Game Design Showdown June 2006: "Growing Season"

Entry #1 - Fierce Farmers Fight For Farmland
by seo

(2-4 players)

Crop Rotation helps controlling diseases in the crops and building up the organic matter and soil nutrients that certain plants use. By following the Root-Legume-Leaf cycle, you’ll get the best performance from each gardening bed, spending a minimum on Nitrogen and Fertilizers. Ideally, every year (turn) the crops rotate in the same direction, helping to keep your soil makeup balanced. The concept is very simple!
But rival farmers are out there, looking for a chance to infest your crops, get an advantage, and hopefully steal some land from you.

Game end and winner
Game ends when the End of Game counter is drawn from the bag. Player controlling most gardening beds wins. Ties are solved based on amount of Water-reservoirs, then Gold.

Components
6x6 square grid board
144 player token (36x4 colors)
144 Water (dark blue) token
144 Nitrogen (white) token
144 Fertilizer (black) token
Crop counters (Root, Legume, Leaf)
Bag with assorted set of counters (Vegetable requests, Crop seeds, Nitrogen and Fertilizer offerings, Water-reservoirs, Plagues, Pesticides, one End-of-Game)
Rain-deciding cards (one set with values –1, 0, 1 per player)
Game-gold

Crop Rotation
Each crop has different needs, and leave or take nutrients on the bed it is grown, as shown bellow:

If the ideal cycle is followed, no extra nutrients are required, only water.

Set-up
Water, Nitrogen and Fertilizer markers are distributed on the board, according to the values on each gardening bed (cell).
Each player takes 10 gold, 1 Water-reservoir (value 10), and 5 random counters (to determine his starting crops, nutrients, pesticides, plagues; water-reservoirs and vegetable requests are returned to the bag).
Each reserves 5 beds (placing player markers): 4 for sow, 1 for the Water-reservoir.
End-of-Game counter is kept out of the bag for the first two years (turns).

Game Play
Turns represent one-year cycles, with several seasons:

1) Sowing
Each player seeds his beds placing one crop counter. Bed nutrients must match Crop needs. Nutrients can be added to the bed to achieve this. Player counters are removed from unsown beds. Players can then seed any free beds they have seeds for. Sown beds can be protected from plagues by placing Pesticides counters on them.

2) Growing
Players play their Plague counters against any rival crop matching the plague. The crop is lost.
Each player selects one Rain-deciding card to play, face down. All cards are played at a time, and values added to determine the amount of rain or draught (same for all beds). Water counters are then added or removed from each bed. Players can then irrigate the beds around their Water-reservoirs. Water-reservoirs produce as many Water tokens per turn as stated on the counter.

3) Harvesting
Sown beds: Crops in beds with the right amounts of nutrients and water are harvested and kept by the players for commerce, the rest is returned to the reserve and considered a failed crop. On both cases the nutrient and water tokens on the bed are left as indicated by the type of crop. Excess of water ruins the crop as much as lack of it.
Unsown beds: One counter of Nitrogen, Fertilizer and Water is added or removed per turn, until there are 2 of each (thus unused beds will tend to be ideal for root-crops).

4) Commerce
Each player receives 5 random counters from the bag (direct business), and 5 are drawn and placed face up on the table for the auction.

There are different counters:

Vegetable requests – State an amount of certain requested crop (4 leaf, 2 root, etc.) Offerings (Crop-seeds, Nitrogen, Fertilizer, Plagues, Pesticides) – State an amount of a offered product (3 root seeds, 2 units of Nitrogen, 1 unit of Pesticide for Legumes, etc.)
Water-reservoirs – State the amount of water units the reservoir can provide per turn
End-of-Game – Determines the immediate end of the game

Direct Business
Vegetable requests can be fully or partially fulfilled, at 1 gold per crop sold. Counters are returned to the bag.
Offerings can be partially or fully accepted, at 1 gold per item acquired. The player receives the corresponding crop or nutrient tokens and return the counters to the bag. Plague and Pesticide counters are kept to be played during future sowing and growing seasons.
Water-reservoirs can be bought for 1 gold per unit water on reservoir. The reservoir is placed on any of the player’s current beds, and remains there until game-end.

Auction
Vegetable requests: players bid to fully fulfil the requests. Lower bidder delivers the vegetables and receives the gold from the bank. Toss a coin to decide ties.
Offerings and Water-reservoirs: players bid to buy offerings in full. Higher bidder pays gold to the bank and receives the corresponding tokens or counters.

