Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small
Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Game Object
You are farmers raising sheep, pigs, cows and horses. Three workers help you keep the animals on your farm. They build stalls, enclose pastures and upgrade your farm. Stalls get expanded into stables and your cottage becomes a Half-Timbered House.
Each round, your workers carry out one action each. All of the possible actions are clearly summarized on the game board. The catch is that each action can only be used once per round. Since you take turns placing your workers, you need the right timing to be able to carry the actions most important to you at the right moment.
The winner is the player who has raised the most animals and built the most valuable buildings at the end of the game.
Game Components
Cardboard pieces
- 1 game board
- 2 farm boards (one for each player)
- 4 farm expansions
- 4 "stall" tiles (with "stables" on the reverse sides)
- 4 special buildings ("Half-Timbered House", "Storage Building", "Shelter" and "Open Stables")
- 9 different goods tiles (3x "4 sheep"; 1x "4 stone", "4 reed", "4 wood", "4 pigs", "4 cows" and "4 horses")
- 1 start player tile
Wooden pieces
- 2 x 3 workers in the player colors (blue, red)
- 26 borders (yellow)
- 22 sheep, 16 pigs, 13 cows and 14 horses
- 17 wood, 15 stones and 5 reeds
- 10 yellow feeding troughs
Additionally
- 1 score pad
- 2 large plastic bags
- These rules
Game Setup
- Place the game board in the middle of the playing area.
- Give each player a farm board and place them such that the forest is at the top and the path is at the bottom.
- Lay out the 4 special buildings "Half-Timbered House", "Open Stables", "Shelter" and "Storage Building" next to each other.
- Place the 4 farm expansions, 10 feeding troughs and 4 stall tiles off to the side. Sort the building materials and the animals. These form the general supply.
- Give both players 9 borders. Place the remaining 8 borders next to the game board near the "Expand" action space.
Goal Of The Game
At the end of the game, the success of your farm gets measured. The following notes preview the rules you need to keep an eye on in this game:
- Separate your farm into pastures. The pastures let you keep sheep, pigs, cows and horses.
- You can keep additional animals in buildings: this stable can hold 5 of the same type.
- Building walls also act as borders for additional pastures.
- Feeding troughs double the number of animals that can be kept.
- A stall can hold 3 animals or 6 with a feeding trough. A pasture can hold 2 animals or 4 with a feeding trough.
- You can have no more than 1 animal standing next to an unenclosed feeding trough.
- Buildings are worth points: Upgrading your cottage to a Half-Timbered House is worth 5 points, for example.
- These are special buildings.
- You can also expand your farm with farm expansions.
- Fully utilized farm expansions bring additional points.
Gameplay
Players take turns choosing actions from those indicated on the game board. A detailed explanation of the action spaces can be found in "The Action Spaces (game board)" section.
The Rules of Raising Animals
Animals can be kept in pastures and in buildings. Feeding troughs improve the potential for keeping animals.
Keeping Animals in Pastures
You use the borders to enclose your pastures. Each fully enclosed pasture can hold up to 2 animals per space.
Each pasture can only hold a single animal type.
Note! You are allowed to have pastures with unfinished borders. Unfinished pastures cannot hold any animals, however.
It doesn't matter if the borders are made of wood (as fences) or stone (as walls). You do not need (and should not) distinguish between them afterward.
Keeping Animals in Buildings
Animals can also be kept in buildings. Buildings get built on farm spaces that do not have any building tiles on them yet. Building them makes it easier to enclose pastures, as 4 borders are also depicted around each building tile.
Stalls and Stables
Each stall can hold up to 3 animals of the same type.
You can upgrade your stall to a stable. Each stable can hold up to 5 animals of the same type.
A stall costs 3 stone and 1 reed. Upgrading a stall to a regular stable costs either 5 stone or 5 wood.
When upgrading to a regular stable, simply turn the "stall" tile over.
In addition to the regular stables, there is also one Open Stables tile (a special building) in the game; it is a special kind of stables. Open Stables are a special building.
Special Buildings
In addition to stalls and stables, there are also special buildings. The cottage you start with counts as a special building, as do the Half-Timbered House, Storage Building, Shelter and Open Stables. The number of animals you can keep in a special building is indicated by the number on the bottom right of the tile.
The Cottage. You have one building at the start of the game: your cottage. You can keep exactly 1 animal in your cottage (a house pet of sorts). One sheep (along with the player's three workers) lives in this cottage. The "Half-Timbered House" special building lets you upgrade your cottage and keep additional animals.
