News item from BrettspielWelt
Chopped beans?
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English Rules |
The farmer's market is to be held in Biensingen this Saturday. People come not only from the surrounding area, but also from the whole country and other principalities, just to attend this market. You can already hear the commotion of the market traders voices from afar, as they enthuse and cajoule the buyers to purchase their commodity. The Market women hang their beans from their tressels, to imprive the presentation of their produce. The high point of the Biensingen Bean Market has always been the popular bean harvest competition.
Each farmer examines the saplings, pulls a withered leaf away, and conditions the soil with fertilizer to increase the yield. The tension rises, until finally the starting signal begins the competition. Now each bean planter plows his fields and hopes to make a good profit.
But the rules are stringent: already one farmer must plow over a bean field before the harvest is reached, in order to make room for a different variety of bean. Only the farmer who produces the most exquisite beans without having to plow up an existing field, can gain the lead. Farmer Armistacher, unmistakably from more southern German Lowlands, offers his famous kidney beans for sale and at the same time looks to trade for the rare, red beans.
He finds a trading partner in Farmer Holsten, who has surplus produce, and if he doesn't harvest them soon, they will rot in the fields. Farmer Langpeter tries to get in on the action and outdo the offer which had been discussed. However Farmer Armistacher doesn't want Langpeter's fire beans and re-negotiates with Farmer Holsten. Finally the deal is agreed and Armistacher and Holsten swap the agreed beans and expand their existing bean fields.
Now Farmer Mellinger prepares for another harvest. He managed to grow nine blue beans profitably before. He needs more Runner Beans to add to his field, otherwise his other field will be useless. But no-one is willing to give him Runner Beans. So Mellinger must pull up his single Runner Bean field again, in order to create place for the new beans he has acquired.
In the next round farmers Logesch and Strunz compete to win the eye bean from Farmer Mietzberger. Finally Strunz makes the better offer and the eye bean is planted in his field, while Mietzberger gets 2 soy bean fields out of the deal. Sowing and harvesting continues all day up until the red sunset in the sky. The piles of bean saplings becomes ever smaller and heralds the end of the competition.
Now for the final judging. The winner is presented with the Golden Bean. The other contenders can only hope for a better harvest next year…