Botanists Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Set-up
• How to play
  • Purchasing flowers tiles
  • Tending your marginal land
• Scoring
• End-game Scoring
• Bonus actions
• Solo Variant: The Little Helper
  • Set-up
  • Objective
  • How to play
  • Special movement rules for the Little Helper
  • Scoring
  • Bonus Actions

Components

• 1 Main Board
• 5 Player Boards
• 5 Player Tokens (with 1 standee each)
• 5 Score Counters
• 125 Flower Tiles
• 76 Market Cards
• 82 Order Cards
• 1 Cloth Bag

Set-up

Place the main board (1) in the centre of the table. This represents the market (2) from where players will obtain the seeds for them to grow into flowers. Now place all the 145 flower tiles (3) in the bag and give them a good shuffle. Give each player one player board (4)*, the corresponding player token and score counter: you can freely choose the boards or just randomly deal one to each player. Place your score counters on 0 on the score track of the main board.

*NOTE: There are five boards but the game only plays up to four: this is for variety, since each board is strong in one particular colour, but has another colour entirely absent. Each board is therefore unique in how bonus actions can be used.

Shuffle the market cards (5) face down and deal two cards to each player. Players keep these hidden from their opponents. The remaining deck is the draw deck: place it on the designated spot on the main board face down (6).

Next, shuffle the order cards (7), and reveal the top three, placing them on the designated places on the main board (8).

Then, deal one order card to each player: these are called personal orders, and are placed face up on the player board. If in play, deal a second personal order to the blue player (that's the one with 6 blue wooden signs on their land). The remaining cards make up the draw deck. Place it on the designated spot on the main board face down (9).

Finally, randomly take out 25 tiles from the bag, one at a time. Place each in turn face up (showing the vivid flower rather than the withered one on the backside) into the Market, beginning with the top left space from where you are sitting, filling the market left to right, row by row until all spaces contain a tile. When you are finished, you will have a grid of 5x5 tiles on the board. From now on, whenever tiles are taken from the Market, it is refilled back to 25 tiles before the next player takes their turn, by randomly adding new tiles from the bag.

Randomly choose one player to be the starting player.

You are ready to play.

How to play

Each player board has spaces for fifteen flower tiles. The spaces are organized into three columns, representing the three plots of land. Players will start filling the spaces in the first (left most) column from top to bottom. Then the second (middle) column from top to bottom, and finally the third (right most) also in the same manner. After every fifth turn (so turns 5, 10 and 15), players will score points and in this way determine the winner by the end of the game.

On your turn, you will perform one of two possible actions. Most of the times, you will be collecting new flower tiles from the Market, but normally, with every purchase only one of the flower tiles will be really useful to you. All other tiles may be useful depending on the current orders available on the board or your personal orders. At the end of each of the three scoring phases, if you have any leftover flowers, they will wither and you will lose points. The tiles you collect will depend on the market card that you choose to play, as well as the current location of your player token.

Each turn you have a choice between purchasing flower tiles, or tending your marginal land.

Purchasing flowers tiles

1. Movement: You move your token inside the market from flower tile to flower tile. When you start your turn, you must move your player token one or two spaces in any direction (diagonally and/or orthogonally). Movement is compulsory and your token may not end on the same tile you started the turn on. You may not move onto or through a tile that is occupied by another player's pawn. Should you find yourself in the very extreme situation of being blocked by your opponents (only possible in a 4 player game and if you are located on a corner tile) then you can move your pawn onto any of the other three corner tiles (this counts as the first move of your movement) and continue from there. On their very first turn, players may freely choose where to enter the Market from. You have to start your movement on one of the outermost tiles.
2. Play a Market card: After moving you must play one market card. The card that you play will determine which tiles you have to collect. The Market card shows a shape made of four boxes. One of the boxes is highlighted and represents your token's position within that shape. You are not allowed to rotate the card to change the shape's orientation. Also, the orientation of the shape always applies from your point of view in relation to the board. Place the card face up in front of you so all other players can see it, and then use your player token as reference on the grid to help you collect the correct tiles. This helps other players to confirm that you are collecting the right tiles. IMPORTANT: if another player is on a tile within the shape shown on the card you just played, then you do not collect the tile that player is on. If several players are within the shape, they all block the respective tiles. However you do collect the tile you're on. ALSO: when playing a Market card, its shape has to be "played within" the market limits. That is to say that you cannot play a card if the location you're currently on, would make any of the boxes in the shape "fall off" the market. Place the card you've played in the discard pile on the main board.
3. Assign tiles: Now that you have collected 1 to 4 tiles, one of the flowers you collected this turn must be planted onto your land's next available space (top to bottom of the column you are currently playing on). The tile that you choose to plant, does not have to match the requirement of that space (indicated by colour of the wooden sign), if it does, you can choose to place it face up or face down. If face up, nothing happens, if face down or if the tile you chose doesn't match (in which case you also place it face-down), you immediately trigger a Bonus Action (see Bonus Actions below). After that, place the remaining tiles in your marginal land on your board. These are the tiles you will try to fulfil open orders with, referred to as leftover flowers.

