Choose a colour and take the pieces

Take 1 farmyard and place it in front.
Place a Wooden Room Hut Tile on each of the 2 building spaces on the farmyard. Place your family member on each of these room tiles.
Place remaining playing pieces (additional family members, fences, stables) in bag and put aside. Remaining house and hut tiles and the rest of the game components are placed beside playing area.

Sort the blue Round cards ordered by game Stage. Shuffle each small pile and place the piles on top of each other with Stage 6 cards at the bottom, Stage 5 on top of that, etc – finishing with the four cards for Stage 1 on the top. Round cards make new actions available during the game.

For 3-5 player game, take the corresponding set of green Action cards and place face-up on the spaces to the left of the first game board. The order does not matter.
3 players: take 4 cards, 4 or 5 players: take 6 cards.
1 or 2-players, no green Action cards are used

The purple symbol on the left side of the yellow Occupation cards shows how many players the card is used for. Cards not used are removed from the game; Shuffle cards and deal 7 to each player, who may look at their cards. Remaining cards are put aside. Shuffle the cards and deal each player a hand of 7 Occupation cards
Players may look at the cards. The remaining Occupation cards are put to one side

Shuffle the cards and deal each player a hand of 7 Minor Improvement cards, who may look at their hand. Remaining cards are put aside. The remaining Minor Improvement cards are put to one side

Place the 10 cards face-up on the Major Improvements board. As soon as 9 Major Improvements have been bought, the board is turned over to show the scoring overview. Remaining Major Improvement card is placed on the space on the reverse of the board.

Place the grey Begging cards face-up beside the playing area.

Each player takes a card which summarises the gameplay.

Choose a starting player who will get starting player marker and 2 food. Other players get 3 food.