It is very easy to attempt to overthink in Agricola and to agonise over the best strategy. The reality is this; Agricola is only as difficult as you make it, and generally speaking if your mind is working on massively convoluted multi step strategies then the reality is these strategies are in all probability not going to work. Keep it simple, feed the family, grow the family, grow the house and gather other stuff as you go along. Oh, and if come final scoring you maybe miss out on an extra one or two victory points by not having at some point agonised for 10 minutes over a decision you will in all probability have given you and your fellow players a far more positive experience — so go with the flow, go with the growth, and worry less.
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Order Now ». Tinners' Trail Review View All. How to Play: Agricola Ashley Perryman. How to play Agricola - Or how I learned not to worry about feeding the family! Set-Up Set-up is going to vary a little depending on the number of players with additional spaces that can be used by workers for two, three, four and five players, the more players the more possible actions. Other than this set-up is always the same: Set-up the three main game boards, and place Action Cards on these boards according to the number of players, and Round Cards for each Stage of play randomly and face down in associated Round — there will be four in Stage one, three in Stage two and so on.
Place the major improvement board next to the main boards and place the Major Improvement cards on it. Sort the Occupation cards according to the number of players, shuffle and deal seven face down to each player. Shuffle the Minor Improvement cards and deal eight face down to each player. Place the Begging cards face up near the board. Give each player their set of coloured wooden tokens comprising of five family member discs, four stables and 15 fences.
Give each player a farmyard board on which they place two wood house rooms in the indicated spaces and one worker disc in each of those rooms. Decide who is going to be first player, give that player the First Player Token and two Food tokens, and give each other player three Food tokens. Give each player a game summary card. Some Thoughts on Set-up There are only two random aspects in Agricola, the order that Action Cards are turned over each turn and the initial dealing of occupations and minor improvements.
Try to plan to make the most of the occupation and minor improvement cards you have been dealt, especially because these may make you less dependent on grabbing resources or food from the main board. Give very serious consideration towards playing any occupations or minor improvements which help in obtaining food — food will always be in short supply. Gameplay Gameplay is actually very simple. Phase One - Round start. Draw a new round card and turn it over. Phase Two - Replenish.
Place resources on Actions and Action cards. Do remember that if resources have not been taken they still get replenished in subsequent rounds, and that resources such as "take on grain" do not need to be placed on Actions or Action Cards — these are simply taken from supply.
Phase Three - Work phase. Beginning with the starting player, place a single family member on an Action or Action Card, and take the resources or action s associated with it. Remember that only one family member can be played on any Action or Action Card. Phase Four - Return home. Once all family members have been placed and actions taken, all family members then return to their home farm. Repeat this process until the Harvest. Harvest After rounds four, seven, nine, 11, 13 and 14, the Harvest takes place.
Harvest is split into three phases: Harvest Phase One - Field. Players remove one grain or vegetable token from each sown field in their farm containing these resources.
Players may also receive additional food from occupation or minor improvement cards that have played. Harvest Phase Two - Feeding. Each player must feed each of their family members. The cost is two food per family member, with it reduced to one food for any family member who has not as yet taken an action, having been born on rounds four, seven, six, 11, 13 or Each unprocessed grain or vegetable can be converted to one food.
Fireplaces, cooking hearths as well as some occupations and minor improvements allow players to convert resources to food at a better rate. Some of these can also be used to convert animals to food at any time. Do remember that normally improvements with the bake bread symbol can only be used with the bake bread action and cannot normally be used to bake bread during the Harvest phase. The point is that Agricola has a lot of the same goals as PR - you have to pick a strategy but you have to be flexible.
Agricola punishes specialists with negative points, but rewards high accumulation of any one thing. So every decision has rippling implications. You want to emphasize your strengths and minimize your weaknesses, just like in PR. I love Agricola as a 2-player game. My wife and son and I used to play it in 2s and 3s all the time. But it just didn't hold up at my house under the onslaught of games like Dungeon Lords, Galaxy Trucker, and London, so it doesn't hit the table as much as it used to.
Will you like it? Will your mom? I have no idea! Does your mom like challenging games? Or is Ticket to Ride her limit for the length of a rulebook? I think you'll like it - but my mom would hate it.
I've upvoted the other two answers, as I agree with them completely, but I just wanted to throw in my couple of bits:. It's definitely a great 2 player game, and I might even go so far as to say that the 2 player games I play with my wife are my favourite way to play Agricola.
Certainly I don't ever think "yeah, this is fun, but if only we'd been able to get a few friends around for the full experience", when I'm playing 2-player. One thing I think is worth stressing is that Agricola changes with different numbers of players. Actually that's really the best argument I can think of for playing it with more players: you get to play with some cool Occupations that you don't otherwise get to see! In a similar vein - one of the beauteous things about Agricola is that you can scale up the complexity based on the experience levels of your players.
The Family Game dispenses with the Occupation and Minor Improvement cards, and becomes a fairly chess-like or at least Caylus-like experience with a very small randomness factor. A beginner will probably still be a bit baffled by the intricacies of how to successfully bake bread, or breed animals, as both of these are multi-step processes and not initially easy to discern.
But once you've got over that hurdle I guarantee you'll be hooked. At which point you can introduced the "E" or "Easy" deck of cards, and then build up gently to the "Interactive" and "Complex" decks. If ever a boardgame bent over backwards to have a graceful learning curve, it's Agricola. I have met players who took an instant dislike to Agricola, on complexity grounds: there is a danger that, in your first game, especially if it's a 4 or 5 player game against experienced players, you might think "oh God, I have no idea what's going on, I don't have enough actions to get anything to work, all my people are going to starve to death".
But many more newbies I've played with have taken to the game instantly. Because the ways to attack other players are non-obvious, it's very easy to just get on with building the best farm you possibly can, and not feel too harrassed or victimised.
Plus, Harvest Moon, Farmville, etc etc: everyone loves building farms, don't they? With a theme this universal, and the attractive components, it's pretty hard to go wrong. Agricola is more or less the best game ever. Get it at once! Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top.
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Learn more. Evaluating Agricola as a 2 player game: how long would it take, how competitive is it, complexity, etc. Ask Question. Asked 10 years, 4 months ago. Active 7 years, 10 months ago. Viewed 15k times. Here are the main questions I'd like to pose: Playing time. Take this scale: No aggression. Group Solitaire, Dominion with no attack cards Occasional aggression.
Dominion with attack cards, Puerto Rico, Citadels Frequent aggression. Settlers of Catan, Carcasonne Purely Aggression. Chess, Risk Where do you think Agricola ranks on this scale? How 'aggressive' do you need to be to win?
Improve this question. Community Bot 1. Gordon Gustafson Gordon Gustafson Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. Do you have a FLGS you can go to and play it? If not, try moving! Although, I would add that when both players know the game well, even with the standard game a match can be played in 45 minutes including setup time. I've upvoted the other two answers, as I agree with them completely, but I just wanted to throw in my couple of bits: It's definitely a great 2 player game, and I might even go so far as to say that the 2 player games I play with my wife are my favourite way to play Agricola.
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