Board Games
How to play Agricola
Place family members on scarce actions, develop a farm and feed the household through fourteen rounds.
What you need
Revised boards, people, rooms, resources, crops, animals, fences, stables, cards and score pad
Set up the game
- Use actions for the player count and staged round cards. Begin with two people in two wooden rooms. First player gets two food, others three.
- Deal seven occupations and seven minor improvements each; prepare major improvements and supply.
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Playing Agricola
- Reveal a new action and replenish accumulation spaces. In order place one unused person and perform an available action; normally each space accepts one person per round.
- Gather, plow, sow, build, renovate, improve or grow as the space permits. Growth normally needs an empty room; a newborn does not act that round.
- Return people home. Harvest after rounds four, seven, nine, eleven, thirteen and fourteen: take one crop per planted field, feed people, then breed eligible animal pairs.
- Adults normally require two food, newborns one. Take a minus-three begging card for every missing food. Animals need legal housing; a pasture holds one species.
- After the final harvest score farm categories, people, rooms, improvements and bonuses. Missing categories and empty spaces can lose points. Highest wins; ties are shared.
A newborn’s discount lasts one harvest
Growing from two to three people just before harvest normally costs five food: two per parent and one for the newborn. At the following harvest plan for six. The extra worker pays off only if the farm can support them.
Choose a workable food plan
Cooking, crops and reliable food actions can each support a family, but acquiring unrelated pieces of all three may waste early turns. Identify where the next four food will come from, then reassess after harvest. Your plan also needs growth and a way to avoid expensive missing-category penalties; feeding alone does not make a strong farm.
Read the action as a whole
Some actions offer linked choices or require a payment. Collecting a resource does not automatically authorize building with it in the same placement. Keep paid materials and gained materials separate until the action is resolved so the next player can verify the result.
Beginner decisions
- Count the next harvest’s food before a tempting construction. A three-person family with two food has an immediate problem despite promising future production.
- Consider which action opponents need. An accumulating wood pile may disappear before your next placement.
Common rule mix-ups
- Feeding animals instead of people; livestock need housing, not household harvest food.
- Taking an action with a newborn immediately.
Questions about this game
Can I cook animals without an improvement?
Not normally. A suitable improvement permits the conversion.
Can excess animals stay unhoused?
No; arrange legal accommodation or a permitted conversion.
Sources and edition notes
Agricola Revised Edition (2016), standard multiplayer base game. Original 2007 and Family Edition differ.
Sources and stated format checked October 14, 2026. This records a document check, not a claim of hands-on testing.
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