when Healthy

The African Union has a simple but effective buff to growing your cities, increasing your population and the amount of land you can use.  This civilization will promote you to play tall, with a few heavily populated, well positioned cities.  Ensuring that your cities are well positioned will require careful consideration with you Spacecraft augmentation, such as Retrograde Thrusters or Tectonic Scanners.  I plan on picking the African Union for my first play through, just to ensure I can have a strong capital against the often front-settling AI.

American Reclamation Corporation: Covert Operations are 25% faster and cause 25% more Intrigue.

The ARC is all about using spies to gain advantages over their allies.  The intrigue level of a city increases the ease of covert ops, in addition to the types of covert ops you can perform, from stealing technology to staging a coup.  This seems like it will be a lot of fun in Multiplayer Games where you can just continuously hamper a particular opponent or pick off weak players.  While I won't get as much joy from wrecking the computer as I would my friends, the range of bonuses you can get from covert ops can be pretty beneficial in the long game, and the ARC bonuses can get you off the ground that much faster.

Brasilia: Units have +10% Strength in Melee Combat.

Here's the military sponsor, and the guy I will instantly be nervous about landing near me.  I typically don't like to play military, especially near the AI in Civ5 because they get bonuses to combat at higher difficulty, which makes up for their fairly bad tactics.  Whether the tactical decisions of the AI have improved or not, Brasilia can be very intimidating with the Might virtue bonuses tacked on.  Managing your technologies to get strong troops within your affinity will be very interesting for Brasilia, so if I plan on building a gigantic Alien Harmony Militia or a Cyron Supremacy Army I'll probably be rocking Brasilia while I do.  Weapon Arsenal & Lifeform Sensors seem like good bonuses if you want to impress your presence on the native aliens in the early game.

Franco-Iberia: Gain a free Technology for every 10 Virtues developed.

Franco-Iberia benefits from churning out heavy culture to get Virtues.  The free technology can be very helpful is you time your tenth virtue when your near the edge of an expensive technology you can just claim.  The bad part is you will probably only get to use this passive twice per game.  Since the Knowledge virtue tree seems to specialize in both Culture and Science, incorporating it seems very beneficial for Franco-Iberia, as is choosing Artists as your Colonists, granting you extra culture and health in every city.

Kavithan Protectorate: Outposts develop into cities 50% faster.

Outposts are 0-Population Cities that your Colonists found, and are very weak initially.  Getting these outposts off the ground and running into full-fledged cities is very important, especially in the early game, so the Kavithan's ability to do this quickly is strong for strategies that plan on gobbling up land quickly and spreading the arms of their empire wide.  The difficulty here will likely be health, which is the expansion ceiling in Beyond Earth.  Picking up Aristocrats or Artists as Colonists will aid the health of every city, while the Laboratory will give you the Pioneering Technology, and with it the ability to build colonists right away

Pan-Asian Cooperative: +10% Production towards Wonders, and 25% Worker Speed.

Because the tech web spreads your options, you might not be in a Wonder Race with other players as much as you would be in Civ5.  But since a majority of victory conditions require the building of wonders, this ability can shave precious turns of time away from achieving victory. The bonus to worker improvements is also very valuable for wide civilizations for cultivating the land quickly.  I'd probably combine with Engineers in Colonists you can generate a very strong production bonus.

Polystralia: Cities able to send Trade Routes may send one more Trade Route than normal.

Polystralia would probably like to be close to other civilizations, since their ability to generate extra trade routes will become more powerful the more Stations that are around.  The downside of this is that you don't always have control over the stations that pop up near you, and in the early game you will want to send your trade routes to these to reap the rewards.  This does fit into my general multiplayer strategy of trade my way to victory, so I can definitely see Polystralia becoming one of my favorite choices.  Since trade routes cannot go through Miasma, choosing an affinity that deals with that quickly will probably be key.  Continental Surveyor is good choice of Spacecraft since knowing how much continent you have to work with for your trade network will be important.

Slavic Federation: Orbital Units stay in orbit 20% longer; First satellite grants a free Technology.

Satellites are an interesting new mechanic of Civilization that can enhance the energy yield of tiles beneath your city, or be used offensively to cripple enemy units.  Since Satellites can be found by explorers early in the game, this free tech can come out very quickly, giving the Slavic Federation a powerful early game advantage while also saving them production turns since the satellites that are sent up stay up longer.  I haven't looked too much into the orbital options, but this seems like an interesting choice since it compliments many different play styles.

