[Brian,
Tuesday March 17, 2009 at 9:30am]
Bohnanza -- Does anyone ever win buying a 3rd field?
That thought crossed my mind when we pulled out the old classic last night. We played a deck setup I wasn't familiar with (Wax Beans-22, included; but only twice through the deck; five players. Was that a mistake?) I decided (after a terrible string of luck) to shoot out the 3rd field and try for the wax and blue beans. I got smoked. (In any case, I was losing before that), so no big deal.
But has anyone ever won with the 3rd field? If not, then shouldn't we house rule the 3rd field to only cost 2 gold? (For all I know that has been changed in the newer versions, I have a very old copy of this, and have never read the newer rules).
But I've played with some people, who always played two- or three-player Bohnanza, and they _insisted_ that everyone _always_ buys a third bean field.
I think it must be a different thing with a two or three player game, because final scores are so much higher. 3 gold is a smaller bite out of your total score, and the game is longer, so it makes more sense.
On a side note, in my last game, we threw out the "expansion" cards (Coffee, Wax, and Cocoa), and felt the game was better for it because it was shorter. You can only play 5 players that way, but I much preferred it being a 45 minute game than an hour or more with all the extra cards.
However, the better solution is just to not play Bohnanza :P
I will add the proviso that Bohnanza shouldn't really be played if you only have three though. (I say this even though it is [probably] my all-time favourite game.)
I generally don't even include the third beanfield rule when teaching the game. Not only because purchasing it will almost certainly guarantee a loss (in a 4- or 5-person game at least), but because it reduces the amount of trading in the game. Not a good thing for a game whose soul is trading.
I have seen a third field win, probably in a 5 player game, for the 3 coin price. If you can buy it early enough, I think it can be profitable. That said, I don't think I've ever bought one myself. A 2 coin price in a normally sized game seems like a reasonable switch.
1) You get more turns, thus increasing the amount of time to have your beanfield investment pay off.
2) There are less opponents collecting various types of beans, meaning that there are less people willing to take a bean off your hands or trade you for it, when you have somethng that would screw you. This increases the importance of having the beanfield to avoid getting screwed.
I've played 3p Bohnanza 10-15 times and think it works fine. You have fewer opportunities to get dreck out of your hand, so you might need to cycle two fields somewhat frequently than you'd like in order to max out the third.