Review of High Bohn Plus

High Bohn Plus is really three different expansions for the hit bean-planting game, Bohnanza

Players: 2-7*
Time: 60-90 minutes
Difficulty: 2 or 3 (of 10)

* The High Bohn part of the supplement only supports 3-5.

This is a combination of two different expansions from the Amigo German editions: all of "High Bohn" and part of the "Bohnanza Expansion" (the rest of the Bohnanza Expansion already appeared in the core U.S. Bohnanza game).

The Components

This supplement contains 120 different cards, divided between three expansions. As with the original, all the cards are printed full-color on sturdy, linen-textured cardstock. They're attractive and will stand up to play.

The High Bohn Cards: This is a set of 32 different bean-related building cards, 4 each for 8 different types of beans. Each one features nice art, showing the appropriate type of bean in front of the specific bean (e.g., a Blue Bean in front of a jail, a Garden Bean in front of a mine, etc.). The name of the bean is also depicted at the top of the card, and there's a card cost at the bottom right, from 1-4 Thalers.

The left side of each card also contains text describing the card's power; it's almost always sufficiently complete to play without referring to the rules. There's also an icon on each card which reminds you what the card does. They're not sufficient in themselves, but are great for quick reference.

What's missing from this supplement is a quick-reference listing all the buildings. At the least, it would have been nice to see that the black-eyed bean buildings (banks) usually give card manipulation powers, the blue-bean buildings (jails) only affect future blue bean sales, the green-bean buildings (saloons) mostly relate to bean stew, etc. As it was we frequently had to page through all the buildings before making a decision.

The Cognac Bean Cards: This includes 22 Cognac Beans, a new type of bean, and 4 Distilleries, their related building for use with High Bohn.

The Plus Cards: The core of the plus supplement is a set of 29 "order" cards. These simply list two numbers (e.g., "1/5"), which are required bean counts for two adjacent bean fields. They have cute (identical) graphics, and are easy to read.

There are also 14 additional bean field cards: two "1st bean fields" and two "2nd bean fields". They're mainly intended to help you keep track of field order for those order cards, but they're aesthetically pleasing in and of themselves; they've already been added into my main Bohnanza box.

Finally there are three "field beans". These are a new type of bean which can be turned in for a 3rd bean field if you have two of them (or 3 gold if you have 3). The iconography of the third field is pretty clear; beyond that, they're standard beans.

The Rulebook: A 20-page full-color rulebook, with 10 pages on High Bohn, 1 page on the Cognac cards, and 9 pages on Plus. Each of the sections is well written and easy enough to play on its own.

However, what I find somewhat lacking is the rulebook as a cohesive whole. What really stood out to me is that the first and second bean field cards aren't described until the final section of the rules, on the Plus expansion, even though they're useful in every Bohnanza game; likewise, a few variant rules only appear in the Plus section. And, I really don't know when it's suggested to use the Cognac beans. (Clearly, the cognacs are intended to be used with High Bohn, but there's no comments on what adding in a ninth building type will do--scoring only goes up to 8 for different building types.) They were also no descriptions about whether you'd ever want to use the Plus and High Bohn expansions together, and what the repercussions might be.

Since these supplements were all going to be distributed as one in the U.S. market, Rio Grande should have at least tried to treat them as one expansion, with a number of variants, in the rules.

Overall, the cards in High Bohn are all up to the same high standards as Bohnanza, in good artwork, quality cards, and clear usability. Beyond the issue of cohrence, my only other stylistic complaint with the supplement is that it's way too expensive, at almost the same cost as the original. However, I don't know how fair it is to blame Rio Grande for this, given that much of the problem is the continuing plunge of the U.S. dollar against the Euro due to current American economic policies. Thus, despite the pricing, I've decided to let High Bohn Plus eke in a low "5" out of "5" for Style.

The Gameplay

High Bohn Plus is really a collection of three different supplements, each with different gameplay. You could play them all together if you wanted, but I personally wouldn't.

High Bohn

High Bohn only introduces two new rules: the buildings; and new final scoring. In addition, there are specific setup rules (as with every Bohnanza variant, pretty much). It should also be noted that High Bohn only supports 3-5 players, not 2, 6, or 7, as with the basic game.

Setup: When playing High Bohn, you only use certain of the beans from the original set. You pull out the cocoa, the coffee, and the wax beans (that's one very small set of beans and two large ones).

The Buildings: Each of the 8 potential beans being used in this variant also has 4 buildings associated with it, one each valued at 1, 2, 3, and 4 Thalers.

At any time you may spend the appropriate number of coins with the appropriate type of bean on the back to buy a building. If two people want to buy a building at the same time, the person closest to the active player gets first choice. (Practically, this means it's safest to buy a building on your own turn.) Only a limited number of buildings of each type are available for sale: once every player but one has one, the rest of the buildings of that type are discarded. Finally, each player may only buy one of each building type.

Each building is worth its value at end-game scoring (meaning that you don't lose anything for buying them); in addition, if you have enough buildings at end-game, you get a bonus. The only value of the "1" Thaler buildings is this end-game scoring; the 2-4 Thaler buildings have extra (and increasingly better powers). Generally, these powers are:

• Banks. (Black-Eyed Beans.) Change the order of cards (in your hand; on the draw pile).
• Jails. (Blue Beans.) Get better prices on blue beans, or money when other people harvest blue beans.
• Blacksmiths. (Chili Beans.) Special chili fields, or better chili prices, or harvest 1-bean fields.
• Mines. (Garden Beans.) Get cheap or free extra bean fields or better prices on garden beans.
• Saloons. (Green Beans.) Special green fields, or the ability to plant bean stew (entirely mixed fields).
• Tipis. (Red Beans.) Earn money for unspent Thalers.
• Farms. (Soy Beans.) Mix soy beans into fields, gain more money from large sales, or plant extra cards.
• General Stores. (Stink Beans.) Store cards for future trading.

