How to Play Agricola
Agricola (Revised Edition, 2016) is a worker-placement farm game about turning a modest homestead into a productive estate. This guide explains the base game without expansion modules; for more tabletop explainers, visit PlayMore IRL.
| Quick facts | Details |
|---|---|
| Edition covered | Agricola (Revised Edition, 2016) |
| Players | 1–4 |
| Game structure | 14 rounds in 6 stages, with 6 harvests |
| Main mechanisms | Worker placement, resource management, farming, card effects |
Objective
Improve your farm more successfully than your opponents by the end of round 14. You score for developed land, crops, animals, family members, your house, and certain improvements and occupations. Empty farmyard spaces and some shortages reduce your score, while begging cards from unfed family members are especially costly. A broad, functioning farm is usually safer than concentrating on one resource alone.
Setup
Use the Revised Edition base-game boards, markers, resources, and revised card decks. Place the central game board and its action spaces, then arrange the round cards so that the new actions appear in the prescribed order. Each player takes a farmyard board, a wooden two-room house, and two family members. Shuffle and distribute the occupation and minor-improvement cards as directed by the rulebook. Put the wood, clay, reed, stone, grain, vegetables, food, and animal supplies within reach. The solo game uses its own setup and scoring adjustments; do not combine it with the multiplayer setup casually.
Core turn and round flow
- Reveal the round action. At the start of a round, reveal the next round card and add any indicated goods to accumulation spaces. Accumulated goods remain until someone takes them.
- Place one family member. Beginning with the current start player and proceeding clockwise, place one available family member on an unoccupied action space. Occupancy matters: another worker cannot use that space this round.
- Resolve the action immediately. Gather resources, take food or animals, plow a field, sow, build rooms or fences, renovate, grow the family, or play an eligible card. You must carry out what the space and card allow, paying required costs.
- Continue placement. Players keep taking turns until every available family member has been placed. A family member placed earlier cannot be used again until the round is cleaned up.
- Check for harvest. Harvests occur after rounds 4, 7, 9, 11, 13, and 14. During the harvest, crops are removed from planted fields, family members consume food, and pairs of animals can reproduce when you have room to keep the offspring.
- Return workers and pass the start player. After the harvest, return family members to their homes. Without a harvest, simply clean up after placement and begin the next round; the start player marker moves according to the rules.
How the game ends and is scored
After the final harvest at the end of round 14, players complete the scoring procedure. Count the farm categories listed on the score sheet: fields, pastures, grain, vegetables, sheep, wild boar, cattle, unused farmyard spaces, rooms and house material, family members, and qualifying cards. Apply penalties such as begging cards and any category shortfalls, then add bonuses from improvements or other printed effects. The player with the highest total wins. If a tie occurs, use the Revised Edition rulebook's tie-break procedure rather than inventing one.
Beginner tips
- Plan food before adding family members. A larger workforce gives more actions, but every additional person increases harvest pressure.
- Take accumulating resources early when a key space is filling, especially wood for construction and food for the next harvest.
- Develop several scoring categories, but do not neglect fields and food production; neglected categories can create end-game penalties.
- Prepare animal storage before taking animals. Pastures, stables, and spare capacity prevent useful livestock from becoming an awkward liability.
- Read your starting cards together. Occupations and minor improvements can turn an otherwise ordinary action into a strong sequence.
FAQs
Is this the original 2007 game?
No. This guide covers the 2016 Revised Edition, which has revised components, card selections, and rules presentation. The original 2007 edition is a separate product with different contents and some different details.
Can I place a worker on an occupied action space?
No. A normal action space accepts only one family member per round. Choose another available space, even if the occupied action would have been more useful.
What if I cannot feed my family?
Pay as much food as you can, then take begging cards for the unpaid food requirement. They impose negative points at the end, so building a reliable food engine before expanding the family is important.