You want to prove that you’re the best at managing an industrial farm at the back-end of agricultural supply chains, but you can’t get enough of your team-mates together for a raising game of Agricola. Don’t worry! Thanks to Z-Man Games, you can have a one-on-one game of Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small and out-farm your cube-mate to your heart’s content!

Based on the original Agricola, All Creatures Big and Small was designed as a simpler alternative for only 2 people. (Even though the original could be played by 2 people, it was designed specifically for 3-5 players, and 62 of the occupation cards in the full game — which we’ll get to once you’ve had time to figure out the basic game which is more involved and complex than you think it is,just like the back-end of a real agricultural supply chain — can only be used if there are 4 players.)

The 2-player game is simpler to learn than the full game (but just as hard to master, especially if you get the expansions). The number of actions you can take in each round are fixed, whereas the number of actions in the full game depend on the number of family members you have; the focus is on raising animals, building fences and stables to hold them, and other special buildings and you don’t have to balance this with growing crops and producing food like in the full game; and there are no cards to deal with, only special buildings. It’s quick to learn, but still hard to master because, as with the full game, only one player can take an available action and if you don’t build your pens or stables in time, you can’t breed more animals — and while special buildings and farm expansions can give points, many of the points depend on the size of your flock. Plus, if you believe the game is getting too easy for you, there are two expansions: More Buildings Big and Small and Even More Buildings Big and Small that add a total of 54 more special buildings to make your game even more unpredictable, just like farming in the real world (as each building has an ability, just like each supply chain professional you could hire brings a different skill, and you can’t build them all, just like you can’t hire afford to hire too many people, so you have to find the right mix of buildings that give your farm that right mix of capabilities just like you have to hire the right mix of professionals in the real world with skills that complement each other and make the team as a whole greater than the sum of its parts).

In this 2-player version, you start the game with a farm board and a cottage that can hold one animal and 9 borders, which you can place when you select the fencing action, provided that you have enough wood to place those borders.

The game is played over 8 rounds and each round consists of 4-phases.

1. Refill: Refill the indicated spaces on the game board with the goods printed on them. Every round, more wood and stone becomes available to be retrieved from the mill or quarry.
2. Work: Take turns placing each of your three workers on available actions.
3. Return Home: Your workers return home for the next round.
4. Breed: At the end of the round, if you have at least two animals of the same type, and room for one more animal of the type, you breed one new animal of the type.

The available actions are:

1. 1 wood: Acquire all wood in the 1-wood resource space and become the start player next round.
2. 3 wood: Acquire all wood in the 3-wood space. (Just like in the real world, the first person to market often gets the most goods at the best price when demand exceeds supply.)
3. 1 stone: Acquire 1 stone.
4. 2 stone: Acquire 2 stone.
5. Fence: Build as many borders as you can at the cost of 1 wood each. Each enclosed pasture can hold 2n animals of the same type, where n is the number of spaces that are enclosed.
6. Wall: Build two free borders and pay 2 stone for each additional border you wish to build.
7. Building Materials: Acquire 1 wood, 1 stone, and 1 reed.
8. Expand: Take a farm expansion that allows you to expand your farm (which starts with 6 fields 3 more fields).
9. Stall: Build exactly one stall for 3 stone and 1 reed. A stall can hold 3 animals of the same type.
10. Stable: Upgrade one stall to a stable for 5 wood or 5 stone. A stable can hold 5 animals of the same type.
11. Feeding Trough: Build one trough for free, and additional troughs for 3 wood each. A trough doubles the number of animals that can be kept in the pasture or building it is located in.
12. Special Building 1: Pay the building costs and put up a special building. Each special building does something different. For example, the open stables gives you one free animal and bonus points at game end; the half-timbered house replaces the cottage, gives you bonus points, and holds two animals instead of one; the shelter, which can hold one animal, gives you one free animal; and the storage building stores resources and allows you to gain points from them (as they are kept in pristine condition and can be resold at the end of the game if not used).
13. Special Building 2: Pay the building costs and put up a special building.
14. Millpond: Harvest a reed and capture any sheep near the pond.
15. Pigs and Sheep: Capture the pig and any sheep on the space.
16. Cow and Pigs: Capture the cow and any pigs on the space.
17. Horse and Sheep: Capture the horse and any sheep on the space.

