Help! I keep failing at Braggart.

[robinmotion]

So folks say it's such a great, high-ceiling card. And I get that. But for some reason, I'm never able to make more than 4 or 5 improvements in my games -- I'm too busy building rooms, growing family, and feeding them. I know some of it must be about drafting cheap improvements around it, which I try to do. But even then.

Any tips? Should I be doing something different in Stage 1 or Stage 2 than room & family growth? Maybe specializing in baking early so I can worry lessa bout food, or something, or grabbing a bunch of resources so I can build more improvements?

[torvaldur_makan]

Any winning Agricola game involves efficient feeding. So if you have Braggart or not, you still need a feeding plan and stage 1 or 2 is almost the same too (build room, grow, feed). Resource Market is one of the best actions in stage 1/2 as it helps you feed and it gives you the reed for the rooms. With Braggart, that extra stone is even better than usual.

You need to have playable minors and resources when you get the improvement action. Lets say you grow with room twice, that's 2 minor actions. You renovate twice, that's two improvement actions. Then you probably take SP 2-3 times during the game, then we're at 7 played minors. What I just described is just a normal game. When you have Braggart you are incentivized to play some extra improvements, and then you are only three improvement actions away from maxing Braggart.

That said, Braggart farms usually tend to look a bit different as you don't have time to do it all. Usually you have fewer fields and maybe pastures covering 8-9 spaces. You probably have BMW, Pottery and/or Joinery instead which also will help you feed.


I looked at one of your games and you had a very high food cost in your cards and yet you didn't take 3 wild boars with Cooking Hearth, missed a couple big fishing/TP actions early. So I think you are right in your analysis that feeding is the issue. If you work on that you will have better games even when you don't have Braggart.

[Ranior]

I actually think the trick to playing strong Braggart games is mostly ignoring you have it--you still need to play the game almost the same as you normally would, and that includes getting good farming done. The most efficient path to strong feeding and good vp tends to be having a nice looking farm. Scoring well often is more a function of having strong feeding than much else, as it frees up your actions to go score points.

When drafting for Braggart you obviously do slightly prioritize having minor improvements that you want to play that are not passing cards. You shouldn't try to draft too cheap of cards though, the key is to draft cards that are worth playing, that provide enough value to be worth those improvement actions. You often want to try and renovate since those come with improvement actions, and it often is worth going for slightly more rooms so you can start for grow and grow with minor improvements since those are more efficient ways of playing cards. (Renovating a slightly larger house also tends to be better than renovating on a small one).

So you'll often have slightly more family members, slightly larger house, and have slightly more improvement points over a "standard" game. You'll still want pastures and animals and crops and fields as you're able to, but it may look like slightly larger fencing (unless you get something like a swing plow for an improvement).

Finally, the other key to winning with Braggart is the same as the key to almost any Agricola anything: don't try to maximize one card too hard. Braggart can be totally fine even if it is just a 3vp action at the end of the game when you're staring at an otherwise blank board. It's awesome to get those huge Braggart scores, but even a 5p card is extremely strong. You don't need to push too hard to getting out max improvements.

[robinmotion]

Extremely helpful — thank you both for taking the time to write such thorough replies. And going back to look at one of my games is above and beyond! Appreciated.