Bohnanaza Rules

by Uwe Rosenberg

 

Players: 2 - 7 Age: 12 and up Length: 45 minutes

Contents:

  • 154 bean cards
  • 7 3rd bean field cards
  • 1 rule booklet


  • Frequency of each bean variety in the game:

  • 24 Coffee Beans
  • 22 Wax Beans
  • 20 Blue Beans
  • 18 Chili Beans
  • 16 Stink Beans
  • 14 Green Beans
  • 12 Soy Beans
  • 10 Black-eyed Beans
  • 8 Red Beans
  • 6 Garden Beans
  • 4 Cocoa Beans
  • Overview

    Each player plants beans in 2 or 3 fields and tries to sell them as profitably as possible. When selling beans, a player earns more gold for more beans of the same variety. The goal of the game is it to earn the most gold planting, harvesting, and selling beans. Without careful planning, players may be forced to harvest and sell their beans before they are ready and at lower prices than they hoped. In fact, sometimes a harvest brings no gold at all.

    The bean cards

    There are eleven different bean varieties. There are a different number of cards in each variety. The number of cards in the variety is shown on the card, along with the name and a picture of the bean.

    The beanometer.

    is at the bottom of each bean card. It indicates how many gold coins a player earns when selling beans of this variety. The numbers indicate how many bean cards of this variety a player must sell to earn the one, two, three, or four gold coins pictured.

    Example 1:

    When a player sells only 1 or 2 Stink Beans, he earns nothing. For selling 3 or 4 Stink Beans, he earns one gold coin. For selling 5 or 6 Stink Beans, he earns two gold coins. For selling 7 Stink Beans, he earns 3 gold coins. For selling 8 or more Stink Beans, he earns 4 gold coins.

    The gold

    When a player sells beans, he receives the gold coins he earns by flipping that number of bean cards to their gold coin side.

    The bean fields

    The area in front of each player is his bean farm. Each player begins the game with two bean fields in his farm. In each bean field, a player may only plant bean cards of one variety, but may plant as many cards of that variety as he can get. Players place the cards overlapping each other.

    Preparation

    Place the 3rd bean field cards in the box. The oldest play er shuffles the bean cards thoroughly and deals five cards face-down to each player. These are the players’ starting hands. The players pick up their hands, keeping the cards in the order they were dealt.
    Note: Players may never change the order of the cards in their hands. Thus, sorting cards by variety or any other means is not allowed. The players must plant cards in the order they received them. When a player draws new cards, he must draw them one at a time and place them behind the last card in his hand.
    Place the remaining bean cards face down (with the gold coin side up) in the middle of the table as a draw deck. Leave room next to the draw deck for a discard pile. The player to the left of the dealer star ts the game.

    Playing the game

    On a player’s turn, he is the active player and does the following:
  • 1. Plant bean cards
  • 2. Draw, trade & donate bean cards
  • 3. Plant traded & donated beans
  • 4. Draw new bean cards
  • 1. Plant bean cards

    The active player must plant the first card in his hand in one of his fields.
    If the card matches a variety in one of his fields, he may plant it there. If it does not match, he may plant it in any of his empty bean fields. If the card does not match and he has no empty fields, he must harvest and sell (see harvesting and selling beans) all the beans in one of his fields and then must plant the card in the now empty field. Afterwards, the active player may plant the next card (which is now the first card) in his hand in the same manner as the first. The player may never plant a third bean card in this step of his turn. If the active player has no cards in his hand, he omits this step.

    2. Draw, trade & donate bean cards

    The active player draws the two topmost car ds from the draw deck and puts them face up on the table so all players can see them. The active player may keep these cards to plant later in his turn, trade them with his fellow players, or donate them to his fellow players. The active player may now trade cards with his fellow players. He may also offer to donate cards to them and receive offers for donated cards from them.

    Example 2:

    Soy bean and green bean are drawn face up. He sets the green bean aside for now because he can plant it. He then offers to trade the soy bean by asking "Does anyone want this Soy Bean? I would gladly trade it for a Red Bean."

    Rules for trading/donating:

    Each trade must involve the active player and one other player. The non-active players may not trade amongst themselves. The active player may trade/donate the two face up cards and/or cards from his/her hand.

    >Example 3:

    Steve says "I will trade you the face up soy bean and a blue bean from my hand for a read bean." The non-active players may only trade/donate cards from their hands The active player may continue to trade/donate cards from his hand after the two face up cards have been set aside, traded or donated.
    Note: Players may not put cards they receive as trades or donations in their hands; they must place them aside until the next step. Such cards may not be further traded or donated. Players may not change the sequence of cards in their hands, but may trade or donate cards from anywhere in their hands. To ensure this, players may only remove cards from their hands for trading/donating after the trade or donation has been accepted.

    3. Plant traded & donated beans

    All players now plant the cards they received in trades or donations (the active player also plants any cards he drew and kept). The order of planting is up to the individual player, but all must be planted. The players may (and may need to) harvest and sell a row of beans at anytime (see harvesting and selling beans).

