Board Game Arena

I don't have a premium account so I can't start games.

I stopped playing for two months but I remember back then I could get into a game in a minute or so and still have a bunch of players declining to play.

Now I'm stuck waiting for xx minutes and nothing (both weekdays and weekends). Is the game alive? Am I being not-so-subtly encouraged to get premium?

Where are all the Chinese and Japanese players who were nuts about Agricola? Is there a new reigning title?

Unfortunately, after the number of active tables display was removed, no alternative was provided to see table counts. Whether this is intentional or not is anyone's guess.

https://boardgamearena.com/gamelist?isPopular= says that Agricola is the #11 most popular game on BGA right now, for what it's worth.

ozygo wrote: ↑29 August 2024, 03:02 I don't have a premium account so I can't start games.

I stopped playing for two months but I remember back then I could get into a game in a minute or so and still have a bunch of players declining to play.

Now I'm stuck waiting for xx minutes and nothing (both weekdays and weekends). Is the game alive? Am I being not-so-subtly encouraged to get premium?

Where are all the Chinese and Japanese players who were nuts about Agricola? Is there a new reigning title?

The audience has been stable for the past 6 months from what i can see

If you have red flagged lots of players (or vice versa) then finding a game might be harder.

I'm new to the site, and while I have been able to find Terraforming Mars games easily, I can't find a single Agricola game. I'm premium, put on flexible mode to let people choose (have tried without it too), yet can't find any games period. If this is the 11th most popular game on this site, then I worry the site itself as near-empty given the difficulties I'm having.

Agnion wrote: ↑13 November 2024, 22:39 I'm new to the site, and while I have been able to find Terraforming Mars games easily, I can't find a single Agricola game. I'm premium, put on flexible mode to let people choose (have tried without it too), yet can't find any games period. If this is the 11th most popular game on this site, then I worry the site itself as near-empty given the difficulties I'm having.

TfM is the 2nd most popular game on the site, so there are a lot of players of any variety, but I believe this is mostly a new player experience. If you are Beginner or Apprentice, that is a less than 100 elo player, some higher rated players may be hesitant to join you: either because they fear your lack of knowledge may ruin the gameflow due to bad decisions or that your account is new and therefore more prone to quitting. Once you get past 100 elo and figure out your settings, finding games isn't that hard, although it can still take a few minutes. Past 100 elo arena also opens up, where lot of the player base is at - these days I almost exclusively play that. My experience as a new player on the site was pretty rough too, but it gets better.

Using the ‘Watch Now’ feature on Agricola’s game page there are currently 3280 games in progress. The bulk (obviously) are turn based but there are some live games too. TM has over 9000 games in play. Seems like both games have plenty of people playing.