In Agricola, players are farmers who sow, plow the fields, collect wood, build stables, buy animals, expand their farms and feed their families.

[10] A two-player version called Agricola: All Creatures Big & Small was released in 2012.

Each round, they take turns placing their family members in action spaces to get resources and improve and grow their households.

[15] To achieve variation between games, players are dealt a hand of optional cards – occupations and minor improvements.

[15] Numerous expansion decks have been released to fill in gaps in gameplay and add thematic settings.

[17][18][19] The game offers a simplified 'family' variation for less involved players,[20] in which occupation and minor improvement cards are not used.

[21][22] The original Agricola used multicolored wooden pieces of the same circular shape to denote various resources (clay, wood, reeds, etc.).