Rezension

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Agra

Eine Aktion pro Runde ist nicht genug

Agra takes us to India in 1572. Mogul Akbar the Great celebrates his 30^th birthday. We are ambitious owners of huge estates and set out on the road to Agra to delight the Mogul by giving him sumptuous gifts. During our travels, we try to woe influential Notables and to do a lot of business with the products of our estates - because only one of us will arrive in Agra as the richest trader.

The game runs in turns until one of three game end conditions is met. If you are the active player, you do one main action. For this action, you place a worker on a case. If there is an opposing worker already in position there, you simply give him back to his owner, who receives a Favour from stock, which is an advantage for him. However, should the ousted worker be meditating, his owner does not receive a Favour. If one of my own workers is already there, I must pay money to do the action of the case.

Action cases offer:

• Building of new production buildings, which costs you resources, but yields money and other small bonuses.
• Delivery of goods to guilds or to notables, which yields money and also influence with the three guilds and maybe permanent support from the notables.
• Exchanging of goods, including previous manipulation of costs.
• The development of your own plantations and improving of the meditation ability.
• Production of the four basic resources - there is an action case for each individual resource.
• Processing / improvement of resources. The respective production building must be constructed, and the necessary basic resource must be available. In principle, there are two improvements for each basic resource. One of the improvements can then be processed again.

So far so simple and not really new!

BUT … (and this is a fat emphatic BUT)

… in addition, each player in his turn, has, before his main action, the option to let any number of his workers in cases meditate, if they not already doing it. This gives you meditation points, which you can use for various meditation actions, for instance to exchange or deliver goods.

… in addition, each player has the option to do, after his main action, a delivery to one of the guilds or to the Mogul.

… in addition, each player has the option, at any time during his turn, to do any number of additional actions. To do such actions costs Favour or certain resources; the additional actions allow various things, and it is even possible to acquire new additional actions during the game.

So, you have a freaking lot of options!

And herein lies the great strength but also the great weakness of the game.

In Agra, it has never happened to me that I got the feeling that I cannot do anything. On the contrary, usually there a lot of good and nice options from which I need to select the best one. This induces pondering. The judge which option really is the best one, is not really easy, because in my next turn I again have a lot of options, and there are also some interactive elements in the game.

Depending on my fellow players at the table, the resulting downtime can be rather long. So, I would not unconditionally recommend playing the first few games of Agra with the maximum possible number of players, which would be four players. In a game of two or three players, the game flow is rather quicker. Due to its complexity - Agra tops the scale here due to its plethora of options - Agra is clearly targeting experienced players with a lot of staying power and patience. For the explanation of the rules alone I would set aside at least half an hour. For reading the 28 pages of rules, a lot more time. The rule book is provided in four languages - English, German, French and Dutch - and is very well written per se.

In all other aspects, Agra provides sumptuous components. The first impression is of opulence. A huge game board, a three-dimensional scoring board, four player boards, numerous wooden markers in unusual colors - neon-yellow, magenta, turquoise and orange - and various small components. The box is filled to the brim and weights several kilos. If you take a close look, however, you note that the quality of the components does not meet highest expectation, for this we have seen better producers. The graphic design, however, is really beautiful, thanks to Grand Master Michael Menzel.

All in all, due to the plethora of components, the hefty price of ca. 65 Euros for Agra is justified, albeit with me being of the opinion that the three-dimensional scoring board is without doubt an eye-catcher, but basically unnecessary, and that a cheaper, two-dimensional board would be more practically. In other cases, too, smaller markers would have been more sensible.

Nonetheless, my criticism is done on a very high level, all in all, Dutch publisher Quined Games has done an excellent Job. The Designer of the game is Mike Keller, you might know him from La Granja.

To summarize, Agra comes with a clear recommendation for friends of highly complex strategy games. All others will probably quit at the stage of reading the rules, the latest.

Markus Wawra

Players: 2-4

Age: 12+

Time: 120

Designer: Mike Keller

Artist: Michael Menzel

Price: ca. 65 Euro

Publisher: Quined Games 2017

Web: www.quined.nl

Genre: Trade**

Users: For experts

Version: multi

Rules: de en fr nl

In-game text: no

Comments:

Highly complex - four types of actions in a turn

A lot of options

Very good rules

Sumptuous, unusual components

Compares to:

Vinhos, Grand Austria Hotel

Other editions:

Maldito Games (es), announced

My rating: 6

Markus Wawra:

I am a fan of complex strategy games; therefore, Agra is exactly my game. As regards to options in a game turn, there is scarcely a game that can hold a candle to Agra. Small deductions result from a little lack of elegance and a big danger of huge down-times in Agra.

Chance (pink): 1

Tactic (turquoise): 2

Strategy (blue): 3

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 2

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0