Sounds simple enough, but, just like in Agricola, you’re managing an industrial farm at the back-end of an agricultural supply chain, but unlike Agricola, you’re only managing the stables. The amount of animals you can raise depends upon the number of separate pastures, stalls, and stables you have, how many troughs you have available, how many workers you have to build, how many resources you have available to put up fences and buildings, and how many special buildings you have that give your workers additional capabilities. And, as in the real world, winning isn’t just profit, it’s sustainability and depends on a number of complex factors that influence your performance over time.

Are you a better agricultural supply chain manager? Play All Creatures Big and Small and see if you can best your cube-mate, and when you think you’ve mastered it, switch back to the full game, break out the full version, and start preparing yourself for the ultimate supply management challenge (which this series is leading up to — given that the majority of the market is still, depending on the analyst firm you ask, less than halfway up the ladder, we have to first give your peers a chance to take their supply chain game up a couple of rungs).

In Part V of our original series², we introduced you to Small World, a delightful game from Days of Wonder (iOS Version available) that, in the words of Wil Wheaton, combines the military strategy of Risk with the delightful art and fantasy races of Cosmic Encounter. Except its more dynamic than Risk, and more variable than Cosmic Encounter, because while the races and powers are fixed, the combinations are not. [There are 14 races and 20 powers, or 280 different possible pairings. Plus, the pairings are ordered, and if a player does not select the pairing made available to him during his turn, he must spend 1 gold for each pairing, up to 5, that he wants to skip, which not only impacts his ability to accumulate the most victory points and win the game, but improves the selections available to the next player, who may gain one or more victory points by selecting a skipped pairing. So, if you do the math, there are P(20,14) possible power-race combination orderings, which is equal to 3,379,030,566,912,000 possible distinct games when orderings are taken into account!]

So what does this have to do with supply management? As per SI’s original post, Wil could just have easily have said Small World combines the military strategy of Risk with the marketing strategies of an MBA program. Whoever has the most money at the end of the year wins. We earn money by conquering and maintaining market territories. Empty, blue ocean, territories cost two units to conquer. Every competitor or obstacle in a territory costs one more unit to conquer. At the beginning of every game, each player will choose a primary market strategy, like brute advertising force, niche marketing, or price-undercutting, and combine it with a perceived marketing advantage such as a big war chest, coveted partnership, or new manufacturing process that allows production costs to be drastically slashed. The primary market strategy and perceived marketing advantages change every game. And therein lies the connection. Small World is a good introduction to how your supplier’s sales and marketing force is going to try and counter, and undermine, your every effort to procure and manage supply at a fair and sustainable price (as profit is the name of their game, not cost control). Today we are going to dive into the races and powers and solidify that connection.

The races¹ in small world can be mapped to the different personality types in an organization that, directly or indirectly, support, or limit, the sales organization. Consider the following:

• Amazons: A nation of all-female warriors in Greek mythology, these warriors seem to multiply in battle. They’re like the accounts receivables clerks who come out of the woodwork to descend on your deadbeat customers en-masse.
• Dwarves: The mythical miners from the popular fairy tale, they’re the professional arbitrators who excel in dark rooms and endless negotiations.
• Elves: The long-lived long-ears from the world of Tolkien who are almost immortal, they’re like the IRS auditors who never die.
• Ghouls: Like the accounting trolls in Accounting popularized in Dilbert comics, they are the immortal accountants.
• Giants: Like the feared giants of medieval times, the rich C-Suite, when they are on top, can conquer others with less effort.
• Halflings: Like the burrowing hobbits, these 3^rd party independent consultants pop-up out of nowhere and take over part of the project, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
• Humans: Like the born-and-bred farmer who is a master of his fields, these account managers excel at up-selling your existing customers.
• Orcs: Like the toll-extracting orcs of myth, these high-performing salesman excel at getting the big deal, by force if need be.
• Ratmen: Think lawyers. ‘Nuff said.
• Skeletons: Like mythical skeletons, these marketers multiply every time they conquer a new territory.
• Sorcerors: Like real sorcerors, the members of your corporate intelligence team uses espionage and influence to convert insiders to win a deal.
• Tritons: Like the legendary masters of the sea, these logistics managers rule the sea trade.
• Trolls: Like the gate-keeping trolls, these on-site consultants — once they are embedded in your culture — are almost impossible to get rid of.
• Wizards: Just like the wizards could conjure something out of nothing, these analysts can conjure actionable intelligence out of random data bits.

And the powers can be mapped to different skills that can give your race an advantage:

• Alchemist: In the old days, these magicians turned metal into gold just like your smooth-talking salesman turn feature requests into profitable change orders.
• Berserk: Just like these warriors sometimes gained sudden bursts of strength before every battle, your evangelists can sometimes beat the competition even when the odds aren’t in your favour.
• Bivouacking: Just like invading armies would sometimes build encampments to fortify their defenses, your account managers are masters at placing on-site consultants to fortify yours!
• Commando: Like the marines, your analytics team, with more training than your competition, can beat the market hands down with fewer resources (allowing you to outperform your peers).
• Diplomat: Your customer relations are so good, no one can encroach upon your customer base! Your smooth-talking sales team should be in public office!
• Dragon Master: One of your CXOs is a legend in the space, and never loses the one battle he chooses to engage in, just like the mythical warrior who rode the dragon never lost.
• Flying: Your command of the air, also known as your no-limit travel pass, gives you a larger territory in which to trade.
• Forest, Hill, Swamp: Just like certain people are suited for certain terrains, your sales team does better in certain verticals than others (and makes a lot more money from a lot less effort).
• Fortified: Just like conquering armies would sometimes build an almost impenetrable fortress from which they could rule their newly conquered land, you can dedicate your efforts on a marquis account and become so embedded therein that the account becomes almost impossible to steal.
• Heroic: Just like mythical heroes could’t be conquered, the efforts of your two best sales teams, and their House of Lies, are unparalleled and can’t be challenged.
• Merchant: Like the great merchants of legend, you make more profit on every sale than the people you are trading with.
• Mounted: Just like a mounted army was more effective than one on foot, your big data advantage crushes the uninformed competition.
• Pillaging: Just like the Vikings would loot, when you conquer an account you always find integration and data maintenance efforts that double your profit.
• Seafaring: Just like the most successful merchants in ancient times always rules the seas, your command of the sea allows you to trade where others can’t.
• Spirit: Just like spirits never die, your on-site consultants are so knowledgeable in their domain that even when a competitor manages to sell their product, your consultants are still maintained for their expertise and you play on.
• Stout: Just like the army of anubis never needed rest, neither do your sales team who can swoop from one deal to the next without need for a recharge. They live on caffeine, adrenaline, and victory!
• Underworld: The domain of the lawyers. ‘Nuff said.
• Wealthy: Just like the tomb raiders of old, you come into sudden wealth when that one client decides to shift all its consulting to you.

It’s a small world
But it’s the only one we’ve got
Huey Lewis

¹ For this post, we are limiting ourselves to discussion of the 2^nd Edition of the original Small World and not Underworld, Realms, or the various expansions such as Cursed and Be Not Afraid!

² The original series:
Part    I: Ticket to Ride
Part   II: The Settlers of Catan
Part  III: Munchkin
Part  IV: Castle Panic
Part   V: Small World
Part  VI: Zombie Dice, Tsuro, and Get Bit!

… and the new series to date:
Part  VII: Upon a Salty Ocean
Part VIII: Agricola