One of the most fascinating aspects of covering board games is realizing just how many games there are and how many themes the games are based on, including Botanicus from German publisher Hans im Gluck, distributed in English by Asmodee. In Botanicus, players compete to create the best botanical garden for visitors in the late 19th century as an aristocrat. It’s such a random theme, yet works so well because of the thoughtful design of the game pieces and gameplay.
With a standard version perfect for families (though still strategy heavy!), and an expert version for folks who really want a challenge, Botanicus definitely delivers on its gardening theme.
What’s in the box?
Botanicus comes with 1 double sided game board for the standard and expert games, 4 player tableaus that are also double sided, 120 plant tokens, 18 garden cards, 12 final scoring cards, 69 coin tokens, 16 flower tiles, 12 prize tokens, 20 special task cards, 32 wood tokens in four colors (1 flower, 3 gardeners, 1 wheelbarrow, 1 shovel, 1 money bag), 20 small animals in four colors, and of course a rulebook.
What’s really cool is the game also comes with 5 tuck boxes that you fold and place the pieces in, which I am a huge fan of, because I am tired of so many plastic baggies!!! However, not all the pieces actually fit nicely in the boxes, so I wish they’d been made larger. Having boxes but then making them too small defeats the purpose of having boxes, and in the rulebook it says to mix up the pieces, but why?
The pieces are overall really good, but punching the tokens out of the chit boards did lead to some tears in the print, so just be careful with that part.
How’s it play?
Another cool aspect of this game, is that the rules are also available in the free Dized app. Usually I review the rulebook based on the physical book but because it is suggested to use the app, I did watch the entire guide and it’s super well done! You can pick how many players there are, and you click through as you set each part of the game up and start taking actions. I am a huge fan of this setup, because in other apps, the rules or guide go through really quickly and don’t have a great way to pause or go back.
Having said that, setup for Botanicus does take a little bit of time the first play, but after the first time it goes by super quickly. I actually plan to just use the flat and wider boxes to hold pieces while I play instead of putting the pieces on the table.
Set up the board by placing plant, coin, and animal tokens, and sort the round and square prize tokens—removing the highest token from each stack for a 3-player game (highest two tokens for a 2 player game). Arrange 16 flower tiles by pattern (spotted and striped) on matching spaces, light side up. Each player gets 5 random special task cards, 6 coins from the bank, and places their gardeners on the fountain and the Victory Points track. Stack flower tokens according to the player’s board for turn order.
Players grow plants by placing tokens in flower beds adjacent to their gardener, who can move at the start of each turn or through special actions. Tasks require combinations of plants in a row, with Basic tasks needing completion before Special ones can be activated.
Each turn has two phases: first, move your gardener (paying 1 coin per space) and/or play a garden card (for 2 coins). In the second phase, place a flower in the next action column and perform the action associated with that space, paying for any occupied spaces.
Players can take five actions: plant (starting with level 1 tokens or as gained from actions), water to upgrade to the next level plant, move for free, draw garden cards, or place an animal in the garden for points based on its position. Botanicus ends once round two is finished (flower tiles are flipped to the dark side) and players have reached the final column. All players take one final turn, taking one action, and score the columns of their garden. Whoever has the highest score wins!
The verdict?
Botanicus is so much fun! This is a game that really does require strategizing because there’s only 17 turns across two rounds (and a final turn). It sounds like a lot, but in final scoring, you can’t score for a column unless it’s completely full! This means players have to decide between trying to get all their basic and special tasks or just filling the garden, if they can’t get the tasks finished.
However, without scoring for basic and special tasks, the player probably won’t get very far in victory points. Fortunately there are multiple ways to score points as the game progresses outside of the tasks like placing animals in the garden, gaining points from flower tiles in the action area, reaching the end of the money, water, and shovel tracks, and by not moving the total number of places on the tracks based on the action chosen.
Since turn order is dependent on where players place their action flower (higher rows go first, lower rows go later), the turn order can change turn to turn. Part of the strategy then requires you to think ahead of your competitors and block them from choosing an action (in a two player game, a neutral player’s token is placed by the first player as well). Competitive players will love this aspect. Now you can pay 3 coins to place your token above another one and go before them the next turn, but you only receive the action visible to the right of the token, so this doesn’t necessarily always come in handy.
Moving the gardener is also a fun aspect of the game, where you have to think ahead each turn. Do you move your gardener to plant in a new place and then take your actions, or take your actions where you are, but maybe lose out on planting later?
Overall, I loved the art and complete design of Botanicus. It feels very much like we’re in an aristocratic location, and the character art for the tasks is delightful. There’s even a gardener on the back of the garden cards. I just wish the boxes fit everything!
In the expert version, each player board is completely different, and the game board differs too so there are a lot more ways to approach the game. I can’t wait to play that version soon!
You can grab a copy now from Asmodee!
Images and review copy courtesy of Asmodee
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