acquire

Acquire
The Hasbro/Avalon Hill version of Acquire
Designer:	Sid Sackson
Publisher:	Various
Players:	2-6
Age range:	12+
Setup time:	5 minutes
Playing time:	90 minutes
Skills required:	Tile laying, resource management
BoardGameGeek entry

Acquire is a board game designed by Sid Sackson. The game was originally published in 1962 by 3M as a part of their bookshelf games series. In the most versions, the theme of the game was investing in hotel chains. In the most recent edition, published by Hasbro, the hotel chains are replaced by generic corporations, though the actual gameplay is unchanged.

Contents

• The game board, a rectangular array with twelve columns labeled 1 to 12 and nine rows labeled from A to I. Each of the 108 spaces on the board will hold one tile.
• 108 wooden tiles (later versions having plastic), one for each space of the board. Each tile has its location such as 7A or 1H printed on one side; that is the only location in which the tile may be played. Each tile represents a hotel, and adjacent tiles represent hotel chains. (In some German editions of the game, the spaces on the board are represented by cards; generic buildings are placed on the board when spaces are claimed.)
• Seven markers for hotel chains: two indicating relatively cheap chains, two indicating relatively expensive chains, and three indicating medium cost chains.
• Twenty-five shares of stock for each of the seven hotel chains.
• A supply of play money.
• Racks in which the players hold the tiles they have drawn (not present in most editions).

Rules

For two to six players. Standard tournament games are played with four.

The game starts with one tile per player picked randomly and placed in their locations. This doubles as a convenient way to determine which player goes first: each player draws one of the tiles for the initial setup, and the player with the lowest-numbered tile goes first.

Each player begins the game with $6000 in cash and six tiles picked at random for their starting racks. On each turn of the game, the player whose turn it is

1. must play one tile
2. must deal with the merger or founding of a new company if one results
3. may buy stock
4. must draw one tile

Whenever a player places a tile horizontally or vertically adjacent to a tile which is not already part of a hotel chain, that player has the option of founding a new hotel chain, unless all seven hotel chains are already in play, in which case that tile becomes temporarily unplayable. The player may choose to found any chain not already in play, and receives one share of stock in the new chain at no charge.

Each player may, after playing a tile on his turn, purchase up to three shares of stock in existing hotel chains. Only the player whose turn it is may buy stock.

When a new tile is placed adjacent to an existing hotel chain, the chain becomes larger and its stock increases in value and price. When a new tile is placed adjacent to tiles from two or more different chains, those chains merge into a single hotel chain, with the largest chain taking over. If there is a tie for the largest chain, the player placing the merging tile chooses which of those will take over.

When a hotel chain is merged out of existence, the players with the most and second-most shares receive cash bonuses. Then each player decides what to do with their shares in the now-defunct chain. They may:

1. Trade them in for cash at face value
2. Trade them in at a ratio of two to one for shares of the chain that took over
3. Keep the shares in the hopes that the hotel chain will be founded again later.

Hotel chains with eleven or more tiles are deemed too big to be merged out. A tile which would connect two chains of eleven or more is unplayable, and may be placed face-down in its location at any time in exchange for a fresh tile. The game ends when one hotel chain reaches forty-one tiles, or when all chains are too large to merge. At the end of the game, all hotel chains pay bonuses to the largest shareholders as if they were being merged out, and all shares of stock are cashed in for face value. The richest player wins.

Variants

• Some players play with all information (except the tiles held by players) open at all times, while others play that the cash and stock holdings of players are kept secret. The inventor said that his original intent was for holdings to be hidden, but that either open or secret was acceptable; the last version published during his life (the 1999 Hasbro edition) explicitly states that the players should mutually decide before beginning, but the default is secret. Various versions of the rules indicate which method is to be used. Some editions used an intermediate rule, where player stock holdings are placed in separate piles before them, so that it is clear who is invested in each chain, but not how much.

Unofficial Variants

• There is also a variant of the game in which play is simultaneous, instead of players taking turns. For each phase of a turn, the players prepare their moves and then announce them when everyone is ready. If players try to make moves that conflict with each other (such as two people trying to buy stock in the same chain when only one share is available), they must bid cash to decide the outcome. This variant tends to be faster-paced and less predictable than the standard rules.
• One variant is to begin play with all tiles, except the ones the players have on hand, placed out on the board in their proper places, but placed upside down. The player then picks freely any one of these tiles at the end of his turn. This decreases the element of luck in game play.
• A nice touch is to grant a player who just created a new chain a one-time opportunity to buy four shares of that chain instead of three (no shares of other chains may be bought). This makes for an extra incentive to start a new chain.
• Four players score as two teams of two. Although the strategy is quite different, rules and procedures are identical to normal variant except that 1st and 3rd players combine their wealth at the end, as do 2nd and 4th players. Discussion or revealing tiles between partners is prohibited but, as in contract bridge, plays may have conventional meanings if disclosed to opponents. By one such convention, founding Continental or American (when alternative exists) suggests that founder has a merger tile for that chain.
• Adding a "bonus" of $1000 for playing a merging tile can improve the desirability of merging, and provide a way out for players who are stuck with no cash and no stock which can be sold in a merge.
• A player has the ability to buy or sell any 3 stocks in a turn. This provides the player with an alternative way of generating cash flow, instead of playing a tile that may provide them with a small amount of money but larger amounts for their opponents. It also allows for short term investments to be made in hotel chains that grow from size 2 to size 6 (i.e. before the sizing ranges, such as 6-10 and 10-20, come in to effect and slow down the growth in the shares). Furthermore, since shares can now be sold, a majority shareholding is only guaranteed when 13 shares are owned by the one player.

Awards

GAMES magazine has inducted Acquire into their buyers' guide Hall of Fame.

External links

• Acquire homepage at Wizards of the Coast
• Sid Sackson's Acquire homepage
• Acquire at BoardGameGeek

Online Variants

• NetAcquire - Free Windows software that lets one play online with others
• Mergers - A free browser-based, play-by-email, Acquire-based game at GamesByEmail.com. 100% AJAX, no flash or installs required.
• Get Hostile - A real-time online implementation of Acquire playable in your browser

Electronic Versions

• Acquire - Acquire for the Gameboy Advance that was never published

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