Sissi!: Die Bohnenkaiserin Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Game Concept
• Contents
  • The Bean Cards
  • Bean Talers
  • Bean Fields
• Setup
• Gameplay
  • Phase 1: Playing Bean Cards from your Hand
  • Phase 2: Trading and Giving
    • Fundamentals of Trading on Your Turn
    • Gifts
  • Phase 3: Planting Beans
  • Phase 4: Drawing New Bean Cards
  • Phase 5: Sissi Action
• Harvesting and Selling Beans
• End of the Game

Game Concept

In this Bohnanza variant, Captain and Sissi Beans are alternately grown on the bean fields. They are harvested according to the most recently planted card's beanometer. Since the blue-blooded Sissi Beans have a weaker beanometer than any Captain Bean does, players are eager to end a "bean field affair" with a Captain. Not infrequently, Sissi has the last word anyway. The aim of the game is, through planting and trading, to earn the most Talers.

Contents

The Bean Cards

There are eight different types of beans (Sissi Beans and the seven different Captain Beans). Each variety has a different frequency in the game. How many cards of a variety are available is indicated on each bean card.

Frequency of each bean variety in the game:

• 50 Sissi Beans (Sissibohnen)
• Captain Beans (Rittmeister-Bohnen):
  • 16 Fire Beans (Feuerbohnen)
  • 14 Sow Beans (Saubohnen)
  • 12 Barf Beans (Brechbohnen)
  • 10 Soy Beans (Sojabohnen)
  • 8 Black-eyed Beans (Augenbohnen)
  • 6 Red Beans (Rote Bohnen)
  • 4 Garden Beans (Gartenbohnen)

At the bottom of each bean card is the beanometer. It shows how many coins a player gets for selling his beans. The numbers indicate how many bean cards a player must sell in order to get two, three, four, or five Bean Talers.

Example 1: Selling a crop of 1-3 Sow Beans earns you no Bean Talers; 4-7 Sow Beans earn 1 Taler; 8-9 Sow Beans earn 3 Talers; 10 or more Sow Beans earn you 5 Bean Talers.

Bean Talers

When selling your harvest, you receive Bean Talers by turning over bean cards. Thus 1 bean card has the value of 1 Bean Taler (a bean card turned over = one Bean Taler).

Bean Fields

You use the table area in front of you for the cultivation of beans. This area represents your bean fields, which you already possess at the start of the game. In a three-player game, each player has three bean fields. In a four- and five-player game, each player has two bean fields.

You may have both Sissi and Captain Beans on the same field.

On one bean field, you may have any number of Captain Beans of the same variety, and any number of Sissi Beans. You will plant the bean cards splayed on the bean field in a column. You can also start a field with a Sissi Bean.

Setup

Shuffle the bean cards. Each player receives five cards in her hand.

Attention, Fundamental Rule: Players are never allowed to change the order of the cards in their hand at any time during the game. Sorting the cards, as is usual in other card games, is absolutely not allowed.

This means that when the cards are dealt to you, take them into your hand in the order the dealer dealt them to you. A new card always goes behind all the old ones. (The first card is the foremost card.)

Stack the remaining cards face-down, with Taler-side-up, in the middle of the table to form the draw pile. The player left of the dealer starts the game.

Gameplay

Your turn consists of five phases:

1. Playing Bean Cards from your Hand
2. Trading and Giving
3. Planting Beans
4. Drawing New Bean Cards
5. Sissi Action

Phase 1: Playing Bean Cards from your Hand

You must play the first card from your hand, which is the foremost, completely visible bean card in your hand, on one of your bean fields in front of you. You will either start a field or add to an existing field.

Then you may play a second card, which is the newly foremost card in your hand, on a bean field. These two cards do not need to go onto the same field.

If you are forced to play a bean variety that can't be planted with the varieties currently in your fields, then you must harvest every bean from one of your fields, and sell them (see Harvesting and Selling Beans).

Phase 2: Trading and Giving

Draw two cards from the draw pile, and place them face-up on the table, visible to all. Afterward, all players may trade with, give gifts to, and receive gifts from you.

Now, you must decide whether you want to keep these cards or not. If you keep one or both cards, set them well separated from the cards of his bean fields, in front of you. If there are one or two that you don't want to keep, you can offer them for trade or as gifts to the other players. One of the most important actions in this phase is trading a Sissi Bean for a Sissi Bean. Not only is this action allowed, it is even an important part of the game.

