Bohnanza
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Wikipedia-Article "Bohnanza"
Bohnanza is a German-style card game of trading and politics, designed by Uwe Rosenberg and released in 1997 by Amigo Spiele in German and by Rio Grande Games in English. It is played with a deck of cards with comical illustrations of eight different types of beans (of varying scarcities), which the players are trying to plant and sell in order to raise money. The principal restriction is that players may only be farming two or three types of bean at once, but they obtain beans of all different types randomly from the deck, and so must engage in trading with the other players to be successful.
The name is a pun on the words "bonanza" and "bohne" (German for "bean"). It could thus be translated preserving the pun as "Beananza", although the official English release preserved the name "Bohnanza".
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Rules
Setup
Deal a hand of cards to each player to start (exact hand size varies with expansion set and number of players; typically it might be 5 cards). Cards in hand must be kept in the order in which they are dealt at all times.
Players take turns in order. When the deck runs out, the discard pile is reshuffled into it; this happens twice. The game ends the third time the deck runs out. The game ends instantly, as soon as a player needs to take a card from the deck and can't.
Each player starts with two invisible fields in which to plant beans. A third field may be bought by any player at any point during the game for three coins. No player may have more than three fields. Each field may contain any number of bean cards, of any one bean type. If a bean of a type different to those already growing in a field is planted into that field, the beans previously in it get cashed in. A field containing just one bean may not be cashed in by a player who also owns a field containing more than one bean.
Each player also has a trading area.
Cards in the hand are kept hidden. Cards in the trading areas and fields are visible to all players. The number of cards in each treasury is secret, although its presence need not be. The discard pile is face up, but only the top card is visible (the rest being underneath it) and players may not examine the pile.
Turn sequence
During their turn, each player does the following:
- They must play the first card in their hand (the one at the front, the one dealt to them earliest) into a field. This may result in them having to cash in beans!
- They may play the next card in their hand into a field.
- They must take the top two cards from the deck and place them face up into their trading area.
- Trading opens. Players may make offers and trade cards from (and only from) their hands (but they may offer/trade any card(s) in their hands in any order) and the cards in the active player's trading area. Traded cards go into the recipient's trading area. Trade may only occur with the player whose turn it is. No cards may ever be traded from fields. No cards can ever get placed into a player's hand by trading. No cards which have been traded once may get traded again - once a bean has been traded it must be planted in the field of the person it has been traded with.
- Trading ends whenever the player whose turn it is decides it should. At end of trading, each player must plant all cards in their trading area into their fields. This may involve cashing in beans, possibly several times; take note of the order in which beans are planted into fields if there are more types of beans being planted than fields they are being planted into.
- The player ends their turn by drawing cards from the deck, one by one, and placing them at the back of their hand (so they get played last). Again, the exact number of cards drawn here varies. If players started with a hand of 5, three cards are drawn in this stage.
A good way to reinforce this turn sequence is with these four phrases: "Must plant, can plant," "Turn up two," "Trade and plant trades," and "Draw three cards."
Cashing in
Each bean card carries a list of how many cards of that type are needed in order to obtain one, two, three and four coins when cashing in a field. To cash in a field, a player counts the beans in it and works out the largest amount of coins she can obtain from them. (This may be none at all.) She places that many of the cards face down in her treasury (a coin is drawn on the back of each card). The rest of the cards go on top of the discard pile, face up. This means the deck gets smaller with each reshuffle, and in practice the first time you reshuffle, you are actually halfway through the game). Fields with more than one card must be cashed in preference to fields with only one card.
For reference: the basic game has 20 of its most common bean, Blue Beans, and 6 of the least common, Garden Beans. 1-3 blue beans are worth 0 coins; 4-5 are worth 1 coin; 6-7 are worth 2 coins; 8-9 are worth 3 coins; 10 or more are worth 4 coins. 1 garden bean on its own is worth nothing; 2 garden beans are worth 2 coins (when sold as a pair), 3 or more garden beans are worth 3 coins (when all sold together). For each even number between 6 and 20, there is one type of bean with exactly that many of it in the deck.
Winning
When the game ends, all players discard all cards not in their fields, and cash in all beans in their fields. The player with the most coins in their treasury wins.
Rules adapted from description at ToothyWiki:Bohnanza, as permitted by ToothyWiki:CopyrightMatters
Expansions
- Erweiterungsset (1997)
- Adds three more bean types, allowing up to seven people to play. This was included in the English edition of the game.
Uwe Rosenberg and Hanno Girke have designed a number of expansions to the game, released as limited editions by Lookout Games.
- La Isla Bohnitâ (1999)
- Adds two new bean types, trading ships which help bean trading, and pirate ships which steal beans. While the name parodies Madonna's song, the game is Rosenberg's answer to Seafarers of Catan.
- High Bohn (2000)
- A wild west-themed expansion (cf. High Noon) which adds buildings which can be purchased when a player cashes in a field. There is one building type for each bean type, and they each give the player a different advantage to planting, harvesting or trading. Buildings also add to a player's score at the end of the game. This expansion has been revised and expanded by Amigo and Rio Grande, and released as High Bohn Plus in 2004.
- Al Cabohne (2000)
- A mafia-themed expansion (cf. Al Capone) allowing solitaire and two-player games.
- Mutabohn (2001)
- A GM-themed expansion. In Mutabohn, players may "mutate" their beans into less-valuable beans, allowing them to plant different crops in the same field. Bonus cards award points for specific sequences of mutations.
- Ladybohn (2002)
- Adds female versions of the bean types available. Players can earn more thalers by cashing in a field with a female bean at the top.
- Bohnaparte (2003)
- A Napoleonic expansion where players play Bohnanza to finance a military campaign to conquer the Bohnreich. Girke describes this game as "Bohnanza meets Risk".
- Dschingis Bohn (2003)
- Another military expansion where Mongols attach the Bohnreich (cf. Genghis Khan). Dschingis Bohn can be combined with Bohnaparte to allow seven player games.
- Telebohn (2004)
- An expansion in which hostile takeovers replace trading.
- The Bohnentaler
- Adds a plastic playing piece which allows a player to draw four cards instead of three. A player can only take the piece if he has enough unharvested beans in his fields.
Spinoffs
Bohnanza has inspired two spinoffs; additionally, one Amigo card game, Nicht die Bohne, is named in parody of the game.
- Space Beans (1999)
- A simpler game than Bohnanza. Players have one "public" and one "secret" field, and can harvest when the number of beans in a field matches the number on a bean, for that number of points. The first player to harvest 30 beans wins.
- Bean Trader (2002)
- A board game based on Bohnanza, released by Amigo and Rio Grande.