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10
by Uwe Rosenberg
published 2008 by Z-Man Games/Lookout Games
players: 1-5
duration: 60-120 mins.
type: middleweight worker-placement board game
RULES: MEDIUM .The game is nearly overwhelming with all of the parts out of the box, but the rules to the game really aren't that long, really just expounding and clarifying what's already on the cards. There is text everywhere, so it's not hard to remember most of what will happen in the game. (And the theme is quite solid in this game, making rules quite intuitive.)
COMPLEXITY: MEDIUM. The game itself is not all that hard to play, but to play well, you will have a lot of work to do. (No problem, right? You're a farmer! You are used to hard work!) The mechanics of a turn are simple (choose one available action), and the actions in and of themselves also simple (e.g. put a plowed field on your play board; put a cow in a field), but how all these things come together in the game to produce the difficulties and rewards of growing a little farmstead are quite something. Oh, and don't forget to plan the layout of your farm!
PACE: MEDIUM. On your turn you simply pick one of the remaining actions, and your strategy coupled with your playing style (yes, there is room for playing style in this game - I like breeding livestock) make your decision not all that complicated. By the time it is your turn, you generally have one or two actions picked out that you want, so it should go quite quickly.
LUCK: MEDIUM. The "family game" version actually has less luck than the full version of the game! The family game only has luck in the order that the action cards come out each round. If the action you need to have available doesn't come up till the fourth round, and you can't manage to secure it in that round, then you can fall behind, but you just have to account for that possibility, knowing that that particular action will be available sometime in the first four rounds, and account for it accordingly. The full version includes Occupation cards and Minor Improvement cards, both of which function similarly to the buildings in Puerto Rico, allowing you to modify the rules of the game for yourself, giving you advantages that other players don't have. (Of course they have advantages that you don't have!) These extra cards are dealt out at the beginning and it is possible that your cards will be more complimentary, or even powerful, than your opponents hand (which should be balanced somewhat by the cost of the cards). Alas, such are the vagaries of life on a farm. If you are playing with hardcore gamers who despise luck, they will loathe this part of the game, but for people who can accept the fact the luck, the cards are what make the game nearly infinitely interesting...
TENSION: HIGH. Will the action you want on your turn still be available? Can you get enough food to feed your family? Do you have time to make room for that baby sheep? Do you take the start player action to ensure better timing next round, passing up a chance to get that wood you really need? Every turn you get so few actions and you have so much you want to do! And the game is only 14 rounds long, most of which will only have you making 2-4 actions per turn! Yikes!
CONFRONTATION: LOW. About all you can do is try and take an action you know your opponent really needs. (Like taking the last bit of food just before the Harvest stage when they clearly needed that to avoid Begging for bread (-3 points).)
INTERACTION: LOW. As with most "worker-placement" games, the only interaction is really tracking what your opponents need, and trying to deny them those things by taking the action before they need it. I find this subtle interaction enough for me, but charges of "multi-player solitaire" are levelled against this game (much as they were against Puerto Rico...which the number 1 ranked game in the world.)
VISUALS: GOOD. Anything that is hand-drawn in this game is beautiful: the cards, the boards, the tiles. I really enjoy the style of presentation, and the little details seen throughout out are charmingly idiosyncratic. The actual playing bits made of wood are highly functional and distinguishable (very important in this game with all its parts) but are a bit drab. Veggies and wheat are colored discs, workers are larger colored disks, animals are colored wooden cubes, etc. The publishers are making "animeeple" - animals that are shaped appropriately, but I really feel these should have been in the game in the first place. Dry gamer games can have abstract bits, but a game like this almost requires more thematic bits. Of course you could always make your own bits...
THEME: HIGH. Sure, there are a few "logical inconsistencies" in the implementation of the theme in order to ensure a good game, but I am telling you that German/Euro-games rarely are this rich in theme. Breeding animals, cultivating crops, expanding farms, storing food, gathering building materials, baking bread - it's all there.
PLAYER SCALING: EXCELLENT. A simple but genious solution to scaling the game for players: use CARDS for some of the available actions (some are fixed regardless of the numberof players), switching these cards for different numbers of players, allowing the game to be nearly perfectly balanced without having to actually remember what changes from player number to player number since everything is on the cards.
GAMER APPEAL: YES. Except for the luck of the deal of the cards (which are fairly well-balanced by cost), this game has a lot of payoff, both in thematic execution and in richness of strategic diversity which comes from the aforementioned cards, as well as your own farming style, and the farming style of other which will force you to be adaptable while at the same time trying to be consistent with your strategy.
CASUAL GAMER APPEAL: YES. Rarely will a game with this much meet be so attractive to casual gamers, both because of the theme, the implementation of the theme, the intuitiveness of the gameplay, the non-confrrontational nature of the game, the richness in variety.
REPLAY: EXCELLENT. Someone told me that with all the cards included in the game, there is something like 14 billion possible starting hands to be dealt - give or take 10 million. Each different hand of cards opens new possibilities, and allows different emphases of stragies, allowing nearly every playing to unfold differently.
RATING: 10.