Example 2: Duke Max reveals a Soy Bean and Garden Bean. He reserves the Garden Bean for himself, and offers the Soy Bean to the other players, because it will not fit on his bean fields. He asks, "Does anyone want the Soy Bean? I would loved a Red Bean in exchange." (Trade: revealed card for a card from another player's hand.)

Fundamentals of Trading on Your Turn

• Players may only trade with you. In addition to the revealed cards, you may also offer cards from your hand. Where they are in your hand does not matter.

  Example 3: Duke Max says, "I offer the revealed Soy Bean and an additional Sissi Bean from my hand for a Red Bean."

• The other players may only offer cards from their hands. You are completely allowed to offer or request several bean cards for a single bean card.

• Even if the revealed cards have already found a home, hand cards may still be traded.

• Warning: Each player must keep cards received in trade well separated from the cards of the bean fields in front of her. You can neither take them into your hand, nor re-trade them!

• Even when trading, the order of the cards in your hands must not be changed; however, you are allowed to offer any card, regardless of where the card is in your hand. The cards that you would like to offer, may only be taken from the hand after a trade is agreed upon, and never before then.

Gifts

Throughout the trading phase, bean cards may also be given away to whomever. You may give cards from your hand or from the ones revealed from the deck to any players. The other players may only give cards to you, and to no other player, from their hands. No one is required to accept a gift.

If you can't get rid of one or both of the revealed bean cards by trading them or giving them to the other players, then you must plant them on your fields in the next phase, "Planting Beans".

The "Trading and Giving" phase is over when no players want to trade or give away cards anymore.

Phase 3: Planting Beans

All players now put the bean cards they obtained into their fields. The order in which a player plays the cards onto her bean fields is up to her. Each bean field must alternate between Captain Beans of the same variety and Sissi Beans. Nonetheless, Captain Beans may be placed temporarily on Captain Beans, or Sissi Beans may be placed temporarily on Sissi Beans (see Phase 5). Fields may be harvested between planting of individual beans (see Harvesting and Selling Beans).

Example 4: Duke Max has given Baron Hübner the Soy Bean and the Sissi Bean, and has a Red Bean from him. He must now plant this Red Bean and the Garden Bean. He puts the Red Bean on his first field and then the Garden Bean on his second field.

If a player can't plant due to having different varieties of beans in his field than what he got, he must first harvest a field in order to make room for the new beans.

Phase 4: Drawing New Bean Cards

Each player draws one bean card from the draw pile and adds it to his hand. You start, and then the other players follow clockwise. The new cards are tucked behind the old cards already in the hand.

If the draw pile becomes empty at this stage or during the trading phase, then shuffle the discard pile to form a new draw pile.

Phase 5: Sissi Action

At the end of your turn, examine each bean field. Bean fields with a Sissi Bean on a Sissi Bean, or a Captain Bean on a Captain Bean, must be harvested immediately.

The next player clockwise starts her turn with Phase 1.

Harvesting and Selling Beans

At any time, even when it is not your turn, you may harvest bean fields and sell the beans. If you want to harvest a bean field, you must always sell all of the beans from the field.

Selling means that you count the cards on the field. The beanometer of the card last played on it shows how many coins you receive for the harvest. Turn over the last few cards to become Talers, according to the number of coins depicted on the beanometer for the number of beans on the field. Set the Talers to the side, separated from the rest of the cards in front of you. Put the beans not converted into Talers face-up on the discard pile.

Example 5: This bean field has 2 Sissi Beans together. The field must be harvested in Phase 5.

Example 6: The two Fire Beans and two Sissi Beans are worth one Bean Taler. Baron Hübner turns over the latest Sissi Bean and thus receives a Bean Taler. He puts the other three cards on the discard pile.

If you want or need to harvest, you select the field you harvest. You can't harvest a field on which there is only one bean. Exception: If none of your fields have more than one bean, only then may you harvest a field with a single bean in it.

In some cases, you receive no Bean Talers when selling beans.

Example 7: With the sale of a harvest of two Fire Beans, Baron Hübner earns no Bean Talers.

End of the Game

When the draw pile is exhausted for the third time, the game will end. Specifically, if this happens during "Trading and Giving", you will still finish the "Trading and Giving" and "Planting Beans" phases. If it happens during "Drawing New Bean Cards", the game ends immediately. Each player can now harvest and sell her bean fields. The cards in your hand do not count anymore. Whoever has the most Bean Talers has won. In the case of a tie, whichever of them played later in the first round of the game wins. Thus the first player has a small disadvantage in this case.