Agricola vs The Voting Game

The basic premise in Agricola is simple: players take one of their two starting people and, in turn order, use it to select an action. Once an action is selected, it can not be chosen by other players. After everyone has placed their first worker players place their second, again in turn order, followed by 3rd, 4th, and 5th, if applicable. However, the difficulty in Agricola comes from the relatively limited number of action slots available and the sheer number of things players are trying to accomplish over the 14 rounds of the game.

Players can purchase the expansion, Farmers on the Moor, to add more gameplay options and strategic depth or they can purchase additional card packs to add variety to the minor improvement and occupation decks. This helps keep the game from getting stale and encourages multiple plays to try and experience everything this game has to offer.

The very limited number of actions available to take each round, combined with most resources only being available at 1 or 2 spots means that players are regularly interfering with eachother's plans and constantly being forced to reevaluate their strategy after an opponent blocks them. This leads to high amounts of player interaction and keep you very engaged in the game instead of focusing solely on your player board.

Players are constantly socializing with each other, be it by laughing along at the questions and results or explaining their choices. This leads to many stories being told throughout the whole game, which can also lead to inside jokes and throwbacks in the next questions, making the game a memorable and fun experience for everyone involved.

The Voting Game is highly replayable because of the large amount of possible house rules and four official expansions.

There are some rules mentioned in the official instructions that can help change up the game, for example, by allowing players to vote for themselves or transforming the game into a drinking game. You’re also free to add your own house rules, change the win condition or just play for fun.

The Voting Game has four unique expansion packs – NSFW, Fill In The Blank, Political, and Create Your Own Expansion. Each of these brings new thematic questions to the table that adds to the replay value and fun. For example, the Create Your Own Expansion lets the players themselves create some unique questions before the game begins, whereas the Fill In The Blank expansion adds question cards with blank spaces that are filled in when it’s your turn.

If you’re playing the game just for fun without a win condition, then players can join or leave as they please without impacting the game too much. It is very easy to deal in another player to a game already in progress once a question is finished. Similarly, if someone has to go, then the game can continue without interruption simply by removing the player’s number from the other player’s hands.

The Voting Game is great for a larger party with a lot of people because it’s made for a maximum of 10 players. This means that usually nobody will be left out of the fun.

The game is very straightforward and easy, making it possible to teach it to anyone in a few sentences. Each player is assigned a number and given a deck of number cards with the same amount of cards as players in the game. Every turn a new question is revealed, for example, “Who would find a way to break out of prison and succeed?” The players then vote for the player who, in their opinion, fits the description. The player that received the most votes gets a point. If it’s a tie, then the reader decides the winner. The first player to get 10 points wins the game.