Game Rules for Agricola

Introduction

Welcome to the game of Agricola! In this exciting game, you will step into the shoes of a farmer and try to build the most successful and productive farm possible. You will need to carefully manage your resources, plan your actions, and make strategic decisions in order to thrive in this competitive world.

Goal of the Game

The goal of Agricola is to score the most points by the end of the game. Points are earned through various means, such as expanding your family, improving your farm, and collecting resources. The player with the highest score at the end of the game is the winner.

Setup

To set up the game, each player receives a personal game board and a set of player tokens. The game board represents their farm and is divided into various spaces where different actions can be taken. The players also receive a hand of occupation cards and a hand of improvement cards.

Gameplay

The game is played over a series of rounds, with each round representing a season on the farm. During each round, players take turns in clockwise order. On their turn, a player can take one action from a variety of options available. These actions include things like collecting resources, building fences, and renovating your farmhouse.

In addition to taking an action, players must also feed their family during each harvest season. Players must have enough food to feed each family member, or they will suffer penalties. Managing your food supply is a crucial aspect of the game.

Scoring

Throughout the game, players will earn points for various achievements. These achievements can include things like building rooms in your farmhouse, breeding animals, and growing crops. At the end of the game, players count up their points and the player with the highest score wins.

Conclusion

In Agricola, you will experience the joys and challenges of running your own farm. With careful planning and strategic thinking, you can build a successful and prosperous farm. So gather your family, gather your resources, and get ready to embark on a farming adventure like no other!

When I start the game, I’m a farming couple living in a simple two-roomed hut. As the game progresses, I have so many opportunities to make my life better by upgrading my home, improving my fields, and raising animals.

Every round, I can take one action for each of my family members. I can collect resources like Wood and Clay, expand my family, and make sure everyone has enough food to eat.

Here’s the thing, though – each action can only be taken by one person in each round. So if someone else picks the action I want, I miss out. Each round, a new action becomes available – you can check out the game phases for more details.

When it comes to planning your family, timing is crucial. You want to make sure you’re ready to grow your family, but it’s important not to rush into it. After all, the next generation will need to be fed!

Growing your family has its benefits. Not only does it allow you to take more actions, but it’s also a key factor in winning the game. The player with the best farmyard at the end of the game emerges as the victor.

Victory points are earned in various ways. You get points for fields, pastures, and fenced stables. And you also earn points for having Grain, Vegetables, Sheep, Wild boar, and Cattle. However, be careful not to leave any farmyard space unused, as each one will cost you a point.

But that’s not all. You can also earn additional points by expanding and renovating your family’s home. The more Family members you have, the more points you’ll get. And if you play Occupation and Improvement cards, you’ll receive points for those too. If you want to see examples of how to play, flip over three of the boards for explanations.

Setup

In this game, I’ll show you how to set up the game boards. Let’s get started!

First, place three game boards in the positions shown on the illustration to the right. Make sure they’re laid out correctly.

Now, it’s time to choose a color and grab your playing pieces. Each player picks a color and takes the corresponding pieces. Don’t forget to also grab one farmyard.

Put your farmyard in front of you, facing the direction of your choice. On each of the two building spaces, place a Wooden hut room tile. Then, in each of these rooms, put one of your Family members.

Don’t forget about the remaining playing pieces – additional Family members, fences, and stables. Keep them in the bag for now, or you can put them to one side. Finally, sort out the rest of the game components such as house and hut tiles and place them next to the playing area.

If you want to learn how to play Agricola, there are a few things you need to know. First, you’ll need to sort the cards based on their reverse side color. There are different types of cards you’ll come across, including green Action cards (B), blue Round cards (A), yellow Occupation cards (C), orange “Minor Improvement” cards (D), red “Major Improvement” cards (E), grey Begging cards (F), and Summary cards (G).

