How to Play Agricola
Agricola is a popular board game by Uwe Rosenberg. So popular, in fact, that it unseated Puerto Rico as the number one board game in the world on BoardGameGeek.com in 2008. So what makes it such a great game? In short: You have a farm. You have workers who take actions to improve your farm by gathering resources, building fences, planting food and raising animals. And the trick is, your workers must be fed.
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Instructions
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1
Give each player a farm board, two wooden rooms and all the pieces of one color. Each player should place two wooden hut rooms on the two designated spaces on her own farm board. Each player then places one of her worker discs on each of the two wooden huts.
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2
Place the "major improvements" on the major improvement board, shuffle the round cards and divide them by stage, and be sure the family side of the round board is face-up. If you are playing with more than two players, place the family action cards in the six spaces on the family board. Choose a starting player who will take the starting-player token and two food. Each other player receives three food.
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3
Begin a round by flipping over a random round card from the appropriate stage and placing it in the next open space on the board. Then place the designated resources on each space with an arrow pointing to it, including the just-flipped round card. (e.g. Place one reed on the space that has a picture of one reed with a red arrow.)
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4
Take your turn by placing one of your two worker tokens on an unoccupied space and immediately taking the action written on that space. If you place on a space with a red arrow pointing to it, take all resources that have been piled there (not just the ones added this round).
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5
Build fences by placing a worker on the "build fences" action. You must pay one wood for each fence segment you place and must enclose an area completely to form a pasture. Each pasture can only hold one type of animal.
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6
Take animals by placing a worker on an animal space. You must have room on your farm in order to keep any animals--your house can hold one animal, and pastures can hold two animals per square.
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7
Purchase one of the major improvements by playing a worker on a major improvement space. This will let you pay the appropriate resources to claim one of the ten major improvement cards.
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8
Expand your house by placing a worker on the "build" card. Each new wooden room costs five wood and two reeds. You must have an additional room in order to grow your family.
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9
Sow a grain or vegetable by placing a worker on the "sow fields" card. You may take any grain or vegetable you own and plant it in a plowed field on your farm. Each planted vegetable is topped with an additional vegetable from the supply, and each planted grain is topped with two additional grain from the supply.
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10
Grow your family by placing a worker on the "family growth" space (only when you have more rooms than family members). Place one of your unused discs on top of the worker on the space. At the end of the round, you'll return both discs to your house and have a new worker.
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11
Pass the turn to your left once you have played your worker. Once all players have played all available workers, players return all of their workers back to their houses and the round ends. If the round has the word "harvest" just below it, proceed to Step 12 to harvest. Otherwise, return to Step 3, and start a new round.
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12
Harvest your farm by removing the top grain or vegetable from each of your planted fields and adding the results to your resource pile. Pay two food for each of your family members. Any type of animal of which you have more than two produces one baby animal. (e.g. if you have four sheep, you receive a baby sheep.) If this was not the final harvest, return to Step 3 and start a new round.
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13
End the game by counting up your total number of points. Gold numbers on the major improvements you have built are worth that many points, and each category in which you have nothing is worth negative one point. Whoever has the most points wins.
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Tips & Warnings
Use the scorecard to quickly calculate your total number of points.
If you cannot pay the required amount of food at harvest, you must take a "begging" card, which is worth negative three points.
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Comments
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Very glad I found these instructions. They saved the night for four reasonably intelligent adults who were completely flummoxed by the official instructions!
