GUIDE

AGRICOLA STRATEGY GUIDE

Agricola is a competitive worker-placement game about running a 17th-century farm. You plow fields, raise livestock, build rooms, and grow your family, aiming to build the most well-rounded farmstead over 14 rounds.

DIFFICULTYADVANCED

PLAYERS1-4

PLAY TIME90-150 min

AGE12+

STRATEGY EURO AGRICOLA

STEP 1

SETUP

1Give each player a farmyard board with two rooms of a wooden house and two family members to place in them.
2Place the main action board in the center and seat players around it.
3Sort the round cards into their six stages and reveal none yet; they enter play one per round.
4Deal each player a hand of 7 occupation cards and 7 minor improvement cards for the standard game.
5Set out the general supply of wood, clay, reed, stone, grain, vegetables, and animals within reach.
6Place the major improvements board where everyone can access it.
7Give the starting player marker to a random player and hand out the food tokens shown for turn order.
8Shuffle any needed action-space accumulation goods and you are ready to begin round one.

STEP 2

HOW TO PLAY

WORK PHASE

The game runs 14 rounds across six stages. At the start of each round a new action space is revealed, then players take turns placing one family member at a time onto open action spaces. Each space can hold only one worker, so grabbing the action you need before a rival does is the heart of the game. You keep placing until all of your family members have been used.

ACTIONS AND BUILDING

Actions let you collect wood, clay, reed, and stone, plow fields, sow grain and vegetables, build fences and stables, and renovate your house. You can also play occupation cards and minor improvements from your hand, or buy major improvements like the fireplace and cooking hearth. These cards create engines that convert resources into food and points.

HARVEST PHASE

Harvests occur at the end of stages, after rounds 4, 7, 9, 11, 13, and 14. First you harvest one crop from each sown field into your supply. Then you must feed your family 2 food per adult member, and 1 per newborn. Finally animals breed, gaining one extra for each pair you own.

GROWING YOUR FAMILY

You start with only two workers, and a specific action lets you add a family member by having an open room to house them. More workers mean more actions each round, but every new mouth demands more food at harvest. Timing family growth against your food supply is the central tension of the game.

★ WIN CONDITION

The game ends after the harvest at the end of round 14. Each player scores their farm using the scoring chart: points for fields, pastures, fenced stables, grain, vegetables, each animal type, family members, and rooms and improvements, minus points for unused farmyard spaces and begging cards. The player with the most points wins.

STEP 3

QUICK TIPS

▸Balance every category, since empty types like missing vegetables or animals cost you points and the scoring rewards a broad farm.
▸Grow your family early so you gain extra actions, but only once you can reliably feed the new mouths.
▸Secure a reliable food engine such as a cooking hearth or an oven before harvests catch you short.
▸Never let a harvest force you to take begging cards, as each one is a heavy 3-point penalty.
▸Watch what opponents need and take contested spaces like wood or the family-growth action at the right moment.
▸Fence pastures and add stables early so you have room to breed animals into big end-game scores.

DEEP DIVE

STRATEGY NOTES

Agricola is one of the defining worker-placement games, and its reputation for punishing depth is well earned. On the surface you are simply running a medieval farm, plowing fields, gathering wood and clay, raising sheep and cattle, and expanding a humble two-room house. Underneath, it is a tight optimization puzzle where every action you take is one your opponents cannot, and where the clock of the harvest is always ticking.

The core tension is food. You begin with two family members, and each additional worker gives you another action every round, which is enormous. But every adult eats 2 food at each of the six harvests, and if you cannot feed them you take begging cards worth minus 3 points apiece. Expanding your family too fast without a food engine is the classic beginner mistake. Expanding too slowly means you simply get outpaced by rivals taking more actions. Threading that needle is what separates strong players from the rest.

Scoring rewards breadth rather than depth. The end-game chart hands out points for fields, pastures, grain, vegetables, and each of the four animal types, plus family members, rooms, and improvements. Crucially, leaving a category empty costs you negative points, and unused farmyard spaces hurt too. A farm that dumps everything into cattle while ignoring crops will lose to a balanced one. You want a little of everything and a lot of nothing wasted.

Occupations and minor improvements add the variety that keeps the game fresh. These cards form small engines, letting you convert resources into food, draw more cards, or gain discounts. Learning to read your opening hand and commit to a plan quickly is a skill that develops over many plays. Do not try to play every card; pick the few that support your strategy.

Above all, pay attention to your opponents. With only one worker allowed per action space, timing and denial matter as much as your own plan. Take the wood pile when it is fat, grab the family-growth action before a rival, and keep your farm balanced and fed. Do that consistently and the points take care of themselves.

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