In Agricola, you’re a farmer in a wooden shack with your spouse and little else. On a turn, you get to take only two actions, one for you and one for the spouse, from all the possibilities you’ll find on a farm: collecting clay, wood, or stone; building fences; and so on. You might think about having kids in order to get more work accomplished, but first you need to expand your house. And what are you going to feed all the little rugrats?

The game supports many levels of complexity, mainly through the use (or non-use) of two of its main types of cards, Minor Improvements and Occupations. In the beginner’s version (called the Family Variant in the U.S. release), these cards are not used at all. For advanced play, the U.S. release includes three levels of both types of cards; Basic (E-deck), Interactive (I-deck), and Complex (K-deck), and the rulebook encourages players to experiment with the various decks and mixtures thereof. Aftermarket decks such as the Z-Deck and the L-Deck also exist.

Agricola is a turn-based game. There are 14 game turns plus 6 harvest phases (after turn 4, 7, 9, 11, 13, and 14).
Each player starts with two playing tokens (farmer and wife) and thus can take two actions per turn. There are multiple options, and while the game progresses, you’ll have more and more: first thing in a turn, a new action card is flipped over.
Problem: Each action can be taken just once per turn, so it’s important to do some things with high preference.
Each player also starts with a hand of 7 job cards (of more than 160 total) and 7 item cards (of more than 140 total) that he/she may use during the game if they fit in his/her strategy. Speaking of which, there are countless strategies, some depending on your card hand. Sometimes it’s a good choice to stay on course, and sometimes it is better to react to your opponents’ actions.

Also out right now is the most current expansion for Agricola.  The Goodies Expansion contains:

• Agricola X-Deck — 24 cards with alien encounters all over the farm. Every time a player visits a stone quarry, a card is drawn from the pile. And then? Resistance is futile!

• Agricola Ö-Deck — 12 new Occupations and 12 new Minor Improvements including a wunderkind, the guy with the couch, the singing family from the Alps, and of course that one specific Governor.

• Agricola CZ-Deck — 12 Occupations and 12 Improvements. Based on famous people, places, and historic events from the Czech Republic. Illustrated in the spirit of the artist Josef Lada, this expansion was initiated by the Czech Publisher of Agricola-Mindok.

• Agricola L-Deck — Nobody knows exactly what the L stands for. Some tend to believe Lookout, others insist on Looneys. Decide for yourself; but don’t take it too serious.

• 5 double-sided theme boards — Western, Spring, Autumn, Winter, and Mars.

• Sticker Sheet (70 stickers) — 35 adults, 33 children, 1 alien, and 1 werewolf.

• Wooden Meeples — Veggiemeeples, Animeeples, and Resourceeples.