1. The blue Round cards are important for the game. You’ll need to sort them based on the Stage of the game. Start by shuffling each small pile of cards. Then, place the piles on top of each other. Make sure the cards for Stage 6 are at the bottom, followed by Stage 5, and so on. Finally, put the four cards for Stage 1 on top. These Round cards introduce new actions as the game progresses.

If you’re playing with 3, 4, or 5 people, grab the corresponding set of green Action cards and place them face up on the left side of the first game board. It doesn’t matter how you arrange the cards. In a 3-player game, you’ll have 4 cards. In 4- and 5-player games, you’ll have 6 cards. But in solo and 2-player games, you won’t use any green Action cards.

Take a look at the yellow Occupation cards. The purple symbol on the left side of each card tells you how many players can use it. A card with a symbol means it can be used by 1 to 5 players. A card with a symbol means it’s for 3 to 5 players. And a card with a symbol is specifically for 4 to 5 players. Any cards not being used are taken out of the game. The full set of Occupation cards is only available in a 4- or 5-player game. Shuffle the cards and deal each player a hand of 7 Occupation cards. You can look at your hand, but keep the rest of the Occupation cards to the side.

First, I will shuffle the orange Minor Improvement cards. I’ll deal each player a hand of 7 Minor Improvement cards, and they can take a look at them. Any leftover Minor Improvement cards will be set aside for now.

Next, I’ll place the 10 red Major Improvement cards face up on the Major Improvements board. Once 9 Major Improvements have been purchased, I’ll flip the board over to reveal the scoring overview, and the last Major Improvement card will go on the other side of the board.

I’ll also put the grey Begging cards face-up next to the playing area.

Each player will take a Summary card and put it in their playing area. One side of the card provides an overview of the game phases, while the other side explains the scoring at the end of the game. There won’t be any scoring rounds during the game, just at the end.

When we start playing, we have to choose someone to be the starting player. That person gets the Starting player marker and 2 Food. The rest of us get 3 Food each.

It’s important to note that the Starting player marker doesn’t automatically go to the next player at the end of a round. It goes to the player who decides to take the “Starting player” action.

Watch This Tutorial Video

Let’s Play the Game

The game is made up of six stages and a total of 14 rounds.

Each round follows the same pattern and has four phases. At the end of certain stages (after rounds 4, 7, 9, 11, 13, and 14), there is a Harvest. You can see this on the game boards as Harvest.

Phase 1: Start the Round and Draw a New Round Card

Take the top Round card and put it on the right spot on the board. The action on this card is available to everyone and can be used not only in this round but in all the rounds that come after.

Alright, here’s how things work in a game round. Pay close attention!

First off, let me tell you that all the actions that happen at the beginning of a round or at the start of every round are happening right now. It’s like the game is springing into motion!

Now, some cards in the game will tell you to place things on the Round card spaces. It could be tiles, Food, or other playing pieces. If there’s already stuff on the current round space, those goodies get spread out to the players who earned them by playing an Occupation or Improvement card. So, it’s like sharing the wealth!

Phase 2: Replenish, Place New Goods And Animals

Here’s where we talk about adding new stuff to the board. There are certain Action spaces on the board that need goods or Food. You’ll see them marked with an arrow. So, you add the new goods and Food to those spaces. If there’s already something there, you just add the new stuff to it. It’s like building up a big collection!

When you see the “3 Wood” symbol on a space, it means that 3 Wood tokens will be added to that space every round. Similarly, if you see the “1 Cattle” symbol, it means that 1 Cattle token will be added to the space each round.

The Work Phase: Taking Action

During this phase, we take turns placing a single Family member from our farm on an unoccupied Action space and performing its action. The Starting player goes first, and we go in clockwise order. Remember, each player can only place one Family member at a time, and each Action space can only be used by one person in one round.

It’s important to note that a Family member must always perform the action of the Action space it occupies. They can’t just sit there without doing anything.

