Players: 2-7
Time: 45-75 minutes
Difficulty: 2 (of 10)
Components
Bohnanza comes with: 154 bean cards, 7 third bean field cards, and 1 rulebook.
The Cards: All of the cards in Bohnanza are regular card size. They're printed full color, with rounded corners, on a medium-heavy stock that's both slick and linen-textured. Overall the stock is probably the nicest card stock I've ever seen put out by anyone but a major playing card manufacturer, and I think the cards will hold up quite well to play. There's definitely zero wear from the four or so games I've played so far.
Each bean card has as its center-piece a bit of cartoonish art on some sort of gradiated background. The art is all very stylistic and consistent. It's also punny; I like it a lot. The artwork is mirrored in miniature at the top right and left of each card, to make it obvious what you have in your hand when you fan your cards. Also printed on the artwork are a card name (e.g., "Chili Bean") and the number of that card in the deck (e.g., "18").
Printed along the bottom of the card is the "beanometer". This shows a number columns, each with a small stack of gold coins and an arabic numeral underneath. There are typically four columns in a beanometer, with one, two, three, and four gold coins respectively, though a couple of cards have only two columns. The beanometer looks a little intimidating, but everyone seems to get it after a short 10-second explanation. My only complaint is that it's not easy to count the number of gold coins in the "4" column, and that can be offputting for beginners.
The back of each bean coin shows a gold coin. These are used to keep score during the game, which is overall a very elegant design.
The third bean field cards simply say "3rd bean field" upon them. They have different art front and back drawn in the typical silly Bonanza style.
Rule Book: The rules are 8 pages long, printed full color on glossy stock. They're full of examples and were generally easy to follow, with one exception: the special rules for two-player Bohnanza are a bit confusing because they're so different from the regular game. I couldn't figure them out from the text until I'd actually played the normal game.
Box & Tray: The box is about twice as large as is required for the cards, but a very nice tray makes up for that. It's got three slots for three stacks of cards, and thus everything fits in nicely without anything sliding around.
Overall, the Bohnanza cards are, as I've already said, probably printed on the best stock I've seen in this sort of game. They've got attractive artwork and each card contains a bunch of information that's easy to use. The rules, the box, and the tray all maintain the same high standard, and thus the game earns a full "5" out of "5" for Style.
The Game Play
In Bohnanza you must trade, plant, and harvest beans to maximize returns. Yeah, that sounds pretty silly, and it turned me off purchasing the game for at least a year. If you prefer: Bohnanza is a trading and set-collection game with very strict rules for when and how sets can be kept and/or converted into points.
Setup: Each player starts out with two bean fields and is given five cards. Here's a very important rule: you can never change the order of the cards in your hand. This is one of the restrictions that makes Bohnanza work.
Order of Play: Each player takes his turn and engages in the following actions:
- Plant Beans from Hand
- Draw & Trade Beans
- Plant Beans from Trade
- Draw & Keep Beans
In addition there are two actions that can be taken at any time:
- Harvest Beans
- Buy a Third Bean Field
Plant Beans from Hand: At the start of a player's turn he must plant the first bean card in his hand. He also may plant the second bean card in his hand. Planting simply means that you lay the card down, face-up on the table in one of your bean fields.
Beans may only be planted in a field with other beans of the same time (where you just lay it mostly on top of the last card in the field) or in an empty field. Since you only have two bean fields (or perhaps three later on), this is a very serious restriction. If you don't have an appropriate bean field for a bean card that you want/need to plant you must harvest one of your bean fields.
As you plant you'll see that the beans come in many different varieties, from the Cocoa Bean, of which there are just 4 in the deck, to the Coffee Bean, of which there are 24. Every bean also offers slightly different returns on harvesting, based on the number of total beans available (most frequently you'll get 4 gold coins if you harvest half of the total beans in the deck of that type).
Harvest Beans. As noted already, this can happen at any time. Most frequently you'll do it when: you must lay down a bean from your hand (see above); or when you must lay down a bean from a trade (see below). On occasion you might harvest before you play a new bean card (to clear out a field that's already maximized or for various other reasons) or to get the gold to buy a third bean field.
You can't harvest a field with only one bean in it, unless all of your fields only have one bean each.
You also must harvest every bean in a field, not just part of it.
(Those are the only restrictions on bean harvesting.)
When you harvest beans, you also take them to market to earn gold. You simply count up the total number of beans in the field and compare it to the beanometer at the bottom of the card. This has a list of up to four arabic numerals and up to four piles of gold coins. For example the infamous Stink Bean is marked: 3: 1 gold / 5: 2 gold / 7: 3 gold / 8: 4 gold. You get the amount of gold for the largest count that you equaled exceeded. So, for example, if you harvested 6 Stink Beans you'd get 2 gold. It's possible to get nothing if you harvest a field too soon.
You mark your gold by turning the appropriate number of bean cards upside down, displaying the gold coins on the card backs, and setting them next to you. The rest of the beans go into the discard pile.