Tending your marginal land

1. You do not move your token.
2. Take any one of the leftover flowers on your marginal land and place it face down onto the next available space of the current plot of land, it doesn't matter whether the colour matches or not. In so doing, you trigger the Bonus Action associated with that space and immediately use it (if you want to and as per rules above: "Purchasing Flowers" - 4).
3. You now may (but do not have to) discard any or all open orders and redraw that many cards.
4. You may (but don't have to) draw 2 Market cards, and then discard your hand back down to 2.
5. If you still have any leftover flowers, you may fulfil one order from the open market and/or one personal order. If you do, immediately refill the open orders.

IMPORTANT: If you currently have got no leftover flowers, you cannot tend your marginal land.

Whether you purchased flowers or tended your marginal land, your turn is now over and it is the next player's turn. Play proceeds in clockwise order this way.

Scoring

Whenever all players have completed their fifth turn, a scoring phase takes place. Resolve the scoring phase as follows (keep track of scores on the Victory Point Track):

1. Check how many orders you have fulfilled over the course of the five turns. Each order is worth 5 points. (It doesn't matter how big or small the order is.)
2. Check whether you have got any leftover flowers in your marginal land: if you don't, you score 7 bonus points.
3. Any leftover flowers are worth -2 points each.
4. If you managed to fill all the boxes of the current column correctly (no flipped over tiles), you score 2 bonus points in the first, 3 in the second and 5 in the last scoring phase. If you have 1 or more face down tile in the current column, you get no bonus points.
5. All tiles on your columns remain there until the end of the game. If you have any leftover flowers, you may (but don't have to) keep up to 2 of them, the rest withers and is returned to the bag.
6. All players discard all of the order cards they completed. Place them in the discard pile on the main board.
7. The player furthest behind on the Victory Point Track chooses who goes first in the next round (that may be themselves). In case of a tie, the player sitting furthest away in turn order from the leading player gets to choose.

Follow these same steps in the scoring phases after turn ten and again after turn fifteen.

Important note: Any personal orders (be it the one you have been dealt at the start of the game or that you obtained from a bonus action) are kept until you have fulfilled it on any future turn. Whenever you do fulfil it, just add it to the other completed orders and discard them after the scoring phase. These orders too are worth 5 points each.

Play will proceed this way until the third scoring phase is complete. After that, you will check for end-game bonuses and penalties.

End-game Scoring

a. Use the 6 withered penalty tokens with the main board's penalty track to determine how many points you will lose. For each withered flower (face down tiles) on your land, use one token to cover the left most empty box on the penalty track, once you covered a box for each withered flower you got, the next unoccupied box will show you how many points you lose. In summary:

1. 1 withered flower = -1 point
2. 2 tiles = -3 points
3. 3 tiles = -6 points
4. 4 tiles = -10 points
5. 5 tiles = -15 points
6. 6 tiles = -21 points
7. And so on... -28, -36, etc. (there are no more tiles as any more penalty points means you're probably not playing the best strategy so send us an e-mail if you need help or clarifications ;)

b. If you have any unfulfilled personal orders on your board, you lose 5 points for each of those.

The player furthest ahead on the Victory Point Track is the best Botanist of the season.

Bonus actions

Players never have to use Bonus Actions. If triggered their use is optional, however, if they do choose to use them, they have to do so immediately on triggering them.

• +3 Points (immediately advance your score marker by 3 points on the Victory Point Track)
• Swap one of your leftover flowers with one flower from the market, this can be a tile that your, or another player's token is standing on.
• Swap one of your leftover flowers with another leftover flower from a player of your choice, you choose both flowers.
• Move your token onto any Market space. You cannot place it on a space occupied by another player's token, but you can place it on a space that hasn't been refilled yet)
• Take an order card from the open orders and place it face up on your player board as a personal order. If you don't like any of them, draw the top face down order from the draw deck instead. Note that whilst there is space only for two personal orders, you are allowed to have more than two.

Tip: In a 4 player game it is possible that you might collect only a single tile. This is a very useful technique that can be very helpful, so look out for opportunities that allow you to take advantage of your opponents' locations on the board (sometimes it can also be a problem though, as they might be blocking tiles you'd actually want). This changes with 3 and even more with 2 players, as there will be less interference from other players. So the with 2 players, I might have a harder time with the leftover flowers, but don't worry, your opponent will too. Whilst with 2 players you should still try to keep penalties from leftover flowers as low as possible, they will be a lot more common than in a 3 or 4 player game ;)

Solo Variant: The Little Helper

An official solitaire variant. Duration: approximately 25 minutes.

Set-up

For the solitaire variant you set up the game as you would usually do for the regular game: The main board goes onto the table and you randomly populate the market with flower tiles from the bag (optionally you can follow the official variant rules).