    Example 4:

    After Steve drew a Soy Bean and a Garden Bean, he traded the Soy Bean and a Blue Bean from his hand for a Red Bean from Anna. Steve keeps the Garden Bean. Now that trading is over, he must plant the two beans. First he plants the Red Bean on his first field. Then he plants the Garden Bean on his second field. If a player must plant a bean that does not match the cards in any of his fields and he has no empty field, he must create an empty field. He can do so by buying a 3rd bean field (see below) or harvesting and selling the beans in one of his fields. He may then proceed with planting the bean card in the now empty field.

    4. Draw new bean cards

    The active player draws three cards from the draw deck. He draws them one at a time, placing each in turn at the back of his hand. He must place them in his hand in the order drawn. When the draw deck is exhausted, the drawing player shuffles the discard pile and places it on the table face down as the new draw deck. After drawing cards, the active player ends his turn. The player to his left now takes his turn.

    Harvesting and selling beans


    Players may harvest and sell beans at any time, even when they are not the active player. When a player sells beans from one of his fields, he must sell all bean cards in the field. To sell the beans, he/she first counts the number of cards in the field. Then he/she looks at the beanometer on the cards he/she is selling to see how many gold coins are earned in the sale. The player flips this number of the bean cards he/she is selling to the gold coin side and puts them on his earnings stack. He/she places the bean cards not converted to gold coins face up on the discard pile.

    Example 5:

    Mark wants to harvest and sell his Chili Beans. The beanometer shows that he will earn one gold coin for the 3 Chili Beans. Mark flips one of the Chili Bean cards and places it on his earnings stack.
    He puts the remaining two Chili Bean cards on the discard pile.
    It is possible that a player earns nothing when selling beans

    Example 6:

    If Mark were harvesting and selling only two Chili Beans, he would earn no gold coins as he needs at least three to earn one gold coin. When a player sells beans from a bean field, he may choose any bean field with two or more bean cards. A player may not sell beans from a bean field with a single card unless all his bean fields have just one card. In this case, he may choose which single card to sell.

    Buying a third bean field

    Once in the game, each player may buy a 3rd bean field. This allows the player to plant beans in thr ee fields instead of two. A player may do this at any time, even when he is not the active player. The 3rd bean field costs three gold coins. The player pays by taking the three topmost gold coins from his earnings stack and placing them, gold coin down, on the discard pile. He then takes a 3rd bean field card and places it face up near his bean fields for all to see. He may use the 3rd bean field immediately for planting beans.

    Ending and Scoring

    The game ends when the draw deck is exhausted for the third time. If this occurs during step 2, the game continues until the end of step 3 for the currently active player. If there are not enough cards for him to draw two, he draws just one. If this occurs during step 4, the game ends immediately.
    At the end of the game, players set aside the cards in their hands and harvest and sell the beans in their bean fields. The player with the most gold coins wins the game. If two or more players tie with the most gold coins, the player with the most cards in his hand, among those tied with the most gold coins, is the winner.

    Variations based on number of players

  • With 3 players, remove the Cocoa Beans from the game. Each player starts the game with a 3rd bean field card and may not buy another. The game ends when the draw deck is exhausted for the second time.
  • With 4 or 5 players, remove the Coffee Beans from the game.
  • With 6 or 7 players , remove the Cocoa Beans and the Garden Beans from the game. To start the game, the dealer deals 3 cards to the starting player, 4 to the next clockwise play er, and 5 to the next clockwise player. He deals 6 to all other players. In step 4, the active player draws four cards instead of three. A 3rd bean field costs two gold coins instead of three.
  • The bean duel for 2 players

    The bean duel with two players uses the same rules as the game for three to seven players with the following changes:
    Remove the Garden Beans and the Cocoa B eans from the game. A player may only sell beans from his bean fields on his turn. When a player buys a 3rd bean field, he places the three gold coins face down in the box (out of the game). The game ends when the draw deck is exhausted for the first time. On a player’s turn, he does the following in the order indicated:
  • 1. Plant or discard offered bean cards The player may plant or discard the bean cards his opponent left as an offer in step 3 of his turn. This is omitted by the starting player on his first turn.
  • 2. Plant bean cards & discard After planting one or two cards in his bean fields (as in the normal game), the player may discard one card from anywhere in his hand face up on the discard pile.
  • 3. Draw, plant, and offer beans The active player draws the three topmost cards from the draw deck and puts them face up on the table so both players can see them. If the topmost card on the discard pile matches any of the cards just drawn, the player adds it to them. He does the same with the new topmost card from the discard pile until the topmost card on the discard pile does not match any of the drawn cards. Now the player may plant any of these drawn (fr om the draw deck or discard pile) cards he wants, selling such beans as he can and wants in the process. He leaves any drawn cards he does not want as an offer to his opponent. He need not plant any of the drawn cards. The players can earn more gold coins through this extended draw.
  • 4. Draw new bean cards The active player draws two car ds from the draw deck. He draws them one at a time, placing each in turn at the back of his hand.
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    Rio Grande Games and Amigo Copyright 2000


    Published by Rio Grande Games
    Designed by Uwe Rosenberg
    Copyright 2000 Amigo Spiel

    Accessible rules transcribed by Richard Gibbs for 64 Oz. Games accessibility kit in accordance with copyright law, 17 U.S.C. § 121: