There are a few things I did that are very unusual for me this game...this is the first time I've pulled off the Constable bonus (no negative points in any category), with or without playing the Constable. This is also one of the few times I haven't got to 4 or 5 family members, and I only took Starting Player once, right before the end, and I played zero minor improvements...
So let's see, my occupations were:
Farmer, Meat Seller, Patron, Constable, Cattle Breeder, Weaver, Manufacturer (the only one I didn't play; once you have a clay hut or stone house, Joinery/Pottery/Basketmaker's Workshop are any 2 resources cheaper)
My minor improvements (I played none):
Wood-fired Oven, Village Well (requires Well), Straw-thatched Roof (requires 3 Grain Fields), Animal Feed (requires 4 planted fields), Sawmill (requires Joinery), Yoke (only does something if Harrow and/or plows have been played), Sleeping Corner (requires 2 Grain Fields)
Patron encourages/enables playing lots of Occupations, so I better have Occs that I want to play.
Meat Seller is as good as a Cooking Hearth for animals with any Oven, so I was looking to use my Wood-fired Oven there.
Farmer helps get started on animals, and together with Cattle Breeder meant I could get 3 Cattle without ever taking the Cattle action.
Weaver led to more Food just for having Sheep.
So that's 4 different occupations all focused on animals, plus Patron to help make playing them all more worthwhile. I played Constable for 4W () when the other wood spaces were taken, and its end game bonus was big, not just for the 5 points, but it helped give me a clear goal in the endgame, which was very important with only 3 Family members; can't waste any of those actions.
I took 3 Clay when it was unexpectedly available to me early, and that was actually what prompted me to do Meat Seller + Clay Oven instead of just Cooking Hearth. I already had the Stone I needed from RSW, so either way was going to be 2 Actions: take Clay, major improvement; or, occupation, major improvement. Having played Patron made the occupation also give another Food, so that was the way to go. (only downside here was that I couldn't turn Veggies into more than 1 Food, but that was ok since I was focused on Animals)
My minor improvements were basically all too expensive to bother with. I needed Fences too much to go for the Wood-fired Oven, going after the Major Improvements felt like it wouldn't work, and I definitely didn't have enough help to just blindly go after planting a bunch of fields.
Getting 8W in round 5 was awesome, to allow me to build all my stables at once to start housing the animals that would be my food.
In order to get my Constable points, in the last 3 rounds I had to plow 4 Fields and build 1 Room to use up my last 5 farmyard spaces, and I needed to take a Grain and a Veggie, so I think I got a little lucky that I didn't get blocked on anything I needed in the end. This was also why I took SP in round 13; I still needed to plow twice, so I had to at least guarantee the more tempting Plow+Sow action.
Now I feel like I'm kind of just rambling on about what I did during the game...the key thing at the beginning was just to find cards that worked together. I had 4 Occs that promoted lots of animal raising, and luckily enough another Occ that promoted playing lots of Occs, so that was my focus.
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Topic: Agricola II (Read 21821 times)