Session - Bohnanza, Chronicle & Hansa Teutonica | Review - Chronicle

28th of May 2011 (Saturday)

Game(s) Played:
Bohnanza


Chronicle


Hansa Teutonica



Player(s):
Da Panda
Milo
Nitsuj
Mo

Review – Bohnanza
This Game Is… …:
A card game about planting, trading and harvesting beans for coins. The premise may be simple but there is a certain quirkiness, silliness and wackiness that just makes this game a happy, happy experience.

What Do You Get In The Box?

Bohnanza comes with a full coloured rulebook and 161 cards (7 Bean Fields & 154 varieties of Bean Cards). In all honesty it would appear that the box was made to fit the size of the rulebook rather than the size of the game itself, at least it does come with an insert tray (better than nothing I say).

How Is It Played?
Setup
Each Player is dealt 5 cards from the draw pile, Players are not allowed to shuffle or rearrange their hands and this is important to remember at all times. Each Player also has two imaginary Bean Fields (but seriously, how much more would it cost to just print another 14 Bean Field cards?) in which he is allowed to plant his beans.

Planting
On the Player’s turn, he must plant the first Bean Card in his hand on one of his Bean Fields. As all farmers worth their salt know, you can’t plant two different types of beans in the same field, and so the Player must plant his first Bean Card in either an empty Bean Field or a Bean Field with the same beans already planted. If all Bean Fields are full and no similar types of beans are available, he must harvest one of the Bean Fields and plant that first Bean Card in the newly harvested field. He then can choose to plant his second Bean Card if he so wishes with the same rules applying.

When harvesting a Bean Field, the player counts the number of cards he has of that bean type planted in his Bean Field. The Player then receives the indicated number of gold coins at the bottom of that card for the appropriate amount of beans harvested.

Trading
The Player then draws the top two cards from the draw pile and chooses whether he wants to keep any of the Bean Cards drawn this way. If not, the Bean Cards can be traded with any other player in any ratio agreeable between both Players. Trading is not limited to the two cards drawn but can include cards that are currently in the Player’s hand.

Once trading is complete, all Bean Cards that were traded for by all Players must be planted NOW. Again the planting rules will apply but the trading phase is very important for hand management as this is the only way to “rearrange" the turn order of the cards in your hand. Also a third Bean Field can be bought for 3 gold coins but a Player may only have a maximum of 3 Bean Fields in a game.

Draw
The Player finally replenishes his hand with three cards drawn from the draw pile.

Game End
The game ends when the deck has been drawn down three times and the Player with the most gold wins.

What I Think About The Game?
Gameplay:
The game is easy to learn for all ages as there is nothing to read but the name of the type of bean and is basically a matching game coupled with trading as there is a slew of bean types with different rarities giving matching rewards.

It plays between 2-7 Players but I suspect having 3-5 is the optimal amount, again I usually don’t have more or less than this number so I may never be able to confirm if 6-7 Players is a bad match for Bohnanza.

The gameplay finally hinges entirely on the trading aspect of the game but my gaming group takes to trading like women at the fish market so we played it 3 times on the first night the box was opened.

Quality:
The artwork is a play on the type of bean like the Red Bean is illustrated by a naked bean red with embarrassment or the Chilli Bean lighting up a cigar with lighter fluid. It is wacky, funny and interesting for children as well as adults and fits the theme very well.

The cards are normal card stock similar to the average poker card deck so be very careful not to bend anything.

Affordability:
Price ÷ Recommended No. of Players ÷ [Game Length (hour) x No. Times Game is Played in a year]

I got this as a gift for graduation, big yay for my cell members! So this section will be non-applicable for me. You will have to do your own calculations to determine affordability for yourselves, which you should anyways.

Is This Game For You?
I think this game is great for all ages and have plans to introduce it to some of the 7 – 11 year olds in my church to see how they take to it but my regular gaming group already loves it.

However in all fairness, I think it may not float so well with people who would calculate if it’s worth selling their grandmothers to win a game. The trading aspect may bring out the darker side of people you’ve never seen before and I think is actually best approached by a group that doesn’t give away freebies but at the same time is generous enough to extend a helping hand when another Player just needs to get rid of that irritating first card in their hand.

So if your gaming group is looking for a game that encourages loads and loads of interaction and you want something that you can use to spend time playing with the kids (to appease the wife), Bohnanza is THE game for you! Again stay away from this if all your gamers are Analysis Paralysis (AP) Specialists who need Qualified Statisticians & Supercomputers to weigh the risk and reward of each and every single trade that goes down, go play Hansa Teutonica or something.

Edit: Due to incessant badgering on Facebook, I have no choice but to edit my post to say that Milo won Bohnanza and then I won the last game of Bohnanza, in order to appease the masses. THERE ARE YOU HAPPY NOW???

Review – Chronicle
This Game Is… …:
A card game about using Characters from four different suits (Love, Wisdom, Power & Wild) to fulfil condition(s) as determined by a random History Card to earn Fame Points. The first player to earn 3 Fame Point (FP) tokens wins the game.

** I realize this summary is awfully vague but bear with me and I will endeavour to enlighten my readers.

What Do You Get In The Box?

Chronicle comes with a one sheet rulebook, 36 Character cards, 12 History cards and 15 FP tokens. I managed to stuff the FP tokens into the margins of the box (under the white parts) so the box still fits everything after punching.

How Is It Played?
There are two stacks of cards in the game, namely the History Cards & the Character Cards.

Character Cards
Character Cards are dealt out to each player until there are none left. Character Cards are divided into four suits as mentioned earlier: Love, Wisdom, Power & Wild. Each suit has the same 10 unique Characters, each with their own unique ability except the Wild suit which has 6 Characters not found in the other three suits.