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Entry #3 - Seeds of War
by Ska_barron

(2-4 players / 45-75 minutes)

Even the monster hoards of Lobar need a balanced diet to fight. But the Farmer Overlords have used the hellish minerals in the soil to twist their crops into fighting terrors. Yes, an unholy agrarian war has broken out and it’s up to each player to assert their crop’s dominance!

COMPONENTS:
1 Gameboard (hex squares divided into 4 fields, each with Barn bases at corner)

40 mineral tokens each:
Blue (Sulfur)
Red (Magma)
Green (Full Moon Zinc)
Black (Carrion)
Clear (Nitrogen)

25 crop troop tokens each:
Blue (Garlicgoyles)
Red (Cave Trollmatoes)
Green Weremelons)
Black (Zombie Zucchini)

30 Action cards
30 Almanac Prediction cards

35 VP tokens

SETUP:
Bidding: To determine which major crop a player gets, they bid minerals out of their starting pool of 20 major minerals. The Starting Player places a bid on any crop and the other players follow. Each bid must be placed on a different crop unless their bid is higher. After all have placed, if a player has been outbid he must chose a different crop to bid on. This continues until all players have selected a major crop. (Think Amun-Re)
Ex: Player 1 wants to control Weremelons (who wouldn’t, really?) and bids 5 minerals. No one bids against him. He is now the Weremelon player. This does’t mean that he cannot grow other crop troops, only that his MAJOR crop is Weremelons, while the other 3 are his MINOR crops.

Minerals: Each player’s field starts with 20 (minus your bid) of whatever crop you bid on. This is your major crop. Additionally, each player starts with 5 minor mineral tokens.

Placement: Each player gets 3 Lieutenants which are placed 1 at a time (starting with lowest bidder and going clockwise) until all are placed. They must be placed at least 1 hex from an opponent’s field. Then place 3 major crop troops and 1 of each minor crop troop in any distribution on the same hex as a Lieutenant.

CROP TROOPS:
All units have special powers that may be used once per battle per hex by spending 1 of any mineral.

Garlicgoyles – 1 Attack, 1 Defense, 2 Movement, 1 HP, Power: +1 Movement
Cave Trollmatoes – 1 Attack, 1 Defense, 1 Movement, 2 HP, Power: Regenerate 1 HP
Weremelons – 2 Attack, 1 Defense, 1 Movement, 1 HP, Power: +1 Attack
Zombie Zucchini – 1 Attack, 2 Defense, 1 Movement, 1 HP, Power: When killed, resurrect at your Barn base.
Lieutenant Farmers – 0 Attack, 0 Defense, 1 Movement, 1 HP, Power: Allow you to place troops onto the board. If killed, you cannot replace.

TURN OVERVIEW:
1- SPROUT – Crop troops start out face down, indicating they are sprouts. Sprouts have 0 Attack, Defense, and Movement, and 1 HP. These are crop troops that you planted last turn during the Plant phase.

2- PLANT – To grow a new crop troop you must expend 2 minerals of the same color as the troop for a major crop troop, and 3 for a minor (Ex: The Trollmatoe player could pay 2 Magma for a Trollmatoe or 3 Sulfur for a Garlicgoyle). When spending, you take the minerals from your field’s pool of available minerals and give 1 mineral to each player in a clockwise fashion (skipping yourself) until all are doled out. If your farmer is moved into another player’s field then you reduce that player’s minerals accordingly and redistributing them in the same way (without skipping yourself). You may not grow more troops in this way than the number of farmers you currently control. Nitrogen (clear) is can be used as a wild to substitute any mineral.

3- MOVE – Each crop troop can move up to it’s maximum Movement across hexes.

4- ATTACK – Player must move troops into a hex with opposing troops to attack. Attacking player totals his Attack values and the defending player totals his Defense values. Play any Action cards, starting with defender until both pass. Compare totals. Smaller number loses the difference in HP. Unless the attacker kills all opposing troops, attacker must return to the hex from which it attacked.

5- RESOURSE – for every 3 hexes you control, gain 1 major mineral.

6- DRAW –may discard 1 Action/Almanac Prediction card; draw back up to 3 each (total in hand: 6)

ACTION CARDS:
Cards like Drought, Pesticides, Mineral Deposits, and Stunted Growth add attacking bonuses, surprise troops, and additional minerals at crucial moments.