Buildings may be built in fully enclosed pastures.
Keeping Animals With Feeding Troughs
Feeding troughs double the animal number that can be kept both in pastures as well as in buildings.
A feeding trough on a farm space that does not belong to a fully enclosed pasture can keep exactly 1 animal.
You are allowed to build a maximum of one feeding trough on each (occupied or unoccupied) farm space.
Although you can build only one feeding trough on each farm space, you are allowed to have multiple feeding troughs in pastures made up of multiple spaces. The capacity of such a pasture is doubled and then doubled again (for example, 4x2=8; 8x2=16).
You are allowed to enclose a pasture around a pre-existing feeding trough. In that case the feeding trough's effect changes to suit its new surroundings.
You are allowed to build a stall or other building on a space with a pre-existing feeding trough. In that case the feeding trough remains but again has a new effect.
You are allowed to upgrade a stall with a feeding trough to a stable with a feeding trough. The feeding trough remains.
Important Basic Rules
Once anything is built, it cannot be moved or removed. Animals, on the other hand, can run around. You are therefore allowed to move animals around or remove them from your farm at any time. (Moving animals around is also important if you want to make the best use of the space at your disposal.)
When a building gets built adjacent to pre-existing borders, the borders illustrated on the building do not provide any additional benefit, and you may not return the previously built borders to your supply.
It is often very smart to partially enclose pastures in order to later use a building to finish them off. You can save valuable borders in this way.
Gameplay (Rounds and Phases)
Determine a start player. The game is played over 8 rounds. Each round is made up of 4 phases.
1. Refill Phase
At the start of each round, refill some of the action spaces on the game board with the goods printed on them (even if there are goods left on them from the previous round). You can recognize these spaces by the refill arrow on them.
Do not place any goods on action spaces without the refill arrow.
The "good 1 (good 2)" graphic on the game board indicates that you add good 1 to the action space if it is empty but add good 2 to it if the space is still occupied.
Example: In round 1, place a reed on the "1 reed (1 sheep)" action space. As long as this action space is not used, a sheep is added to it in subsequent rounds. As soon as the space is used and emptied, 1 reed gets added to it again in the next round.
Make sure you do not forget to add the yellow borders to the "expand" action space, as these borders 'count' the eight rounds that the game lasts.
2. Work Phase
Starting with the start player, take turns placing exactly one worker. Immediately carry out the action on the chosen action space.
Important: Occupied action spaces are blocked to other workers until the end of the work phase. The work phase is over once all six workers have been placed.
Hint for parents playing with a child: One parent teams up with the kid and plays against the other parent. In the team, the parent always gives the child 2 actions to choose from. They decide together how to build the farmyard.
If you choose an action space with goods on it, take all of those goods.
You are not allowed to choose an action space without carrying out the associated action.
Building materials you receive get added to your supply.
Animals must be kept on your farm board. Animals you do not have room for immediately run away and get returned to the general supply. Pastures, stalls and feeding troughs help you prevent this from happening (see the rules about keeping animals).
Remember: You can always move your animals around on your farm.
3. Home Phase
At the end of the work phase, all workers return to their farms.
4. Breeding Phase
Animals breed at the end of each round. If you have at least 2 animals of the same type, you receive another one of the same type.
Important! You can get at most 1 sheep, 1 pig, 1 cow and 1 horse per breeding phase. Example: Even if you have 2 sheep on one pasture and 2 more on another pasture, you only get one additional sheep, regardless of whatever romantic preconceptions you might have.
Newborn animals that you do not have room for on your farm immediately run away and are returned to the general supply.
Start Player
The start player marker does not switch automatically in this game. You must choose a specific action in order to receive the start player marker: it is the action space in the upper left hand corner of the game board.
The Action Spaces (Game Board)
Start player and 1 wood. Take the start player marker. Also take all the wood from this space and add it to your supply.
3 wood. Take all the wood from this space and add it to your supply.
1 stone. Take all the stone from this space and add it to your supply.
2 stone. Take all the stone from this space and add it to your supply.
Fences. Add as many borders to your farm as you want. You can only use borders from your supply. Pay 1 wood for each border.
Walls. Add as many borders to your farm as you want. You can only use borders from your supply. The first 2 borders are free and you must pay 2 stone for each additional border.
Building Materials. Take 1 wood, 1 stone and 1 reed from the general supply and add them to your supply. (This is not a refill space.)