With regards to the Characters from the Love, Wisdom & Power suits, each card tells you how strong it is (in the upper left corner of the card) ranging from 1 – 10 and what special ability it has at the bottom of the card.

This is a picture of the Captain from the Power suit, has 9 Strength & the ability to place a card from hand on the table as an ally

History Cards
The History Cards are shuffled and placed in the middle of the play area and the first card is turned over.

History Cards determine which Player starts the round and what the conditions are to earn a FP token at the end of the session.

A Time Of Darkness states that the Player with the Demon Character Card starts first and that Player(s) with an Evil (ability of Strength 1 Characters from Love, Wisdom & Power) ally earn one FP token

Starting A Round
As determined by the History Card, the starting Player can choose to place a card from any suit down as a played card. All subsequent players take turns to play a Character Card from the same suit as the first Player, if the Player is not able, he plays the Character Card turned face down (Exception: Wild Cards can be played regardless of whether the Player has a Character Card from the appropriate suit). When each Character Card is played face up, the Player must activate the Character Card’s ability if he is able.

Once each Player has played one Character Card from their hand, the round ends and the winner of that round is determined by the strength of the Character Card. The winner takes all the Character Cards played in that round and places them in front of him and they are now called “Allies". The winning Player then starts the next round with any card of his choice. Play continues until one Player runs out of Character Cards then the session ends and all Players who fulfil the condition(s) stated on the active History Card get to earn FP token(s).

First player to 3 FP tokens wins the game.

What I Think About The Game?
Gameplay:
The gameplay of Chronicle is somewhat similar to a local popular card game called “Chor Tai Ti" in that each round is led by the winning Player and game play ends with one Player running out of cards, who is declared the winner. The game takes this simple system and tosses in abilities, Wild Cards and specific winning conditions to twist the game on its head.

I’ve only played this game once so far with four Players and we were already able to identify how certain cards worked together, that some cards are more valuable as allies and others are more useful being in hand, that you need to watch what allies other Players have and the timing to play certain cards is very important. In that respect the game is somewhat intuitive even after the first round of play but I still found it somewhat difficult to control the outcome of the session, mostly because what you have to work with is simply what you get at the beginning of the session.

Quality:
I love the artwork on the History Cards, the artwork is similar to the Japanese Edo period style in muted colours which I felt was a great job done. I can’t say the same about the Character Cards but that’s just my personal “meh" for ukiyo-e style character portraits. The quality of the cards themselves are actually just a slight notch above your average pack of poker cards that you can pick up from 7-11, I guess the idea was to make the game as easy to shuffle as real like poker cards.

The FP tokens are functional and made of thick cardboard although I wished they could’ve used a different colour than brown. Black like the box cover would’ve great I think, however again these are all aesthetics.

Affordability:
Price ÷ Recommended No. of Players ÷ [Game Length (hour) x No. Times Game is Played in a year]

I got this as a gift for graduation, big yay for my cell members! So this section will be non-applicable for me. You will have to do your own calculations to determine affordability for yourselves, which you should anyways.

Is This Game For You?
We’ve had just one play of this game and my regular gamer comments, “This game is interesting" just before pulling off a devastating combo. It may sound complex but those of us familiar with “Chor Tai Ti" already have the game system half learnt by heart and the strategies are actually quite intuitive after 1-2 rounds of play. This probably one-ups “Chor Tai Ti" to another strategic level however… …

I do have some concerns about replayability simply because I suspect it may feel like you’re just going through the motions after a while, especially since the game simply boils down to managing the Characters given to you in order to achieve a desired condition. But as an occasional filler game or introduction game for those familiar with “Chor Tai Ti" to modern gaming, this could fill that hole in your gaming shelf.

My opinion is that if you have a group of between 3-4 regular players and are looking purely for a filler game for 20-30 minutes between long games, go ahead and pick this up.

Edit: Da Panda won this game of Chronicle. We all agree that it was due to sheer luck and had nothing to do with her whatsoever. As Mo says, she just held the cards.

Session – Hansa Teutonica

Milo had already left for her partay-ing leaving just Da Panda, Mo & me to carry on. Suggestions for Le Havre were turned down because it was already quite late at night. I suggested Hansa Teutonica instead and Da Panda took blue, Mo took Red and I took Purple.

Mo quickly took an Action Upgrade to bring himself to 3 Actions. I quickly established a toll booth at the Action & Colour Upgrade Town instead. Seeing this Mo quickly established his toll booths between the Colour & Drawing Upgrade Towns and started to gain both VPs and Drawing Upgrades. Da Panda seemed lost at this point having largely forgotten how to play since the first & last time she played the game. Surprisingly however, Da Panda managed to get an Action Upgrade and place herself on the Coellen Table albeit only on the White Space.

Mo was running away with VPs but the game took a turn when I finally took control over the towns linking the Colour Upgrade and upgraded my entire colour scheme. I grabbed a Black Space on the Coellen Table and grabbed about 6 Bonus Markers which gave me additional actions and free upgrades as well. I then started creating my chain of towns and was largely unhampered because I was the only one with a fully upgraded colour scheme. Da Panda was trying to do the Around The World link but failed because she forgot she didn’t have any Merchants. Mo took the Orange Spot on the Coellen Table but was hampered by his VPs being so close to the game end and finally pushed himself over the edge to end the game.

Results Of Game
Winna – Nitsuj (68 Points)
2nd – Mo (40+ Points?)
3rd – Da Panda (30+ Points?)

This score is probably my best record to date and I think I see better the different ways you can approach the game so long as you are aware of what gives you points at the end of the game. Still one of the great fast games I own.