Buy a Third Bean Field. At any time you may pay three of your hoarded gold coins (returning them to the discard pile). This gives you a Third Bean Field card, which simply gives you a third place to plant your beans.
Draw & Trade Beans: Returning to the normal order of play: after you've planted your one or two beans from your hand, you now flip up the top two cards of the draw deck. This is where the heart of the game is, because it kicks off the trading round.
As the active player you may trade these two face-up beans and any beans from your hand with the beans from the hands of any other players. You'll be forced to plant those face-up beans if you can't give them away, so there's real incentive to get rid of them if they're not beans that suit your current fields. In addition, everyone has an incentive to trade those beans from their hands, because it allows them to get rid of things they don't want to plant before their next turn.
A few restrictions: once a bean has been traded, it's set to the side. It doesn't go into anyone's hand, nor can it be traded again. In addition, all trades must involve the active player (a fairly common restriction in games of this sort).
Besides just trying to dump unwanted beans, each player wants to do his best in this trading round to convince other players that they should nonetheless make high offers for these unwanted beans. It's a very delicate balance, but one that's a lot of fun to play out. (Besides just trading, it's important to note, you can also just "donate" beans without any return--a desperation move to avoid planting.)
When the active player decides he's done, this phase ends.
Plant Beans from Trade: Now the active player must plant any face-up cards remaining and all players must plant all beans that they received in trade. This, as usual, can result in harvesting.
Draw & Keep Beans: The active player now draws three bean cards. They go to the rear of his hand in the order drawn.
Ending the Game: The game is played until the draw deck is exhausted three times. The first time through the deck takes a fair while, but the next two are much faster because a lot of beans are out on the table and a lot have been converted into gold coins.
After the last card has been drawn, every player now harvests his remaining bean fields. Gold coins are then counted, with the player with the most being the winner. Ties go to the player with the most remaining beans in hand.
Player Variants: I've played the game with 2, 4, 5, and 6 players. It actually works for between 2 and 7. For each number of players from 3-7 the composition of the deck is slightly different. You take out various types of beans for, presumably, good game balance reasons.
The two-player game works a fair amount different. You don't trade (as trading rarely works in two player games) but instead leave beans out on the table and thus implictly give your oponent cards that he might use. It's a very different game from the multiplayer versions, and isn't really a trading game, but it works well.
Relationships to Other Games
Most German game players have become familiar with trading games through The Settlers of Catan. Settlers uses a largely freeform trade system as an important component of its building-oriented gameplay. It correlates its trading system with what I call "formula matching" mechanics: you're trying to get resources in certain magical combinations (e.g., one brick and one wood) that have specific effects in game. Another notable big-box trade game is The Traders of Genoa, #6 in the Alea series: it also centers on formula matching.
Bohnanza itself uses "set collection" gameplay (much like the classic card game, Rummy). You're simply trying to collect resources of the same type, up to certain limits of usability. Another German trading game built on the same set collection mechanic is Reiner Knizia's Res Publica.
A less commonly seen variety of trading game allows players to trade not with each other, but rather with the system, based on certain gameplay rules. Serinissima is an excellent big box trading & war game that uses this core mechanic. (In some cases you actually pay another player for a resource, but the resource comes out of the bank rather than their personal supply.)
Though trading games aren't quite as popular as auction games, they've nonetheless become an important part of the gaming landscape over the last decade plus.
Bohnanza itself has been much supplemented. This Rio Grande edition that I'm reviewing actually combines the original German game, produced by Amigo, and much of the first expansion. An English expansion due out later this year is rumored to contain much of the German expansion High Bohn. Nearly a dozen other German-only supplements allow you to ship beans, fight with beans, harvest female beans and lots more.
The Game Design
Despite its silly theme, Bohnanza is a top-quality trading game, that I think generally blows away most of the other trading games out there. Here's some of the best aspects:
Excellent Trading Mechanics: The core of a trading game is always figuring out how to convince players to trade with each other. Most frequently this is done by ensuring that different items have different values to different players. By only allowing each player to have two or three fields of beans, Bohnanza ensures that different players will want different things. (If I have one regret about Bohnanza, it's that some of the time a bean will only have value to one player, reducing trading possibilities.)
Hard Decisions: Bohnanza forces very hard decisions. If you must harvest, which of your fields do you tear up? Or, alternatively, to avoid harvesting, what cards do you give do your opponents, that they'll then be able to use?
Quick & Simple: Bohnanza wraps up a trading card game in a set of quick and simple mechanics that play rapidly and enjoyably.
My only real caveat with Bohnanza is that you must be ready to negotiate, trade, and generally socialize if you want to play.
Having now played a few different trading games, Bohnanza is my favorite, and thus I award if a full "5" out of "5" for Substance.
Conclusion
Bohnanza is the quintessential trading game. There's lots of reasons to trade within the system and some hard decisions that result. It's also a nice, quick, and casual game that does a great job of filling an hour's time.