Expand. Take a farm expansion and add it to the left or right of your farm so that the edges match. You also receive all of the yellow borders on the space, adding them to your supply. Important! You are not allowed to place those borders with this action.
Stalls. Build exactly 1 stall. This costs 3 stone and 1 reed. You can add it to any farm space without a building yet (so it can be built on a space with a feeding trough).
Feeding Trough. Build 1 feeding trough for free. You can build additional feeding troughs for 1 wood each. You can add them to any farm space without feeding troughs yet.
Millpond. Take the reed from this space and add it to your supply. Also take all the sheep from this space and either keep them on your farm or let some (or all) run away.
Pigs and Sheep. Take all of the animals from this space and either keep them on your farm or let some (or all) run away.
Cows and Pigs. Take all of the animals from this space and either keep them on your farm or let some (or all) run away.
Horses and Sheep. Take all of the animals from this space and either keep them on your farm or let some (or all) run away.
Stables. Pay either 5 wood or 5 stone (but not a combination of both such as 3 wood and 2 stone, for example) and turn one Stall over to become a Stables. You can repeat this action as often as you want. Stables can hold up to 5 animals. (A stall with a feeding trough becomes a stable with a feeding trough.)
Special Building. There are two of these action spaces, meaning that up to 2 workers – including 2 from the same player – can build a special building each round. Whenever you use this space, build no more than 1 of the special buildings available by paying the building costs shown on the building and then adding it to your farm.
If The Components Run Out
It can happen in some games that animals and building materials become scarce. For this reason, the game includes cardboard tiles representing larger quantities of individual goods. They can of course be exchanged for individual goods again at any time.
It is a different story with feeding troughs (of which there are 10), stall tiles (of which there are 4) and farm expansions (of which there are 4). Once these have all been claimed by the players, no more are available.
Game End and Scoring
The game ends after 8 rounds. (You can tell what round you are in by the number of yellow borders left in the general supply, since one is added to the game each round.) Total your points at the end of the game.
Count how many animals you have in total. Each animal is worth 1 point. This is your basic "animal" score.
You then score bonus points according to the table on the sides of the box.
- Note that you lose 3 points for each animal type you have 3 or fewer of.
- After the 13th sheep, the 11th pig, the 10th cow or the 9th horse, you score 1 extra point for each additional animal.
The total of all of your bonus points is your "bonus points" score.
Each farm expansion where all 3 farm spaces have been used is worth 4 points.
- A farm space is used if it has a building on it, a feeding trough on it or is part of a fully enclosed pasture.
- A farm space is unused if it is part of a pasture with unfinished or no borders.
- Farm expansions that have not been fully used are worth no points.
- Scoring farm expansions is independent of whether your starting farm board was fully used or not.
Buildings are worth the points indicated on them. (Buildings are stalls, stables and special buildings.) The Storage Building points depend on how many building materials you have in your supply.
Winning the Game
The player with the most points is the winner. In the case of a tie, the player who was not the start player in round 1 is the winner.
Notes On The Special Buildings
Half-Timbered House
(Cost: 3 wood, 2 stone, 1 reed. Points: 5)
The Half-Timbered House is built over the cottage. You may not build the Half-Timbered House on a different farm space. You can keep up to 2 animals of the same type in the Half-Timbered House.
Storage Building
(Cost: 2 wood, 1 reed. Points: ½ per your own building material)
Only the building materials in your own supply count when scoring points. Do not round up or down. Half points are possible. The Storage Building cannot keep any animals.
Shelter
(Cost: 2 wood, 1 stone. Points: 0)
When you build the Shelter, immediately take 1 animal of your choice from the supply and place it in your Shelter or elsewhere on your farm. You can keep 1 animal in the Shelter.
Open Stables
(Cost: either 3 wood or 3 stone. Points: 2)
The Open Stables are stables but are built with the Special Building action space. When you build the Open Stables, return the stall tile it replaces to the general supply. That tile is again available to either player. When you build the Open Stables, immediately take either 1 horse or 1 cow from the supply and add it to your farm. You can keep up to 5 animals of the same type in the Open Stables.
Credits
"Agricola - All Creatures Big and Small" was invented in October 2011. Uwe Rosenberg and Hanno Girke edited the game. Production was by Hanno Girke. Graphics and illustrations are by Klemens Franz. English translation by Patrick Korner. © 2012 Lookout Games.