Agricola
I've recently had the chance to play a couple of games of Agricola, courtesy of someone who bought the German edition and sleeved all the cards with paste-ups of the translated text. For those of you who don't spend too much time on Board Game Geek, Agricola is the next Caylus, more or less: the English-language release is due out in April and yet the game has already been highly-rated enough to crack the top 10 (!), spawn multi-page threads about how the game can't be all that, etc.
From two plays I can't be entirely certain, but it seems quite likely that the game is, in fact, all that. It combines several Eurogame mechanics: limited actions, a communal pool of actions from which all players draw, and resource management spanning several different resources, and then tops that off by giving each player a hand of "occupations" and "minor improvements", each of which make certain actions different, more efficient, or score points at the end of the game.
Thematically, each player is a farming family, and attempts to develop their land to grow grain and vegetables, raise livestock (sheep, wild boars, and cattle), or just expand their house (which, in addition to being worth points, also allows the family to expand, granting more actions on each turn). Every so many turns (the cycles get shorter as the game progresses), the harvest occurs, and crops get reaped, livestock breed, and family members need to eat (kids give additional actions, but also require additional food come harvest time). Scoring is a little complicated, but in general you get points for producing up to a certain amount of various items, lose points for any item you haven't produced any of (between this penalty and the cap for each scoring category, some diversity is required), and lose points for unused land.
The game plays from 1-5, and depending on the number of players the initial pool of actions available is different (also, some occupations are only available in 4- and 5-player games). Regardless of the number of players, the pool of actions gradually expands, with later actions in general being more efficient.
Anyway, as far as economic-engine-construction games goes, it has quite a number of bells and whistles, and I'm eagerly awaiting the US release :-)
From two plays I can't be entirely certain, but it seems quite likely that the game is, in fact, all that. It combines several Eurogame mechanics: limited actions, a communal pool of actions from which all players draw, and resource management spanning several different resources, and then tops that off by giving each player a hand of "occupations" and "minor improvements", each of which make certain actions different, more efficient, or score points at the end of the game.
Thematically, each player is a farming family, and attempts to develop their land to grow grain and vegetables, raise livestock (sheep, wild boars, and cattle), or just expand their house (which, in addition to being worth points, also allows the family to expand, granting more actions on each turn). Every so many turns (the cycles get shorter as the game progresses), the harvest occurs, and crops get reaped, livestock breed, and family members need to eat (kids give additional actions, but also require additional food come harvest time). Scoring is a little complicated, but in general you get points for producing up to a certain amount of various items, lose points for any item you haven't produced any of (between this penalty and the cap for each scoring category, some diversity is required), and lose points for unused land.
The game plays from 1-5, and depending on the number of players the initial pool of actions available is different (also, some occupations are only available in 4- and 5-player games). Regardless of the number of players, the pool of actions gradually expands, with later actions in general being more efficient.
Anyway, as far as economic-engine-construction games goes, it has quite a number of bells and whistles, and I'm eagerly awaiting the US release :-)