Colonists

Colonists are the type or class of citizens that will be boarding your expedition.  They will have great sway in your cities and will grant bonuses to each city.  These effects are persistent throughout the game, though they don't vary too much, so I won't go into strategies involving them.  I have referenced them in the other categories though as far as combining them to serve overarching strategies, such as PAC Engineers for excellent Production or African Union Refugees for incredible Food growth.

Scientists: +2 Science in every city.

Refugees: +2 Food in every city.

Aristocrats: +3 Energy and +1 Health in every city.

Engineers: +2 Production in every city.

Artists: +2 Culture and +1 Health in every city.

Spacecraft

Augmentations to your spacecraft will grant you a strategic advantage related to the map.  These will impact where you expand and how quickly you expand by giving you greater information or agency over the map.

Continental Surveyor: Reveals coasts on the map.

Knowing where all the coastlines are gives you early access to knowledge involving how much space you have to spread out to and in which directions there will likely be contested borders.  Coastal cities will also let you know if a city can be attacked from the coast or if you can establish sea trade routes.  Polystralia is a Sponsor that I think pairs particularly well with this augmentation, since they can spam trade routes, and will probably benefit from coastal cities.

Retrograde Thrusters: Wider area for choosing where to land your first city.

First impressions make Thursters seem like a very strong augmentation.  Normally when you start the game you have a space plus a single ring of space to choose where to land (7 hexes).  Thrusters gives you two rings worth of space to choose where to land, which I believe ups the total to 19 hexes, barring canyons or impassible terrain.  As much as I enjoy it, you're still working with limited information if you take one of the outer ones.  More often than not you're only identifying terrain you don't want to work in your city when positioning with Thrusters an positioning away from it.  If the prime capital is central to your plan, Thrusters is worth it, but I'm not totally sold on this being strictly better than other options.

Tectonic Scanners: Reveals Petroleum, Geothermal, and Titanium resources.

These are strategic resources that requires Ring 1 Technologies to reveal.  Finding them on the map from the outset can give you a pretty strong advantage in early scouting and colonization, knowing which areas you need to prioritize above others and giving you a jump start on your tech path.  It should be noted that you still need to respective technologies to build the Geothermal Wells and Petroleum Wells, but knowing what is nearby can let you prioritize them.  I actually like this augment a lot more than I should, and I'll probably end up starting with this the most often, just because I think it gives you the most important information early on.

Fusion Reactor: Start with 100 Energy.

This is pretty bland.  Most people will use early gold to either get a jump start on a building purchase or to buy some early land grabs.  Maybe this is good at high level play when you are micromanaging, but for most of my games I probably won't even consider it unless there's a particular building I want to rush. 

Lifeform Sensor: Reveals Alien Nests on map.

This is pretty good for knowing which areas on the map to avoid, or at the very least which ones you'll need to send the army in to pacify.  I could see myself picking it up when I want to go military and shove the aliens out of the way, or to check which borders I need to worry about.  I want to mess around with the aliens a bit and how best to exploit them before I weigh in on this heavily, but it seems up there with Tectonic Scanners for important information.

Cargo

Cargo will impact your start by giving you a straight up advantage over your opponents.

Hydroponics: Begin with one extra population in your first city.

Extra population is good, and this might actually be a reason to start Fusion Reactor since you'll want to make sure you have two good tiles for your citizens to work.  This can really help you jump-start a gigantic capital if you plan on going tall of just give you a head start.

Laboratory: Begin with Pioneering Technology.

Pioneering if the initial leaf tech that lets you produce colonists and trade convoys.  If you plan on going wide, or expanding early, this is a pretty solid choice since you'll save quite a bit of time on the tech investment.  Balancing health and aliens with early expansion will likely be difficult early games, so getting the full benefit will require some practice on my part.

Raw Materials: Begin with a Clinic in your first city.

The Clinic provides Health and Science, which will let you get through techs more quickly early on while also granting health to offset early growth.  Since you'll probably be building the Clinic early on anyways, this will mostly just save you the 60 Production Cost early on.

Weapon Arsenal: Begin with a Soldier unit.

Soldiers have a lower production cost than Workers or Clinics, but the additional man power will help you deal with aggressive aliens, or escort colonists and explorers outside you borders.  Aristocrats would help you fund an early army, which in turn will give you greater control over the map.

