Get To Playing Agricola

The Big Picture

This guide covers just enough to start playing. Have the game in front of you and follow along!

You're a farmer in 17th-century Europe. You and your spouse live in a tiny two-room wooden hut with an empty plot of land. Over 14 rounds, you'll plow fields, raise animals, expand your home, and grow your family — all while making sure everyone gets fed.

At the end, the player with the most well-rounded farm wins. You're rewarded for having a bit of everything — and penalized for anything you neglect.

Your Farmyard

Each player has a farmyard board with 15 spaces arranged in a 3×5 grid. Two of those spaces start with wooden hut rooms, and each room holds one family member.

Over the game, you'll fill those empty spaces with fields (for crops), pastures (fenced areas for animals), more rooms (for more family members), and stables.

Any space left empty at the end costs you 1 victory point — so fill up your farm!

How a Round Works

The game has 14 rounds split into 6 stages. Each round follows four quick phases:

1. Reveal a new Round card — this adds a new action space to the board. The actions get better as the game goes on.
2. Replenish — resources pile up on accumulating spaces. The longer nobody takes them, the bigger the pile gets.
3. Work Phase — this is the main event. Take turns placing your family members on action spaces.
4. Return Home — everyone comes back to the farmyard, ready for next round.

The Work Phase

This is the core of Agricola. In turn order, each player places one family member on an unoccupied action space and immediately takes that action.

action space

do it

The key rule: only one person per space per round (this includes yourself). If someone takes the action you wanted, you'll have to do something else.

You start with 2 family members, so you get 2 actions per round. Grow your family and you'll get more — up to 5 actions per round.

What You Can Do

There are many action spaces, but they boil down to a few categories:

• Gather resources — take Wood, Clay, Reed, Stone, or Food from accumulating spaces. The longer they sit, the more you get.
• Build — spend resources to add rooms to your hut, build fences for pastures, or renovate your home from Wood to Clay to Stone.
• Farm — plow fields, sow Grain or Vegetables, and take animals (Sheep, Wild Boar, Cattle).
• Play cards — Occupation and Improvement cards give you special abilities and alternate ways to score.
• Grow your family — add a new family member (needs a spare room). More family = more actions each round.

The Harvest

After certain rounds, a Harvest happens. This is the game's pressure valve — and the reason you can't ignore food production. Three things happen in order:

1. Field phase — remove 1 crop token from each sown field and add it to your supply. This is your harvest coming in.
2. Feeding — each family member needs 2 Food. If you can't pay, you take Begging cards worth -3 VP each. Ouch. = 2 Food
3. Breeding — if you have 2+ of the same animal type, you get 1 baby animal (if you have space for it).

Feeding Your Family

Getting enough Food is the central challenge. Here's how to convert things into Food:

• Cooking Improvements (Fireplace, Cooking Hearth) — cook animals or Vegetables into Food at any time. This is the most flexible option. + Sheep 2 Food
• Baking — with an oven (Clay Oven, Stone Oven) or Fireplace, convert Grain into Food when you take a "Bake Bread" action.
• Raw conversion — Grain and Vegetables can always be exchanged for 1 Food each, no Improvement needed. But that's a bad rate.

Priority #1 for new players: get a Fireplace or Cooking Hearth early. Without one, feeding your family is a constant struggle.

Growing Your Family

This is the most important decision in Agricola. More family members mean more actions each round — but also more mouths to feed.

more

= more actions = more Food needed

To grow your family, you need:

1. A spare room — build a new room first (costs 5 matching material + 2 Reed), then take the Family Growth action.
2. A food plan — each new family member needs 2 Food per Harvest. Make sure your food engine can handle it before growing.

Timing matters: grow early and you get many more actions over the course of the game. Wait too long and you won't benefit enough.

How Scoring Works

Agricola rewards well-rounded farms. Each category scores 0 to 4 points — but having zero in any category costs you -1 point.

You're scored on:

• Fields, Pastures, Grain, Vegetables — farming categories
• Sheep, Wild Boar, Cattle — animal categories
• Rooms (Clay = 1 VP, Stone = 2 VP each) and Family Members (3 VP each)
• Fenced Stables (1 VP each), played cards (VP shown), and Begging cards (-3 VP each!)