ALMANAC PREDICTION CARDS:
Fulfilling almanac predictions will yield you VP throughout the game.
Ex: Win a battle where 3 Weremelon die – 1 VP
Have the highest count in two minerals. Reveal only if this would be your final VP – 1 VP

WINNING:
First with 8 VP wins.
5 VP for entering an opponent’s Barn base (moving onto it with no opposing troops)

Entry #5 - Plant, you bastard!
by filwi

Overview:
In Plant, you bastard! players take the role of rival tenant farmers vying for their landlords favor, by planting and harvesting the most crops.

Pieces:
The game takes place on a rectangular grid, such as a chessboard. For two players the grid is 5 x 5 squares, for three players 6 x 6 squares and for four players 7 x 7 squares.
Each player draws markers to represent his house and six types of fields. These are:

<br />
Type	Abbreviation	Number<br />
                                 per player<br />
Farm		F		 1<br />
Corn		C		 3<br />
Wheat		W		3<br />
Rye 		 R		 3<br />
Beets	 	 B		 3<br />
Potatoes	B		3<br />
Sheep 		S		2<br />
(fallow field)<br />

Gameplay:
The game begins with each player, in counterclockwise order, placing his farm on an empty grid square. (In a two player game no farm may be placed on the middle grid square.) Then play begins with the last player to lay out his farm and continues in a clockwise order so that the player who placed farm first starts placing fields last.

During his turn each player must place a single field on a legal grid square. Players may not pass their turns.

The game ends once a player can not place a field.

Field placement:
Fields may be placed on any square on the board with the following restrictions:
• Large fields made up of the same crop are vulnerable to pests. Therefore fields of the same type may not be placed adjacent to each other. For example: a wheat field may not be placed in any of the eight grid squares surrounding an already placed wheat field.
• Large fields made up of similar crops (tubers, that is beets and potatoes or grains, that is wheat and rye) are slightly vulnerable to pests. Therefore fields of similar types may not be placed so they share a side, but may touch at corners. For example: A beet field may be placed in squares A,B,C or D but not in squares 1, 2, 3 or 4.

Admin NOTE: An image will be added here once I get a version of the image that I can view.

• For higher yields crops are rotated. Therefore fields may be placed on top of other fields, own or belonging to an opposing player, as long as they follow the following rotation scheme:
o Tubers (beets and potatoes) may replace corn.
o Grains (wheat and rye) may replace tubers.
o Corn may replace grains.
• Sheep are hardy animals that thrive all over the world. Therefore sheep fields may be placed anywhere on the board with no restrictions, including adjacent to or replacing other sheep fields.
• Obviously no field may replace a farm.

Scoring points
Only fields which can trace a route through orthogonally adjacent own or empty grids to the player's farmhouse at the end of the game score any points. Routes are traced across sides, fields that touch each other corner to corner do not count as adjacent for scoring purposes.

Only crop fields score points, with root vegetables and grains scoring one point while corn scores two points.
Sheep taste funny. Thus they are worthless on the open market and score no points, but they still count for tracing or blocking routes.

Winning
The player with the most points wins. In the case of a tie the player with the most corn on the board wins. If that is still a tie the player with fewest sheep on the board wins. If it is still a tie then the game is tied and all farmers get to stay on for another generation of disgruntled peons.

Entry #7 - The Wheat and the Weeds
by Horoku
Please Note: Word Count - 1024

(for 4 players)

Components
1 game board with 180 hexagonal spaces
70 hex tiles for each crop (wheat, oats, corn and soy)
1 deck action cards
1 weed patch (3 hexes together)
20 weed tiles
4 crop description cards (one 4 each crop)
pencil/paper

The Crops
The Crops are played the same way but have different characteristics. These are Seeds, Growth, Resistance and Score.

Seeds are the only way to start growing your crop. Tiles of your crop must be connected; directly or through adjacent tiles to a seed of your crop. The collection of tiles connected to your seeds is called your Field.

Growth defines how many of your crop's tiles you may place on your turn. For example, soy has a growth of 3, so on your turn, if you grow, you may place up to 3 soy tiles on the board.

Resistance defines how difficult it is for tiles to be "overgrown" (see Overgrowth section).

Score defines the points you score for each tile at the end of each round. There is also a bonus for surpassing a certain threshold of tiles on the board. For example, a +1 bonus means you score 1 additional point for each tile.

