General information
The tournament is open for all players regardless of skills, but it is assumed the all who sign up for the tournament know Agricola rules and have prior experience from playing Agricola.
Tournament leader: Rune Halvorsen (runeho)
Jury / appeal committee: Bernt Ivar Nødland (Turambar), Bjørn Andre Kildalen (DonBA32), one non-Norwegian player (elected before the tournament starts)
Tournament setup
The tournament exclusively consists of 4-player games. Accordingly, the number of players will be a multiple of 4. There is no a priori upper limit to the number of players that are granted access to the tournament, but the organising committee may decide to set such a limit for logistic reasons. Players are randomly allocated to the tables in the first six games (each player will meet as many different other players as possible in the six first rounds) while the seventh game is a final in which the players compete for places 1–4, 5–8 etc.
In games 1–6, the players are awarded 10–6–3–1 tournament points (TP) for places 1–2–3–4. In case of ties, points are shared (shared 1st place gives 8 TP etc.).
After six games, the players are divided into groups, each with four players, based on the standings (the accumulated TP score over the six games). If necessary, the following tiebreakers will be used: (1) accumulated relative score (relative score is calculated for each game as the difference between each player’s score and the average score at the table); (2) number of 1st places; (3) result in games where the player(s) in question have played against each other.
Players bring with them to the final the accumulated TP score over the six games, and their accumulated relative score. Tournament points in the final are 12,5–7,5–3,75–1,25. The final ranking is based upon the accumulated TP score in seven games, with the same tiebreakers as described above.
No trophies or awards are given to the winner(s), but the results will be published at appropriate places.
Decks and drafts
All games are played with decks EIK, Wm (2011), France(2014), as well as a collection of fan-made cards from play-agricola.com, roughly G4567 (details on exactly which cards are included/excluded will be posted subsequently). Links to full G4-7 decks are found at: G4 G5 G6 G7 . The following cards are banned (G = from new collection of g4-7 cards!, mostly because they are too strong, but some because they are too weak, or change the game too much by allowing targeting specific players):
Braggart
Chamberlain
Lover
Ratcatcher
Taster
WetNurse
Reedhut
WoodenHutExtension
CornProfiteer
FieldWorker
HarvestHelper
PlowDealMaker(G)
ReedBuyer
Smallholder
StoneBuyer
Turner
WoodBuyer
Basket
CornStorehouse
Flail
PumpkinTrellis(G)
Slaughterhous
WaterMill
We play according to Compendium v.9.0, which can be found here. Note for instance that there are slight differences from the rules in some versions and Boiteajeux, for instance Scholar can in the version we are playing play all improvements (on Boiteajeux he can only play minor improvements). For Wm deck compendium we use the version from play-agricola.com found here, and for France deck here. For G4-7 we follow the conventions used at play-agricola.com, with a jury of 3 players deciding cases of doubt.
Seats are drawn for each table before draft starts. Neighbour draft 9 is used in all games. Occupations are drafted first (counterclockwise; i.e., passed to the player on the right), thereafter minor improvements (clockwise; i.e., passed to the player on the left). Starting player is drawn after all players have completed their draft. The second player is the player to the left of the starting player and turns shift clockwise.
Each game should be completed in 2 hours 15 minutes.
Rules of conduct
– All resources (building materials, goods, food) in a player’s supply and the player’s persons shall be on the player’s board (and not in the player’s hand) until the player performs his or her action.
– An action can be reversed until the next player has placed his or her person on an action space.
– Actions that do not influence other player’s actions (take forgotten food or resources provided by cards, breed animals, harvest grain or vegetables, etc.) can be completed until the end of the subsequent round. A round begins when the round card is turned and ends when the round card of the next round is flipped.
– Any player can ask the table if someone can build room, take family growth, fence, renovate etc. and expect to get correct answers. Furthermore, any player can ask any other player about their played cards but it is a player’s own risk to overview the benefits provided by, and implications of, cards played by other players.
Special rules
The fourth (i.e., the last) player in Round 1 receives 1 Food at the start of Round 5.