Botanicus
How about creating your own botanical garden? As an aristocrat in the late 19th century, you have bought land, hired a gardener and set out to find the best plants there are.
As you know, the visitors are very picky about the plants they want to see, so your job is not only to acquire the plants, but also to sort them according to the visitors' preferences.
In Botanicus, you compete for the best action-spots in a unique selection mechanism, and then make the most of the options available to you. You have to collect new plants, take care of them, water them and keep an eye on the gardener. Last but not least, you have to collect some money along the way to pay for all this.
In the end, what counts is how many visitors you satisfy and how beautiful your garden is. Will you be able to outdo the gardens of your competitors?
Number of players: 2 - 4
Game duration: 39 mn
Complexity: 1 / 5
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Play Botanicus and 948 other games online.
No download necessary - play directly from your web browser.
With your friends and thousands of players from the whole world.
Free.
Rules summary
Overview
Plant flowers and gather animals. Grow your garden to meet objectives and fill columns for the most points!
Turn
Start your turn by doing both, one or neither of the following two actions:
• Move your Gardener as far as you like following the footprints, but each movement costs 1 coin, and you are not required to move the gardener at all
• Play a card, but don't have to. If you do, you can only play one, and can choose to either pay to use its action or sell it, the value for paying and selling are shown on the card
Then, place your Flower token to choose your action:
• Move your Flower to the next column you are not in
• If you place your Flower on an empty space, you take the space's action and the action connected to it, in either order
• If you place your Flower on an occupied space, you only take the action connected to it and not the space's action, additionally pay 3 coins to the bank for each other Flower already present on the space
Turn order is also determined by the Flower columns:
• Whoever has the highest flower on the most historic column takes the next turn
• Highest is both the space's height and the flower's height in the same column (i.e. a player who paid to take the same action as another will therefore go earlier in turn order next round)
Tasks
Each garden row has two tasks, a basic and special.
• At the start of the game, you can decide which row has which special task, but each row can only contain one.
• Some tasks require 4 Flowers, which means they can only be placed in certain rows.
• The tasks give requirements for that row of flowers, but the order the flowers appear in doesn't matter
• You must complete a row's basic task before you can complete its special task
• However, you do NOT have to complete one row's tasks before completing another
Tracks
There are three tracks, each providing a variety of rewards: Money bag, Wheelbarrow and Shovel.
• Some Flower space actions let you move along a certain track.
• If you move more than one space, you do NOT get the benefit(s) of the intermediate space(s), i.e. if you move two spaces, the first space's rewards are ignored
• On the Shovel track, some branches cost coins to allow you to move faster along it, but you can only take these fast route options if you have the coins for it at that moment
• Regardless of the track, you can always spend 3 coins per space to move farther than the option gives, whilst still respecting the rule of not getting any reward for intermediate spaces, or you can move less than allowed and gain 1 point for each space not moved
• When you reach the final space of a track, take its rewards as usual (along with any wasted movement point rewards), and then move your piece back to the starting space of that track
Bonuses
• A black number in a coin is gained, whilst a red number in a coin is paid
• There are 4 plant levels (1=Yellow, 2=Pink, 3=Green, 4=Blue) - when you gain one, place it diagonally adjacent to your Gardener, even covering up previously placed Plants
• The Watering Can lets you upgrade a plant to the next level if it is diagonally adjacent to your Gardener
• Free Gardener Movement lets you move your Gardener up to the depicted number of spaces for no cost
• Draw a card lets you draw a card to your hand
• Animals go on your animal circle, each animal placed score the indicated number of points. It doesn't matter which type of animal you place where
• VP scores you straight points
• You also get VP from completing a track - you only get the best VP reward from a track at the time you finish that loop, if you reach the end of the same track again you do NOT reclaim a second reward
• Pole Position means you do not pay to share an occupied space
Round 1 End
When all players reach the final column, the first round ends
• Maintain the turn order, but move all the Flowers back to the start space
• Flip all the tiles to the dark side, this gives different actions for round two
Round 2 End and Game End
At the end of the second round, all players take a single extra turn before scoring.
In the same turn order as how round 2 ended, each player gets to do:
• The two normal actions (move Gardener and/or play a card)
• One step along one of the three tracks
Scoring
• Each column completely filled with flowers scores points based on the highest level flower found there
• Score 1 point for every 3 coins remaining
• Add this to points scored during the game
• The player with the most points, wins!
• The final player order breaks a tie