Soy
Seeds 1
Growth 3
Resistance 2
Score 2
Bonus- place 50 tiles = +1
- place 60 tiles = +2
- all tiles = +3

Corn
Seeds 2
Growth 2
Resistance 2
Score 3
Bonus- place 40 tiles = +1
- place 50 tiles = +2
- place 60 tiles = +3

Oats
Seeds 3
Growth 1
Resistance 3
Score 4
Bonus- place 35 tiles = +1
- place 45 tiles = +2
- place 55 tiles = +3

Wheat
Seeds 3
Growth 1
Resistance 4
Score 5
Bonus - place 25 tiles = +1
- place 30 tiles = +2
- place 35 tiles = +3

Gameplay
The game begins with each player selecting one of the 4 crops. They are: Wheat, Oats, Corn and Soy. The owner of the game picks first, followed by the player to his left...etc. After crops are selected, the first player to select a crop begins by taking ONE of the following actions:
1) Place seed/crop tiles
2) Take action card
3) Play action card
A seed must always be the first tile placed(once placing tiles has been chosen), the first seed must be placed in the corner nearest the player. After an action is taken, the player to the left then does the same, and so on. This continues until the board is filled, at which point each player in turn gets a final chance to play a card, and the round ends. Players score their fields, adding any bonuses. Now crops rotate. Each player removes his tiles from the board and passes them and the info card to the left. The next round then begins with the player who ended the previous round. Rounds are played until every player has played one round with each type of crop. The highest total score from all rounds wins the game. In case of a tie, congrats to the winners!
Overgrowth
The main way to obtain territory already occupied is to "overgrow" your opponent's tiles. This is done by surrounding the tile with other tiles of your own crop. In order to overgrow a tile, you must place enough tiles to match or exceed the defending crop's resistance. Example: If wheat player wants to overgrow a soy tile, the wheat player must have at least 2 tiles adjacent to the soy tile. As soon as the tile that matches/exceeds the soy resistance is placed, the wheat player immediately places a wheat tile on top of the soy tile.The soy player does not recieve the tile back, neither can he count the tile for anything at the end of the round.

Note: Overgrowth is ACTIVE, meaning that it only takes place when something happens, like a tile being placed. Overgrowth does NOT take place if a tile is surrounded by a majority of the same type tile. Example: If the soy tile had been surrounded by 4 other soy tiles, and 2 wheat tiles, no overgrowth would take place. Three tiles only counts as a majority if more than one type of tile surrounds a tile. Example: If the soy tile had 3 soy tiles and 2 wheat tiles around it, it would be overgrown. If, however, it was surrrounded by 2 wheat, 3 soy and 1 corn, it would not be overgrown. A tile may never be placed into a spot where it could be instantly overgrown. Example: A corn tile could never be placed adjacent to 2 wheat tiles, unless bordered by 3 or more corn tiles.

The Weed Patch
The weed patch moves via cards in the action deck. It is a patch of three hexes placed anywhere on the board where it would not be instantly overgrown. Part of the weed patch MAY be placed on top another player's tile(s) as an instant overgrowth provided that it is not surrounded. The weed patch has the following stats:
Growth 1
Resistance Special
Score Negative Multiplier
When the player who placed the weed patch takes his turn, he may opt to grow a weed tile INSTEAD of his own crop. Weed tiles don't have the ability to cover other tiles. The weed patch may only be overgrown when it is COMPLETELY SURROUNDED by tiles. Once overgrown, the patch is removed from the board, AND also all tiles that were underneath it. If not surrounded or removed until the end of a round, negative scoring takes place. The weed patch scores -3 per space multiplied by the number of different players that it is covering. Example: If wheat and corn are covered at the end of a round, they each lose 6 points per space of theirs that the weed patch covered.
Cards
Cards are varied including but not limited to:
"Place_the_weed_patch"- self explanatory
"Remove_the_weed_patch"-ditto
"Dope_dealer"- weed has no negative affect on your score this round
"Fertilizer"- grow an extra tile this turn
"Sabotage"- remove another player's tile this turn, you cannot grow next turn

Entry #9 - You Reap What You(and others) Sow
by DanogNellows

Overview:
A game for 5 players. Each player is a grower of a particular type of crop.
In this region of the world crop rotation is a must. After a crop has been harvested,
a different type of crop must take it's place. The agricultural board has determined
which crops perform best after certain crops are grown, so they have set guidelines
that must be abided by. Players score by harvesting crops and by having the most
crops at the end of the game.