Machinery: Begin with a Worker unit.

This is another 60 Production saved, but you'll get to start cultivating the land immediately.  If you can defend the worker he'll probably be better than the Clinic since the bonuses you get from improved tiles will greatly outweigh the static benefits of the Clinic.

Potential Starting Strategies

Miracle Grow: African Union, Refugees, Retrograde Thursters, Hydroponics

This is the start for Hyper-Magan, a giant AU capital.  Depending on Health options early on, selecting the Clinic or Artists might be more prudent, but the ability to grow the city as quickly as possible is too tempting to avoid, particularly if you get a strong start.  

Super PAC: Pan-Asian Cooperative, Engineers, Tectonic Scanners, Machinery

This start focuses on improving the map as quickly as possible, abusing the PAC's increased Worker speed with a starting worker and increases to production to out-hammer your opponents.

Amazon Army: Brasilia, Aristocrats, Lifeform Sensor, Weapon Arsenal

Get your army off the ground quickly with funding from your aristocrats, find the aliens, and eviscerate them!  Can be combined with Prosperity/Might virtue trees for added growth and military power for a particularly scary early game foe.

Kavithan Sprawl: Kavithan Protectorate, Artists, Continental Surveyor, Laboratory

This start will probably let you spam out Colonists as quickly as possible, starting with the Lab and Artists to give you extra health to offset early expansion.  The artists will also increase your culture output so you can acquire free colonists and growth from Prosperity, or increased production bonuses from Industry.  

There's a bunch of cool strategies I can't wait to try out against the AI, and once I get a few games under my belt I'll share some of my starts and strategies, incorporating Techs, Virtues, and Affinities as well.  Next week I will try to sit down and write up a Hex article.  Hopefully tournaments will be back up for me to stream also.  If you have a starting combo you're looking to try out, share it in the comments.  Until then.

Introduction to Subsistence Agriculture

It should come as no surprise to anyone that has played board games with me that one of my all time favorite board games is Agricola, and today I'm going to give you a rough introduction to the game.  Hopefully this will give players who have never played a rough idea of what is involved in the game, while also outlining the general strategies you should consider when dipping your toes into the game, or returning to it after a long hiatus.

In Agricola you play as a farmer living in a wooden shack with your spouse, and throughout the game your goal is to grow your farm by plowing fields to sow grain and vegetables, building fences and stables to breed animals, building extra rooms onto your house, and growing your family.  It's a worker placement game, which means every turn you will get to place your family members (you start out with two) on spaces of a central board to collect resources like wood, clay, stone, and reed; or to perform other actions like sowing a field or renovating your home.  Only one worker is allowed on each space during a given turn, and since it's a shared board, you'll be competing with other players for the best spaces each turn.  At the end of each turn everyone takes their workers back and a new action becomes available on the board, generally more powerful than the ones that preceded it.  At the end of certain turns, there will be a harvest. 

Cattle in Pastures from Arne Hoffmann

During harvest turns, players will be able to reap the rewards of their labor.  Grain and Vegetables that have been planted on your fields will come off, and if you have a pair of animals they will breed.  However, during the harvest you must also feed each member of your family two food.  For every food you cannot pay, you are forced to go begging, which gives you a permanent -3 Victory Points during final scoring.  At the end of the game, you will receive points based on how well you have managed to develop your farm and house.  Players can earn points in everything from the number of sheep they have to the amount of fields plowed.  Unused spaces on your farm count against you, so you want to make sure you fill up as much space as possible!

When crafting a strategy for Agricola, it's important to look at what you are working towards.  Agricola can be a deceptive game because it tends to reward diversity more than specialization.  Once you have acquired four vegetables, you've capped the amount of points you can have in that category.  Additionally, not participating in a category also deducts points from your overall score.  This is an important distinction, since picking up just a single cattle will net you 2 points (taking you from -1 to +1).  As such, late in the game, it's often preferable to make sure you have a little bit of everything, rather than a surplus of one particular thing.  For the rest of this article I'm going to go over some of the general strategies you will employ in Agricola to get these Victory Points.  I'll be going over some of the rules lightly as I've done above, so if you're unfamiliar with the game, I suggest taking a look at the full Agricola Rules so you don't get too lost.