Ending the Game: At the end of the game you score all your unspent Thalers, then the value of all your buildings. Then, if you have 4 or more buildings you get a bonus (1, 2, 3, 5, or 8 Thalers, depending on if you have 4-8 buildings). As noted, the Tipis can give bonuses too, at this point.

As usual, the player with the highest total wins.

Cognac Beans

This simply introduces a new bean type (the 22-card Cognac bean) and some related buildings, the Distilleries. The distilleries have some various, unrelated powers (increase value of cognac beans; discard a set of unused buildings; and take some money from bean stew harvests).

Plus

The "1st" and "2nd" bean fields don't really introduce any additional rules; you just use them to mark your fields. There are thus only two gameplay changes: minorly, the field bean; and majorly, the order cards.

Field Bean: There are only 3 of this innocuous little bean; you can turn 2 in for a 3rd field or 3 for 3 gold. It's only to be used for 4 or 5 players, and then as an alternative to the cocoa bean.

Order Cards: Each player starts the game with an order card at the left of their hand. It lists two numbers like this: "5/1" or "4/4".

At any time during his turn a player may fill an order card either in his hand or on the table in front of him by being able to show the correct counts of beans in two adjacent fields (in the right order) in his play area. So, if he had a "5/1", he'd either have 5 beans in his 1st field and 1 in his second, or if he'd gotten a third bean field he could also have 5 beans in the 2nd field and 1 in the third. If you meet the requirements you flip the order card over and place it in your gold pile. (There's a coin on the back.)

If the card isn't used, it slowly works its way to the right of a hand, as usual, and is eventually played (in which case a bean must be played too; you don't get out of playing a bean on the turn your order card goes down). After it's been played it stays in play for the rest of the player's turn, and is then discarded. You can fill the order up to that last moment when you discard it.

If you have no order card at the end of your turn, (after you've drawn your three beans), you draw a new one and place it at the end of your hand. This could be because you've filled it or because you've discarded it. We decided that drawing an order card ended your turn, meaning you couldn't fill the new one immediately. The rules really don't clarify this.

Relationships to Other Games

High Bohn Plus is an expansion for Bohnanza, one of two in English (the other being Bohnaparte). As noted above, it contains the original German High Bohn expansion, plus some cards that originally appeared in the German Bohnanza Expansion Set.

The Game Design

When looking at the game design of a supplement, I tend to consider how it changes the base game as much as how well it works.

High Bohn

The Buildings: The High Bohn buildings are clearly an attempt to introduce some new color and some new strategy into the game. By this criteria, they succeed quite well. The whole idea of the buildings really changes up the game, and thus increases replayability. Further, as you accrue buildings they can shape your future strategy and/or let you play in new and different ways.

They do also have the possibility of slowing down the game. Quite often a player will bring the game to a screeching halt as he decides whether to buy any buildings before the end of his turn; probably, there will be less paging through the buildings with increased familiarity, but at first at least it can slow things down (and cause analysis & paralysis).

Just on its own, I'd give High Bohn a "4" out of "5" for Substance; it's nicely strategic, but it also costs Bohnanza some of its core elegance.

Cognac Beans

Cognac Beans: As I said before, I'm really not sure when you might want to use cognac beans. They'll increase the length of the game if you stick them in, and I already think that Bohnanza is sitting at the edge of its comfortable-length envelope. I suppose you could trade them out for one of the other big bean types in games, just to make the games a little different. On the whole, however, new bean types just don't thrill me a lot for Bohnanza.

Distilleries: The 3-distillery, which is the one that gives you profits from bean stew sales, has the clear effect of balancing the bean stew; whether that means the bean stew is too powerful without the distilleries, I don't know.

On its own the Cognac Bean supplement would get "2" out of "5" for Substance.

Plus

Field Beans: These are a really minor add to the game. In general, they're actually kind of annoying because there are so few of them. The quick ability to get a 3rd field is kind of interesting, but little more.

Orders: The orders are a much more elegant add to Bohnanza than anything else in High Bohn Plus. They really seem to fit with the game as it exists. They add some strategy to the game, as you're trying to get field sizes just right. They also have the interesting affect of sometimes causing people not to trade for beans that they'd usually want, which means that you much more frequently end up with multiple people planting the same types of beans (because someone got stuck and was forced to plant something that they could usually have traded away); this nicely improves the dynamics of trading, because there's more competition. On the downside, the orders can add more randomness, as someone can sometimes be handed an order they're going to be able to complete the next turn, and sometimes can get something that's probably going to be impossible.

Overall, the Plus supplement has extensions that are somewhat minor, but well-integrated and thus it earns a high "4" out of "5" for Substance.

On the whole, every one of the expansions in High Bohn Plus is worth using: the cognac beans are good solely for variety; the Plus supplement for some simple strategic adds; and the High Bohn supplement for some complex strategic adds.On average, the Substance rates "4" out of "5".

Conclusion

In short, if you play Bohnanza you should buy High Bohn Plus. It contains two full supplements for the game, and a set of new beans, and they're all well-designed and offer interesting strategic additions to the core game.