Fields of Arle

Great! I recommend 100%

For those who know Agricola and Caverna, it's easy to describe Fields of Arle. There are similar mechanisms but where Caverna opens up Agricola, Arle takes it to another level, giving a tonne of options from the outset and throughout.For those less familiar with Uwe Rosenberg games, this is a game in which you run a small but expanding farmstead in East Friesia in Germany. The game is played over 9 half years and in each half year you send your four workers out to action spaces where they provide resources to build buildings, purchase vehicles to transport goods and cultivate your land to allow you to grow animals and crops or build your buildings. It's primarily a two player game, which is somewhat unusual for Euro-style games, but the solo play is excellent (for reasons I'll expand on below).It might sound like a bit of a dry topic but every choice matters. Make the wrong choice in where to send your workers and you'll get some benefit immediately but very quickly realise that you're just short of what you require for that one thing you really want. Planning is essential in order to get a big score.There's some variation is set up but not a huge amount: roughly half of the available buildings will be available every game and roughly half are random. Normally, that would in low replayability because there's perfect information (no card drawing, dice rolling or any other surprises). From the beginning of the game, you have all the info you need (other than what your opponent may do). However, there's a tonne of replayability because there are so many options! Do you want to concentrate on growing your land, filling it with buildings, breeding animals, fulfilling deliveries to nearby towns or improving your tools? There are points to be had everywhere you look but the synergies and efficiencies are what you're looking for. There are many options for each turn and often those options lead to another choice, each of which could potentially enable or scupper future plans.This is the board game equivalent of "write a story about absolutely anything". It goes where you want it to go. There's no silo-ing of strategy. Make the farmstead how you want to make it, specialise where you want to specialise, see it grow round by round and feel the satisfaction of having built something unique every game.It's a big game, a heavy game (in the sense that it requires a lot of thought), typically an expensive game but a hugely satisfying game!Warning: you'll need a big table!