Crop Farming (12)
Crop Farming includes the points from Fields, Grain, and Vegetables, and while it generally doesn't net as many points as other categories, the Fields will take up precious space on your farm to reduce the penalty you take from unused spaces at the end of the game.  The grain and vegetables can also be eaten raw as food, or cooked into more food using the Fireplace or Ovens found in the Major Improvements.

The Hand Mill is an improvement that
allows you to convert grain to food
without having to bake bread.

The first thing you need to farm is to Plow a Field, which can be done at the "Plow a Field" space which is available from the beginning of the game.  Next you need to acquire your crops.  Grain is available from an action space at the beginning of the game and the Vegetable action space becomes available on either Round 8 or 9 (since there are only 14 rounds in the game, you will have to move quickly to acquire and plant vegetables).  The final step of the process is probably the most confusing, and that's sowing.  When you sow, you count up the number of empty fields you have in your farm, and for each one you can place either a grain or a vegetable on top of that.  You then take two grain from the general supply for every grain you planted, and one vegetable for every vegetable you planted, and place them on top of the planted crop on the field.  These new grain and vegetables are now planted, and at the beginning of every harvest, you'll get the topmost one off the stack.  This effectively triples your grain and doubles your vegetable in terms of victory points, since planted & harvested crops both count for victory points!  The fields will eventually become empty again, after three harvests for grain and two for vegetables, so knowing how to cycle your crops and when to plant them again will be key to worker management.


Sowing can be performed on two spaces.  The first is the "Sow and/or Bake Bread" space, which is available starting between Rounds 1 and 4, before the first harvest.  "Bake Bread" allows you to turn Grain into food if you have an Improvement that lets you do that, like the Fireplace.   The second space is the "Plow a Field and/or Sow," which allows you to plow an extra field before you sow.  This space doesn't show up until the final three turns of the game, and will be highly contested as many players will be looking to maximize their points in farming during the end of the game.

Livestock Farming (20)
Livestock Farming includes the points from the three types of animals you can raise, Sheep, Wild Boar, and Cattle, as well as the points attainable from pastures and fenced stables.  Raising animals is a bit more difficult and time intensive than planting fields, but has a higher ceiling as far as points go.  To begin you must first build a habitat for the animals you plan on raising.  There are two options for this.  Stables can be built at the "Build Rooms and/or Stables" space available from the beginning of the game, and cost 2 wood a piece.  Each stable can house exactly one animal, and you are limited to four stables per game.  The second option is pastures, which require you to fence in a portion of your farmland at a cost of one wood per section of fence.  This is done at the "Fences" action space available starting between Rounds 1 and 4.  

The Animal Dealer can ensure you
get a pair of animals, even on spaces
with only one animal available.  

When you begin building fences you must fully enclose a pasture, so deciding how much space you will need, and therefore how much wood you need, will be something you want to consider when planning your worker placement.  A single space of land needs only four wood, a 1x2 rectangle requires six wood, and a 2x2 square requires 8 wood.  Whether it's 1x1, 2x2, or 3x3, each closed off area counts as a single pasture, and can only contain one type of animal (Sheep cannot mix with Cattle of Wild Boar).  However, each section of farmland you enclose can hold two animals.  So a 2x2 pasture can hold 8 Sheep for 8 wood, where a 1x1 pasture can only hold 2 Sheep for 4 wood.  If you manage to fence in a stable, the stable doubles the holding capacity of your pasture, meaning the 1x1 pasture would then be able to hold 4 animals, and the 2x2 could hold 16!  Of course, even with 8 Sheep you've already reached the maximum points you can attain for that animal, so extra copies are redundant unless you plan on cooking them for food, which you can with the Fireplace or Cooking Hearth.

The animals will become available on spaces in certain rounds: Sheep starting between rounds 1 and 4, Wild Board starting either round 8 or 9, and Cattle starting either round 10 or 11.  In a 5-player game there is also a space where you can get animals directly from the start of the game, easing the crunch to acquire Cattle or Boar before game's end.  Part of the difficulty in Livestock farming is that it requires lots of Wood, which is a heavily sought out resource, not only for fences and stables, but also for building rooms and the costs for minor improvements.  Another problem is that players can take a buildup of animals they can't house and simply convert them into food immediately if they have the means.  Each player can also keep one of each animal in their house, so if a player builds a large pasture it is very easy for another player to pick up a large buildup of Sheep or Boar to counter the Livestock Farmer.  There are several Occupations and Minor Improvements that can remedy these weaknesses, by giving you extra animals, easing the wood cost of building stables and fences, and even giving you extra food during harvests where you have a good number of animals.