Components:
50 beans of each color of crop. (i.e. red beans = tomatoes,etc)
5 black beans(beetle larva)
10 each colored cups matching the variety of beans.
1 BIG bag to hold all the beans.
1 5x5 grid board.

Setup: Players take all the cups in their crops color. Players then randomly place
5 cups each on the farming area. There is no advantage to any position.
Place multicolored bean off to side for now.
Randomly select 5 beans from bag and set them in front of bag. Randomly
select one player to go first.

Crop Rotation Chart:

For example. After the player that controls the blueberry crops harvests one of his crops, the only two possible crops to plant there next are: tomatoes and collards.

Gameplay: On a player's turn he may do one of the following actions:
1.collect 2 beans- he either may take 2 beans from the visible beans or
2 randomly from the bag. Or a combination of the two.
2.Plant beans- Player may plant any number of beans in any number of cups.
The cups can belong to any player (including himself).
3.Harvest- Player may harvest one of his crops. (see harvesting)

Harvesting- Player chooses a cup to be harvested. Player dumps contents out in front
of him. Scores harvest accordingly. Determine next crop to be planted. Do this
based on 1) The majority of one of the two beans(crops) that are eligible to
be planted next or 2) if a tie or no qualifying beans, the harvester chooses between
the two eligible crops.
The owner of the chosen crop places one of his cups on that spot.
Place harvested beans and also the qualifying beans(if any present) off to side. The two
other types of beans(if any present) go into the incoming crop owner's cup.

Beetle Larva- Can be placed like normal bean. When harvested though the crops are ruined!
Score nothing for those crops. Player affected puts black bean as part of his beans
that may be played later. If 2 black beans are in one harvest that plot of land is
infested and unusable for rest of game. Remove player's cup and remove black beans
from game.

Multicolored Bean- When drawn game ends immediately. Once the bag has been exhausted of all beans, place all beans that have been set aside(harvested) into the bag, this time also putting the multicolored bean in the bag also.

Scoring: Must have at least 5 beans of any type in cup to score. Score is based on purity of crops.
Current crop beans > than other type beans score 2 pts.
Current crop beans <= other type beans score 1 pt.
Current crop beans double the total of other type beans score 4pts.
If no other type beans present at all score 10pts!

Winning: Once the multicolored bean has been drawn. Add scores up. Farmer who has
the most farms on the board gets a 25 pt bonus. If there are ties divide evenly
rounding down. Player with most points wins.

Entry #11 - Farm Feud
by Gamebot

2 Players

Description
Two frontiersmen come across the same stretch of terrain and both want to claim it as their own. They race to fence off and cultivate their land while trying to make each other’s life more difficult.

Object of the Game
The object of the game is to prevent your opponent from being able to move by claiming and taking over land.

Components
• 1 Game Board (7x7 Tiled)
• 48 Double-sided Land Tiles (Player 1, Player 2)
• 48 Double-sided Ditch Tiles (Empty, Water-filled)
• 48 Barren Tiles
• 192 Tomato Cubes
• 144 Corn Cubes
• 96 Lettuce Cubes
• 2 Farmer Pawns
• 2 Horse Pawns
• 2 Barn Tokens
• 2 Windmill Tokens
• 10 Rifle Tokens
• 10 Shovel Tokens
• 30 Movement Cards (Numbered 1-5)
• 30 Coins

Setup
1. Put each player’s farmer on the center space of the board.
2. Shuffle the movement cards and deal three to each player.
3. Randomly determine the starting player.

Turn Summary
Each turn the active player may do any or all the following in any order:
• The active player may make one movement.
• The active player may purchase items or buildings.
• The active player may use a shovel or rifle.

Movement
To move, the active player plays one movement card and moves his farmer that many spaces. He then draws a new card.

Movement works as follows:
• The farmer can only be moved to adjacent land.
• Backtracking is not allowed.
• The farmer can only be moved through unsettled land or land that the active player owns.
• The farmer can never be moved through land with a ditch or land that the opponent owns.

After the movement is complete, one of the following happens:
• If the farmer ends up on an unsettled land, he claims it by placing a tile matching his color on the land.
• If the farmer ends up on a land that the active player already owns (and is not barren), he plants a crop on the land.