For yourself you can freely choose the player board you like best or just randomly deal yourself one. Put your character pawn to the side of the market, and place your score counter just off the track near the first VP box and deal yourself a personal order cards (or two if you play with the "blue" player board), reveal three open orders and draw three (instead of just two) market cards.

Now deal yourself another player board randomly. We recommend that you slide this one underneath your own player board from left to right in a way that only the plots of lands with the coloured sign posts are showing (see image in the original). This will look like you have a total of 30 spaces. Furthermore you take the score counter of the character belonging to this board and place it on the flower in the middle of the market. This is your Little Helper.

Objective

In the Little Helper variant, your aim is to score as high as possible. You will have to manage two boards; however the Little Helper's board will work somewhat different from what you're used to. The aim is to populate the Little Helper's board with all the correct flowers, if you do, you get the Little Helper's respective Bonus Points for correctly planting flowers. At the end of the game, you will however also suffer the penalties for withered flowers on the Little Helper's board on top of your own penalty points.

Note also that the Little Helper cannot ever fulfil any orders since, as will be explained below, they never collect more than a single flower per turn.

How to play

In this variant you will have to play 2 characters at the same time: your own and the Little Helper. During your turn you can choose whether to resolve your own move first, or that of the Little Helper. Regardless of who goes first, you fulfil orders after you have played both your own turn and that of the Little Helper. You will have a choice out of three market cards, so each turn you will have to decide what card to assign to yourself, and which for the Little Helper.

Once you move the Little Helper, the flower you move them onto, is the only one they collect. As per usual rules, if the colour matches the sign post on their board, you may place the flower face-up, you can also choose to place it face-down in order to benefit from the bonus. If the flower that the Little Helper collects does not match the current plot, then you must place it face-down. Please note that the Little Helper can never perform the action "Tend the marginal land" (see original rules).

Your own move is played as usual: move up to 2 spaces, play a market card, collect 3 or 4 flowers, allocate 1 and fulfil an order with the remaining if able; or you can also tend the marginal land if you need. Only after moving both your character and the Little Helper will you refill the market with fresh flowers. Also, just like in a two player game, you can use the Little Helper's location to avoid collecting 4 flowers all the time and collect only 3 instead.

Please note that as per original rules, you still can't move through the Little Helper, or stop your movement on the same space.

Also, keep in mind that you have to resolve the character's move you play with first in full, before continuing with the other character. That is to say that you move, collect flowers and resolve any bonus actions first, before you start the other character's move.

Once you finished the turn you draw your hand back up to 3 cards. Before you do though, you may choose to discard one (and only one) Market Card from your hand in order to improve chances of drawing convenient Market cards for your next turn.

Special movement rules for the Little Helper

Moving the Little Helper works different. First you choose the Market Card you want to use to move the Little Helper: the highlighted box on the card represents their current location, you now can choose any of the other three boxes to move the helper onto, so as you can imagine, movement is a lot more restricted (they are little after all). Make sure you keep that in mind and try to move them as close to the next needed flower type as possible. (An example image is shown in the original.)

Also, unlike with your own market cards, the Little Helper's can be played in a way that the shape falls off the market limits. In the rare case that none of the cards in your hand can be used to move the Little Helper, you must discard all three cards and redraw three new ones.

IMPORTANT: unlike with your own market card, if the shape of the Little Helper's card falls partially off the market, it counts as a legal move. You can, however, never leave the Little Helper in the same location they were on at the start of the current turn. So you must move the Little Helper every turn and never outside the market.

Scoring

During scoring you score your own board as per original rules; additionally, if your Little Helper was successful in correctly filling out all the 5 plots in a round, you get their bonus points on top of your own.

At the end of the game, after you have scored VPs for the third time, you will have to check for penalties and suffer the negative VPs for withered flowers on both your own and your Little Helper's board.

Bonus Actions

There are a few minor modifications to the bonus actions. You can now also use the Little Helper's bonus actions whenever a flower they collect is placed face-down on their board. When this happens, whatever power is triggered, you are free to use it or not. Here are a few clarifications regarding the bonus actions:

• Red action: Exchange flowers with another player - You can now choose to exchange a flower from your marginal land with any already planted face-up flower on the Little Helper's board. The flower you give to the Little Helper remains face up in this case, despite the colours not matching. You cannot use this power to swap with a withered flower on the Little Helper's board.
• Purple action: There are no changes to this bonus action. If you trigger it on the Helper's board, you can still use it with your own board.
• Yellow action: You can choose to move either your own pawn, or the token of the Little Helper. This is true regardless of whether it is triggered on your board, or that of the Little Helper.
• Blue action: There are no changes to this bonus action.
• Green action: There are no changes to this bonus action when you trigger it on your own board. If triggered on the Little Helper's board, you then get to add (if you want to) a new card to your personal orders as per original rules.