House & Family (19+)*
Your House and Family include the possible fifteen points available from having five family members *(since all players start with two family members, you can only gain nine points) and the points available from extending and renovating your house, which generally tops at about ten for a five room stone house.  Your house can be one of three types: the Wood Shack that you start with, a Clay Hut that your shack can be renovated to, and a Stone House which is renovated from that.  Each renovation costs one Reed plus one Clay or Stone (depending on what you are renovating into) per room in your house, so to renovate your two-room wood shack to clay would require two Clay and one Reed.  Each room in a Clay hut gives you one point, and each room in a Stone house grants two points.  Renovations can be done on two spaces: The "Renovate + Major/Minor Improvement" space available starting between rounds 5 and 7, and the "After Renovation, Also Fences" space available only on the last turn of the game.

End of Game Board from Greg Udvari

Adding Rooms is only available on the "Build Rooms and/or Stables" space available from the start of the game.  Each room you build costs 2 Reed + 5 of whatever resource your house currently is.  Each extra room you build not only increases the points you get when you renovate your house, but can also support another family member.  Between rounds 5 and 7, the "Family Growth, then Minor Improvement" space becomes available, which players that have unused rooms in their house can use to grow their family.  In a five-player game, there is an "Occupation or from Round 5 on Family Growth" space available from the start of the game.  There is also a "Family Growth, even without room" space that becomes available on turn 12 or 13, which does not require you to have an extra room to house the new family member.


Growing your family early is extremely beneficial, as the new family member can also take actions.  The downside is that you now have to pay two more food every harvest to feed the extra person, but since the person can usually be played on spaces that just give you food, like "Fishing" or "Day Laborer," he will often be able to pay for himself.  Because growing your family cannot happen before turn five, many player will try to set up to grow their family by building a room before the first harvest, to ensure if the "Family Growth" action comes up on turn 5, or if they are just playing in a 5-player game and can grow from turn 5 anyways, that they will be able to use it.

Improvements & Occupations

When is a raven like a writing desk?
It isn't.  Now get back to farming!

The final category is a supplementary category, but an important one.  While I've mentioned these above, I haven't gone into great detail about them.  Minor Improvements and Occupations are cards that you receive seven of each at the beginning of the game.  Occupations can be played from the start of the game, occasionally at the cost of one or two food.  Occupations can have immediate effects, like the Cattle Whisperer, which places Cattle on future round spaces that you get at the start of those rounds.  Some have constant effects on the game, such as the Swineherd, which enhances the ability of the "Wild Boar" action space.  And some, like the Tutor, will grant you bonus points at the end of the game.

Minor Improvements are similar to Occupations in that they will give you an immediate or constant bonus, but unlike Occupations, each Improvement has a particular cost to play.  Prerequisites are located in the upper-left corner: so for the Writing Desk you need to have played two Occupations in order to play it.  The cost of the Improvement is in the upper-right corner: again, for the Writing Desk, you have to pay one Wood in order to play the Writing Desk.  Some Minor Occupations will also have a small gold circle in the lower-left corner of the card art.  This represents the amount of Victory Points the card is worth at the end of the game.  Major Improvements are similar to Minor Improvements, but each Major Improvement is available to all players at the beginning of the game.  These include cards that give you some way of converting animals, crops, or resources into food.  The "Minor/Major Improvement" space that becomes available starting between rounds 1 and 4 the first early space where you can play Major Improvements.  Other spaces available throughout the game will allow you to play Improvements in addition to other effects, such as the "Family Growth & Minor Improvement" and "Starting Player & Minor Improvement" action spaces.  Making sure you have the resources and prerequisites to play an Improvement when you go to these spaces requires planning and precision, and will be key when you are trying to eke out every last point you can.

That covers the very basics of Agricola.  If you're not very familiar with this game, hopefully between this introduction and the rules you have a good idea of what you can and should be doing throughout the game to earn victory points.  Next week I'll focus more on the actual gameplay, particularly on the early game so that you can survive the first harvest and set up your strategy for the rest of the game.  

Occupation & Improvement Card Images from Play-Agricola.
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