Things You'll Need
Instructions
Focus on the benefits of more family members. Each worker will let you take an extra action every round. Since actions are highly limited in Agricola, this is a great advantage. As an added bonus, each family member is worth three victory points.
Consider the downside of growing your family. You will have to create two more food by the end of each harvest round. However, since there are usually numerous actions on the board that can be taken to gather two food, a family member can easily feed itself, meaning that growing a new family member is almost always a good idea.
Gather resources early, especially wood and reeds. You'll want five wood and two reeds to build an extra room for your house as soon as possible. However, if you can acquire 10 wood and four reeds, that's even better.
Build additional rooms on your house. If you have the resources to do this twice in one go, you will save yourself an action, but it can be difficult to gather 10 wood at once. This will make space for your new family members.
Take the family growth space to add a worker to your family once you have an extra room for it. This is the easy part.
Plan to play a minor improvement at the time that you choose "family growth." If you have an appropriate card to play, family growth can be an exceptionally good action for you.
Claim the starting-player token just before the last three rounds. This will increase the chances of you getting first crack at the "family growth with no room" space, which allows you to add an additional family member even with no empty rooms.
Make sure you can feed your new family members. Having family members go fishing or pick day laborer may not give you points, but it will prevent you from begging, so do so if necessary.