Planting Crops
• If there is no crop being grown, add a cube of any type to the land.
• If a crop is already being grown, add a cube of that type to the land.
• When the second lettuce cube is added, collect 1 coin. The lettuce is done being grown. The cubes remain and no more lettuce cubes can be added to that land.
• When the third corn cube is added, collect 2 coins. The corn is done being grown. The cubes remain and no more corn cubes can be added to that land.
• When the fourth tomato cube is added, collect 3 coins. The tomato is done being grown. The cubes remain and no more tomato cubes can be added to that land.
• When a land can no longer take cubes, remove all cubes and add a barren tile to it.

Purchasing Items and Buildings
The following items and buildings may be purchased for 5 coins each:
• Barn – A barn can only be purchased when the player’s farmer is on his barren land and he does not already own a barn. The barn allows the player to purchase a horse. If a player loses his barn, he loses his horse.
• Windmill – A windmill can only be purchased when the player’s farmer is on his barren land and he does not already own a windmill. The windmill allows the player to flip all of his ditch tokens to the water-filled side. Water-filled ditches double the number of cubes added on all eight land surrounding it, and removes any barren tokens from them. If a player loses his windmill, then all ditches are reverted back to the empty ditch side.
• Horse – A horse can only be purchased if the player owns a barn. The horse allows a player to move diagonally.
• Rifle – The rifle allows the player to gain control of any land owned by an opponent adjacent to your player’s farmer. If the land contains a barn or windmill, instead of taking control, the barn or windmill is removed.
• Shovel - The shovel allows the player to place or remove a ditch token on any land adjacent to his farmer. You cannot place a ditch on a land with a player, barn, or windmill.

Game End
The game ends when one of the following happens:
• When a player cannot play a movement card and move the required spaces, he loses.
• When a player uses a rifle on a land with his opponent’s farmer, he wins.

Entry #13 - Hick’onomics
by clapjaws

For 3-5 players

Object
In the hill country folks strive to make ends meet any way they can. Some try the lucrative, but risky, venture of moonshining, using local ‘crops’.

Components:

Land Grids: player-boards with a grid and a background showing hills and woods. Each board has a grid of 4 rows x 3 columns (12 plots), and a place for controlled market tokens.

Jugs of shine –a common pool of tokens

Market tokens - each market is represented by a small city token, which shows the value of that market.

Crop cards: There are 7 different crops, but you may only play 1 type of plant per row. Once planted, crops cannot be moved (until the Harvest). The first number indicates the value in the Spring, the second value is for Summer/Fall. Crops are: Peppergrass (1/1); Chicory (2/1); Rhubarb (2/0); Sassafras (2/1); Persimmon (1/2); Red Mulberry (0/3); Elderberry (0/2).

Bumper Crop cards: These increase the value of your crops.
“Extra Fertilizer (don’t ask)” – cards in row are +1;
“Decent Rain” – adjacent crop cards (not diagonal) are +1.

Messin’ cards: played on other folks’ land.
“Free!” (depicts a sign posted in a field) - At Harvest time, 1 crop card adjacent to a Free! Card must be discarded, as passersby have helped themselves*
“Hey, who moved that stump??” – one night you decided to “adjust” the property line with your neighbor. Any cards above or below this one come to you when Harvested.
“Sour Grapes” – puts a rotten plant in someone’s fields, decreasing the Harvest value by 2.
“Varmits” – critters eat the crop card above or below this card*

*The owner of the plot gets to decide which to discard at harvest time.

Busted! Cards – “Whatcha got there??” This card must be placed face up in front of you when drawn. At Distilling time, players must pay the amount shown in jugs to the local ‘authorities’, in order to stay in business. Once paid, such cards are discarded.

Game Sequence

The starting player is the one that looks most like a hillbilly (known as the “Hillbilly”). Shuffle the cards and deal out 5 to each player. The rest becomes the draw pile.

Spring Season:

Plant crops: Starting with the Hillbilly, and going in clockwise order, each player must plant, facedown, 1, 2, or 3 cards in their own plots, OR 1 card in a neighbor’s lands. In games with 4 or more players, you cannot plant cards in land that does not border yours – you just aint that sneaky. Repeat this until each player plants 4 times.

Harvest: Each player flips over their crops cards, and resolves any Messin’ cards that are in their lands. Use the first value on the crop cards when figuring this Harvest’s value. All planted cards must be Harvested.