The key insight: don't ignore any category. Even 1 Sheep avoids a -1 penalty and earns +1 instead — a 2-point swing.

Ready to Play!

That covers the essentials. A few tips for your first game:

• Get a cooking Improvement early (Fireplace or Cooking Hearth). Without one, feeding is brutal.
• Grow your family as soon as you can feed them. Going from 2 to 3 workers is a huge power spike.
• Don't neglect any scoring category. Even 1 of each animal avoids penalties and earns points.
• Watch the Harvest schedule — they come faster in the later stages. Plan your food supply ahead of time.

The 6 Stages

The 14 rounds are divided into 6 stages. New action spaces are revealed from each stage's deck:

• Stages 1–3 (Rounds 1–9): Basics — Sow & Bake Bread, Fences, Sheep, first Family Growth, Vegetables, Wild Boar, Stone
• Stages 4–6 (Rounds 10–14): Advanced — Cattle, more Stone, Plow & Sow, Family Growth without a Room, final Renovation

A Harvest happens at the end of rounds 4, 7, 9, 11, 13, and 14 — so they get more frequent as the game goes on. Plan ahead!

Occupations & Improvements

If you're playing the full game (not the Family game), each player starts with a hand of 7 Occupation cards and 7 Minor Improvement cards. These are a big part of the strategy.

• Occupations (yellow) — special abilities you play by spending Food. They can bend the rules in powerful ways, like giving you extra resources or discounts.
• Minor Improvements (orange) — small upgrades you play by spending resources. Many provide ongoing benefits or end-game VP.
• Major Improvements (red) — 10 shared cards available to everyone. These include cooking upgrades (Fireplace, Ovens) and resource converters. First come, first served.

Tip: look at your hand early and build a strategy around your best cards. They can completely change how you approach the game.

Animals & Pastures

Animals need a place to live on your farm. There are three ways to house them:

1. Fenced pastures — spend Wood to build fences around farmyard spaces. Each enclosed space holds 2 animals.
2. Stables — build inside a pasture to double its capacity. A fenced stable also scores 1 VP at game end.
3. Pet rule — you can keep exactly 1 animal in your home (unfenced, no pasture needed). Great for your first Sheep!

Animals that can't be housed must be returned to supply or immediately cooked for Food (if you have a cooking Improvement).

Fields & Crops

Fields are your long-term food investment:

1. Plow a field — place a field tile on an empty farmyard space.
2. Sow it — place 1 Grain (adds 2 more from supply = 3 total) or 1 Vegetable (adds 1 more = 2 total) on the field. 1 3 on field
3. Harvest it — at each Harvest, remove 1 token from each field. A Grain field pays out for 3 harvests!

Fields stay plowed forever — once harvested, you can re-sow them without plowing again.

Major Improvements

10 Major Improvement cards are available to everyone (first come, first served):

• Fireplace (2 or 3 Clay) — cook animals/veggies into Food, bake Grain into 2 Food
• Cooking Hearth (4 or 5 Clay) — upgraded Fireplace, better conversion rates
• Clay Oven (3 Clay + 1 Stone) — bake 1 Grain into 5 Food. Great rate!
• Stone Oven (1 Clay + 3 Stone) — bake up to 2 Grain into 4 Food each
• Joinery / Pottery / Basketmaker's Workshop — convert Wood/Clay/Reed to Food at Harvest, plus end-game bonus points
• Well (3 Stone + 1 Wood) — gives 1 Food per round for 5 rounds. Worth 4 VP.

Scoring Table

Each category uses a similar scale, but thresholds differ:

Fields

Pastures

Grain

Vegs

-1

0-1

0

0

0

1

2

1

1-3

1

2

3

2

4-5

2

3

4

3

6-7

3

4

5+

4+

8+

4+

Animals:

Sheep

Boar

Cattle

-1

0

0

0

1

1-3

1-2

1

2

4-5

3-4

2-3

3

6-7

5-6

4-5

4

8+

7+

6+

Plus: 3 VP per Family Member, 1-2 VP per room (Clay/Stone), 1 VP per fenced stable, card bonuses, and -1 VP per unused farmyard space.