Botanicus: The Greenhouse Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• New Material
• Changes to Game Setup
  • Personal Setup Change
• Fruits
  • Joker for tasks
• Your Greenhouse
  • Special task
  • Planting
  • Watering
  • Transplanting
• Gameplay
  • 1. First Fruit scoring
  • 2. Second Fruit scoring
  • 3. Final scoring
• Final Scoring Cards
• New Track Action
• Additional Material
  • Completed Tokens
  • Victory Point Tokens
• Variant: Unique Greenhouses

New Material

Here you will find an overview of the new elements. A detailed explanation of the rules will follow in the respective section.

The Greenhouse offers you additional flower beds for your plants. Water all plants in it at once and grow exotic fruits. You can also place a Special task here.

Fruits are level V Plants which serve as jokers for tasks and can be planted directly on flower beds occupied by animals.

The Game board extension introduces additional actions and a special Fruit scoring.

Contents: 16 Fruits (level V Plants); 4 Greenhouse tableaus; 1 Game board extension; 2 Flower tiles; 3 Round prize tokens (3, 6, 9) and 3 Square prize tokens (5, 10, 15); 9 Victory Point tokens; 3 Completed tokens; 1 Tuck box.

Note: You can store the level V Plants and some Plants of the base game in the new tuck box.

Changes to Game Setup

Set up the Expert variant of the game and carry out the steps in Getting Ready as usual (Base rulebook, pp. 2-4; Expert rulebook, pp. 1-2). Then set up the mini expansion as explained.

1. Each player takes a Greenhouse tableau and turns it to the side without the position icon on the right side. Place it on the right side above your Garden tableau. All players should now have an identical Greenhouse. Note: The backsides feature 4 different Greenhouses and are used in the "Unique Greenhouses variant".

2. Place the game board extension next to the bottom right of the main game board.

3. Take the 2 new Flower tiles and place them with the light-side up on the corresponding spaces on the game board extension. Note: You can identify the new tiles by the Fruit symbol on one of the two sides.

4. Sort the new Prize tokens by shape and value into two stacks, with the highest values on top. Place these 2 stacks on the designated spaces on the game board extension.

   • 3-player game: Return the highest-value token from each stack to the tuck box.
   • 2-player game: Return the two highest-value tokens from each stack to the tuck box.

5. Place the Fruits with the level V side up next to the other Plants.

6. Place the Completed tokens and Victory Point tokens next to the game board.

Personal Setup Change

You may place 1 of the 5 Special tasks you received during setup onto the designated space in your Greenhouse. Assign the remaining Special tasks as usual to the Basic tasks on your Garden tableau.

Note: If you assign a Special task to your Greenhouse, one Basic task on your Garden tableau may not have a corresponding Special task.

Fruits

When you receive a Fruit (level V Plant) through the depicted symbol, you may plant it as usual. Place it with the level V side facing up.

Unlike plants of lower levels, you may plant a Fruit directly on a Flower bed on which an Animal is present. To do this, first remove the Animal from its Flower bed and place it on its respective space. You unlock the bonus for the Animal immediately. Then you place the Fruit on the Flower bed that has just become available.

Example: You receive a Fruit and plant it on the Flower bed with the squirrel. First, you remove the squirrel and unlock its bonus. Then you place the Fruit on the now free Flower bed. You immediately receive the bonus of 6 Coins for the completely filled column.

Important: For the final scoring, the Fruits show a level I Plant on their backside. More on this in Final Scoring (see below).

Joker for tasks

The exotic fruits are so fascinating that they make your visitors forget which plants they wanted to see.

A Fruit fulfills the requirement for any single plant of a Basic or Special task. The same Fruit can also fulfill a different requirement for a second task. You can use multiple Fruits to fulfill multiple requirements of a task.

Example: You receive a Fruit and plant it. The Fruit counts as any plant for the task and in this case fulfills the requirement for a level IV Plant. This completes the Basic task, scoring you 12 Victory Points. You place the Special task on top of the completed Basic task. That Special task is immediately completed, as the fruit now counts as a level III Plant. You score another 11 Victory Points.

Your Greenhouse

Special task

If you have placed a Special task on your Greenhouse during setup, it is active from the start of the game.

To fulfill this task, you must have the plants shown on it in your Greenhouse. When you complete the task, you receive Victory Points as usual and flip the tile over.

Example: You receive a level III Plant and plant it in your Greenhouse. This completes the Special task and you immediately score 12 Victory Points.

Planting

Whenever you perform a Planting action, you may choose to place the Plant either in your Garden or your Greenhouse.

If you choose the Greenhouse, you may plant in any of its beds. First you must pay the costs shown on the bed and then you place the plant on it.

Example: You get 2 level I Plants and decide to plant them into your Greenhouse. The first plant is free, but for the second one you pay 1 Coin.

Watering

Your Greenhouse holds the moisture, making the Watering action more efficient. Whenever you perform a Watering action, you may water a single plant as usual and additionally all plants in your Greenhouse. You may decide in any order and for each plant individually, whether you want to water it or not. You may also choose to water only the plants in your Greenhouse without watering a plant in your Garden.

If you perform multiple Watering actions, you may decide each time which plants to water in your Greenhouse.

Important: Only in your Greenhouse can you now water level IV Plants to replace them with Fruits (level V Plants). Fruits cannot be watered further.

Reminder: As usual, you can only water plants in your Garden up to level IV.