Distill the Swill: For every 3 Harvest points, you get 1 jug token. All harvested cards are then discarded, whether or not they were used to collect a jug.

Markets: The Hillbilly selects one of the market tokens to bid on. All players determine their bid by placing a number of jugs in their closed hand. When all are ready, reveal them simultaneously. The player with the most jugs in hand gains control of the market token for that town, and places it on their player-board. That player then selects the next token for bid. Continue until all market tokens have been bid on once. When there is a tie for highest bid, the market stays unclaimed.

Players can control more than one market. Players do not have to bid at all on any particular market, but are encouraged to at least bluff.

Swap Meet
The Hillbilly starts off the Swap Meet by offering up a trade, if they desire. Players can freely wheel and deal as many times as they wish. Trades can include leftover jugs and/or crop cards. No Messin’ or Busted cards allowed!

Trades that have been accepted should be conducted on the table, with cards turned up, before any cards are placed in their new owner’s hand. Finish any current trade before starting a new one. Players are not required to trade, and are not required to reveal their cards if not involved. Once all trades are completed, the Hillbilly declares the Swap Meet closed, and begins the next season.

Summer/Fall Season: Follow the same steps as Spring Season above, but plant 6 times each. Remember to use the second number on the crop cards as the Harvest value. Market tokens currently owned by a player count as +2 to their bid in the second season. There is no Swap Meet after this season.

Final Scoring: Players tally up their Market share points. If there is a tie, the tied player with the most leftover jugs is the winner.

Entry #15 - Yugoslavia
by DavemanUK

The year is 1919 and the Yugoslavian farming system undergoes a land reform of nearly 2 million hectares. Players manage Peasant Work Cooperatives in efforts to consolidate their land holdings and generate profits through selling their crops.

Contents:
- 25 land tiles (distribution as: 7 Poor soil, 9 Average soil, 9 Rich soil)
- 25 crop counters (distribution as: 9 Wheat, 9 Potatoes, 7 Sugar-Beet)
- Player colour markers
- Cash

Aim
To have the most cash at the end of the game.

Setup
Arrange all the land tiles face down into a 5x5 grid then turn them all face up.
Put all the crop counters into a face down central pool and mix them up.
Give each player all their player colour markers and 10 cash (cash amounts are kept secret by each player until the end of the game).
Randomly decide the first active player.

Each Round of Play has three phases: Auctions, Plant Crops, and Income & Farming Fees.

Phase 1 - Auctions
The active player turns face up any two face down crop counters in the central pool.
The active player then secretly looks at 3 of the unclaimed land tiles that form a continuous orthogonal chain. He then chooses two of those tiles to be auctioned (resolving one after the other). Each auction is a ‘once around’ auction starting with the active player and moving clockwise. Each player may bid higher then the previous bidder or pass. Players may only bid with the cash they have available. If all players pass then the active player wins the auction for 0 cash. The highest bidding player in each of the auctions pays their bid to the bank, turns over the land tile they won and places one of their colour markers on it. The players who did not win either auction this round take one of the face up crop counters from the central pool and places it in front of them (priority goes to the player nearest clockwise from the active player for this round).

Phase 2 - Plant Crops
Starting from the active player, each player may place their crop counters face up onto land tiles they own with the following restrictions:

- Potatoes require Average or Rich soil land tiles
- Sugar-Beet requires Rich soil land tiles
- A crop counter may not be planted on a land tile that has a face down crop counter on it.

Each player then retrieves their face down crop counters, if any, from the land tiles and turns them face up again.

Phase 3 - Income & Farming Fees
Each player receives cash from the bank for each of their face up crop counters on land tiles as follows:

- Wheat = 2 cash
- Potatoes = 3 cash
- Sugar-Beet = 4 cash

Each player then pays back to the bank cash equal to the number of contiguous areas that they own (an area may be made up of any number of orthogonal adjacent land tiles that player owns). If a player does not have enough cash to pay these farming fees then they must sell their crop counters at 1 cash each until the fees are paid. A player may not go below 0 cash even after selling their crop counters.
Each player then turns their crop tiles face down on the land tiles.

End of Round
If there are at least 3 unclaimed land tiles that form a continuous orthogonal chain then the next player clockwise from the active player becomes the new active player and the next round begins. Otherwise, it is the end of the game and the player with the most cash in hand wins (ties broken on the number of crop counters owned).