Not going to lie I love a big heavy game about farming, so you can imagine my delight upon hearing about it and then getting a copy of Hallertau, the next big box game from the master of farming board games himself - Uwe Rosenberg.

OK, so this isn’t a review of the game, I’ll give my one-line verdict here: If you like big-box Rosenberg titles then you’ll like Hallertau. Instead, I’ll be discussing my main frustration with the game and that’s me.

In the solo game, you’re aiming for a score over 100, now I’ve not played the game solo but I have played over ten two-player games and my score has never been close to the 100 mark. The picture attached is my highest score to date and to be honest, I think that was more luck than judgement!

The frustration comes from being able to clearly grok - understand - the rules as well as to grasp the general strategy, yet not seeing why I can’t improve my scores. I pull one lever or another yet nothing seems to make any real difference, my scores remain low. In fact, they seem to wildly fluctuate and I think that might also be another issue. Why are they fluctuating so much?

I see people online, or even friends, manage to get a score higher than my average only after a few plays. The real frustration here is the game isn’t that complex, as compared to my Rosenberg favourites like A Feast for Odin or my all-time favourite game, Fields of Arle. So it isn’t the rules or complexity of the game that is causing me issues.

Trouble is, it is making me not want to play the game and that is a shame as it really is quite good. So what do I do to get better?