Special case: It may happen that you complete a task within a Watering action. As usual, you complete the task first before continuing with the action.

Example: You receive the Watering action and water a plant in your Garden. Additionally, you decide to first water the level II Plant in the middle, completing the task and immediately scoring 12 Points. Afterwards, you water the other two plants.

Transplanting

Whenever you are allowed to move your Gardener, you may additionally transplant plants from your Greenhouse to your Garden. To do this, take any Plant from your Greenhouse and place it on one of the Flower beds within range of your Gardener.

Important: You may only transplant when you can move your Gardener:

• In Phase 1 of your turn Move your Gardener
• When you gain a Moving your Gardener action.

Transplanting costs 1 movement or 1 Coin. You may decide for each Plant whether you want to use 1 movement or pay 1 Coin for it. You may transplant as many times as you like, even between 2 movements. When you gain a Movement action, you can also just transplant without moving your Gardener.

Example: You gain an action with 3 (free) movements. With the first movement, you move your Gardener to the top. Then you transplant the Fruit to the Flower bed with the butterfly using 1 movement, unlocking its bonus. You transplant the level IV Plant for 1 Coin. Then you move your Gardener back to his starting position with the last free movement.

Gameplay

1. First Fruit scoring

The game board extension adds a new column of Flower spaces, giving you an additional turn in both Rounds. You play Round One until all Action Flowers have reached the last column on the game board extension. The new track action is explained below. Once the last person has finished their turn, the first Fruit scoring takes place.

Note: There is a reminder for this at the bottom of the game board extension.

For the Fruit scoring, each of you determines the number of Fruits they have. Add up the number of Fruits on your Garden tableau and in your Greenhouse. The player with the most Fruits takes the topmost round Prize token from the corresponding stack on the game board extension and immediately receives the Victory Points depicted on it. The player with the second most Fruits receives the token below it, and so on. In case of a tie, the "at-the-top rule" applies as usual (Base rulebook, p. 7).

If you have already unlocked the Bird, you receive additional Victory Points for Prize tokens as usual.

You must have at least 1 Fruit to receive a Prize token. Return any surplus Prize tokens to the tuck box.

Example: It is the end of Round One. You have a total of 2 Fruits on your Garden and Greenhouse tableaus. Red and Yellow each have 1 Fruit, and Green has none. You receive the first Prize token worth 9 points. Red receives the next token worth 6 points because their flower is above the yellow one. Additionally, Red earns 4 points because they have already unlocked the Bird. Yellow receives the token worth 3 points. Green receives nothing.

After the Fruit scoring, Round One ends. Stack all Flowers in their current order and return them to the starting space on the game board as usual.

2. Second Fruit scoring

Just as in Round One, you each play 1 additional turn in Round Two. Once the last turn has been completed, the second Fruit scoring takes place.

Conduct the scoring as in Round One. The only difference is that the square Prize tokens are awarded as prizes.

3. Final scoring

After the last action in the third stage of the game, there is no further Fruit scoring.

The Fruits wither and start to grow new seedlings. Now flip all Fruits in your Garden and Greenhouse over to their backside. For the final scoring, they now count as level I Plants.

Plants in the Greenhouse do not count for the column scoring. However, they do count for some of the Final Scoring cards (see next page).

Example: You have completely filled 3 out of the 4 columns shown and now score them. In both the leftmost and rightmost column, your highest Plant is level IV. You score 2 x 16 points for these columns. For the third completed column, you score 10 points since it contains a level III Plant. In total, you score 42 points.

Final Scoring Cards

Here you will find explanations for individual Final scoring cards.

• You receive 1 Victory Point for each planted Flower bed, including those in your Greenhouse.
• You receive the respective Victory Points for the corresponding Plants in your Garden and Greenhouse.
• The area for the Special task on your Greenhouse does not count as a completed Basic task.
• Only planted Flower beds on your Garden tableau count.
• The Flower beds in your Greenhouse count as their own row. If your Greenhouse is completely planted, you receive 6 Victory Points.

New Track Action

The game board extension includes the following new action:

You gain an action with 2 steps on one of the 3 tracks. Only with this action, you may move your piece on the selected track to the left or to the right. You must make all steps in one direction and then gain all actions on the space where your piece stops, as usual. You may take fewer steps for 1 victory point each or buy additional steps for 3 Coins each as usual (Base rulebook, p. 9).

If you land on the first space of a track, you must stop there and do not gain an action. Otherwise, all rules of the Expert variant apply.

Additional Material

Completed Tokens

When you complete a Basic task and there is no Special task assigned next to it, you first score Victory Points as usual. Then place a Completed token on the Basic task as a reminder that you have already completed it.

Victory Point Tokens

When you reach 100 Victory Points, take a Victory Point Token and place it in front of you instead of laying your Gardener on its side us [sic] usual. When you reach 200 Victory Points, flip the Token to the side showing 200.

Variant: Unique Greenhouses

Have you already played a few rounds with the Greenhouses and are looking for variety and a new challenge?

In this variant, you play with the backside of the Greenhouse tableaus. These show 4 unique Greenhouses that differ in the number of Flower beds, the planting costs, and whether you can assign a Special task to them.

Flip all Greenhouses to their backside with the position icon in the lower right corner. Each player takes the Greenhouse with the icon corresponding to their garden tableau and places it as usual.

Important: If there is no space for a Special task on your Greenhouse, you must not assign a task to it.

Otherwise, there are no changes to the setup or the rules.