In the game Farmersi you are a farmer in one of the towns of nineteenth-century North America. On your farm you raise cattle and cultivate grain. Thanks to stock-raising you obtain milk or wool as well as meat – you sell them on local market in your town. Grain can be sold on local market or in the nearest big city. Cattle likewise can be sold locally or on a big city’s market that in game is called ‘export market’.

You can develop your farm in a range of ways – by buying land, cattle, building irrigation systems on your plots or investing in new technologies. Your cattle breeds, enabling you increasing income from milk and meat sale. You can make investments like purchase of mill, bar or shop. They give you return and are not connected with means of production like land or cattle. Farming activities can be therefore grouped in three independent areas illustrated on the following diagram:

Beside you there are other players who have farms in town. Each player begins the game with same initial conditions and the success depends only on their decisions. The townspeople are a separate automatic player. They own land, some realties (eg. mill, smithy) and cattle, cultivate grain, obtain milk and meat and participate in the market selling and buying goods – grain, cattle and land. Furthermore some of the townspeople are your employees – you pay them remuneration and they work on your fields or look after your cattle.

Sequence of events

One turn of the game represents one year of living on a farm. The player’s decisions are made around September and affect whole forthcoming year. The first event after decisions are made is calculation of cattle and land markets. Demand and supply of players are aggregated, market price is calculated and transactions are made. Subsequently, new investments are made and animals destined for slaughter are processed into meat. In fall young cows are born.

All the year round cows (except for recently born) give milk. In spring cattle roundup to the export market takes place. In the end of July begins the harvest and then the grain markets – local and export – are calculated. The sequence of mentioned events is showed on following diagram.

Historical background

The game Farmersi is based in 19th century in the United States of America. From overpopulated Europe to America flows a wave of refugees who beyond the Ocean look for the opportunity of a better life, gaining fortune and happiness. You are one of them!

In America pioneers are being awaited by innumerous mass of unimproved land, hundreds of small but dynamically developing towns and liberal economic system. It is here where for the first time in the world a social-economic system called capitalism was established. Your success depends only on your entrepreneurship!

The first stage of the game begins in year 1832. USA for over 50 years have been an independent country. Not even 30 years ago it bought from France vast territories west of Mississippi almost doubling its area.

The second level takes place in year 1848 and the third in 1869. Each higher level gives you new opportunities resulting from development of the country – technological progress enables new investments, gunslingers appear, towns become bigger and game conditions more difficult.