So, when you’re playing a game with Action spaces, you have some choices. You can either take one action or, if you want, you can take a second action after the first one. It’s up to you!

Now, here’s a little something you should know. When you collect building resources like Grain, Vegetables, or Food, you keep them in your own supply where everyone can see them. Animals, on the other hand, can’t go in your supply. They have to be placed right on your farmyard.

Oh, and if you have animals that you can’t put in your farmyard, you have to do something about them. You can either give them back to the supply or turn them into Food right away. To do that, you’ll need an Improvement with a cooking symbol.

And here’s a rule you can’t break. When you play a card from your hand or buy a Major Improvement, you have to read the text on the card out loud. That way, everyone knows what the card does.

Now, I’ve got one more thing to tell you. You can’t hide your supply from the other players. And you can’t cover up the cards you’ve already played. Everyone should be able to see what you’re up to!

Phase 4: Return Home

Hey there! Now it’s time to wrap up the game. Let’s talk about Harvest Time!

During this phase, you and the other players will take your Family members off the game boards and bring them back home. It’s like a reunion!

Remember, Harvest Time is important because it marks the end of a round. You need to carefully choose which Family members to remove and when to do it. It can be a bit of a puzzle, but don’t worry, I’ll explain.

Family members can be placed on different spaces on the game boards, right? So, during Harvest Time, you need to decide which ones you want to bring back home. Maybe you want to have more workers or add more creatures to your farm, it’s up to you!

But here’s the thing, you can only remove Family members from the game boards in a specific order. First, you take back the ones on the Harvesting space, followed by the ones on the Planting space, and finally the ones on the Animal Husbandry space.

Once you’ve decided which Family members to remove, bring them back home. This will clear up the game boards for the next round and give you a fresh start.

So, during Harvest Time, it’s all about choosing the right Family members to bring home, and planning ahead for the next round. Good luck!

During the Harvest in the game, I get to feed my Family members. This happens at the end of each stage of the game, which are rounds 4, 7, 9, 11, 13, and 14. The Harvest is divided into three phases that happen one after the other.

The Field Phase

Feeding The Family

Alright, folks, we’re nearing the end of the game here. It’s time to feed your family. You gotta pay up 2 Food per family member. Now, the babies that were born this round, they only need 1 Food for now. But remember, they’ll need 2 Food in future Harvests. Don’t forget to take that into account.

If you’ve got any unprocessed Grain or Vegetables lying around, you can turn those into 1 Food whenever you want. But here’s the cool part: if you’ve got Fireplaces or Cooking Hearths or other handy stuff like that, you can convert Vegetables into Food at a better exchange rate. And if you’ve got any nifty Improvements with the cooking symbol, you can use those to turn animals into Food. Yum!

But here’s the catch: you can only Bake bread using Improvements with the bread symbol if you take a Bake bread action during the round. So keep that in mind.

Oh, and just so you know, animals that haven’t been processed yet don’t have any Food value. So they won’t do you much good in this phase.

Begging

Breeding in Harvest Phase 3

Finally, if you have at least 2 animals of the same type, you’ll get an extra baby animal of that type. However, this only happens if you have enough space in your farmyard or on a suitable Improvement card, like the “Animal Yard,” “Wildlife Reserve,” or “Forest Pasture.” It’s important to note that you can’t immediately turn the baby animals and parent animals into food after they’re born. If there isn’t enough space for them, the babies will simply run away. The animals breed no matter where the parent animals are placed.

End of the Game

Hey there! Just wanted to let you in on a little secret about the game. It all wraps up nicely at the end of the 14th round. It’s called the Harvest, and trust me, it’s a big deal!

Once that’s done, we’ll tally up your Victory Points on the scoring sheet. You know, the player with the most points wins. Simple as that!

Now, if by any chance we have a tie, no worries! We’ve got a solution for that too. The tied players can either share the victory, or if they’re up for it, they can go all in and play another game of Agricola to really settle the score. Fun, right?