Acquire

Players: 2–6 players
Play time: 90 min
BGG rating: 7.4

In Acquire, each player strategically invests in businesses, trying to retain a majority of stock. As the businesses grow with tile placements, they also start merging, giving the majority stockholders of the acquired business sizable bonuses, which can then be used to reinvest into other chains. All of the investors in the acquired company can then cash in their stocks for current value or trade them 2-for-1 for shares of the newer, larger business. The game is a race to acquire the greatest wealth. History of Acquire: This Sid Sackson classic has taken many different forms over the years depending on the publisher, yet the rules and game play have stayed the same. The 1966 version of the 3M bookshelf edition included rules for a 2-player variant. The original version is part of the 3M Bookshelf Series. Many books and websites incorrectly list this as a 1962 publication as the 3M Company used previously copyrighted artwork when they released the game in 1964. 3M actually received the idea for the game of "Vacations" from Sid Sackson in May of 1963 and decided to take his idea and put it into artwork they had developed the year before for a game called "ACQUIRE." 3M's original game idea for a game called ACQUIRE must not have been very good so they decided to take Sid's idea of Vacations and put it into their concept of ACQUIRE. They released some limited test market games in 8 Midwestern U.S. cities in December of 1963 with a box that had a 1963 copyright. These games had Sid's original rules. When 3M released the mass market games in 1964, they had developed some of Sid's original ideas and changed some rules and game play to match their production desires. They released them with outer boxes that were copyrighted 1962 and inner boxes with rules that were dated 1963. December 1963 - Test Market World Map Wood Tile Edition 1964 - Dated 1962/63 wood tiles, chipboard with plastic overlay & stocks with printed backs 1965 - Dated 1962/63 plastic tiles, chipboard with plastic overlay & stocks with printed backs (last edition made with printed backs until 1999) 1966 - Dated 1962/66 plastic tiles, chipboard with plastic overlay & non-wax coated stocks (Only edition with these stocks) 1968 - Dated 1968/66 plastic tiles, clear plastic board with paper underlay (Both 1966 inner box games have a lot of mixed parts) 1971 - Dated 1968/71 plastic tiles, yellow hard plastic board 1975 - 3M sells rights for game of ACQUIRE to the Avalon Hill Company 1976 - Dated 1976 plastic tiles, yellow hard plastic board, redesigned money, no inner box (This edition was also produced in 1977, 79, 81, 82, & 86) 1989 - Dated 1976 Gray box edition with new box artwork same contents as regular 1976 editions (This edition was also produced in 1992) 1995 - Dated 1995 Large box cardboard edition with chipboard board and tiles, Special Powers Variant Tiles inspired by German editions 1997 - Avalon Hill sells the rights to the game of ACQUIRE to Hasbro 1999 - Dated 1999 Large box with large plastic board and tiles, 3D company buildings, redesigned stocks & money, large info cards 2006 - Hasbro assigns rights for the game of ACQUIRE to their subsidiary, Wizards of the Coast 2006 - Lloyd's (private) Rules of ACQUIRE are made public, two major rule changes that help to bring the balance of the game of ACQUIRE back to the intentions of Sid Sackson's original ideas. Lloyd Solon's Rules help players to correct poor strategy during the beginning of the game that can been seen with new and unexperienced players (running out of money soon is the main mistake that must be omitted!). 2008 - Dated 2008 cardboard edition with chipboard board & tiles, redesigned stocks & money 2016 - Dated 2016 The current affordable mass-market edition. It looks at first sight to be similar to previous modern editions, but has been criticised for the use of inferior design choices such as hard-to-read grey-on-grey embossed slots and the unusual tile fonts. It contains modified rules and a slightly smaller playing grid. Although these changes have been criticised for not ultimately improving upon Sackson's original design, they are generally regarded as not being too damaging to it. 2023 - Renegade Game Studio partners with Hasbro, and releases their new version, with Classic Mode or Tycoon Mode — play with or without tertiary stockholder merger bonus. 2024 - The Renegade 60th Anniversary edition includes a set of plastic weighted poker chips, and Special Powers Variant cards.

How to play

Setup, how a turn works and how the game ends, summarised from the rulebook by Eko, Meepzy's rules assistant.

To set up the game, place the gameboard in the center of all players (p. 4). Place the building tiles facedown next to the board and mix them well, then have each player draw six tiles to stand up in front of them in secret (p. 4).

Choose a player to be the banker to handle money and stocks, giving each player $6,000 in starting bills and one stockholder info card (p. 4). As a group, decide whether to use Classic Mode (bonuses paid to top two stockholders) or Tycoon Mode (top three), whether to keep money and stocks secret or displayed, and who goes first by playing tiles closest to space 1A (p. 4).

During your turn, you must perform the following three actions in order (p. 6):

Place a building tile from your hand onto its matching space on the gameboard (p. 6).
Buy up to three stocks in any active hotel chains from the stock market tray (p. 9).
Draw a new building tile from the facedown pile to end your turn (p. 10).

Placing a building tile can trigger several different board events:

Independent building: If placed with no adjacent tiles, nothing else happens (p. 6).
Found a hotel chain: If placed next to un-chained tiles, a new hotel chain is formed, and the player gets one free founder’s bonus stock card (p. 6, 11).
Make a chain larger: If placed next to an existing hotel chain, that chain grows by one tile (p. 7).
Merge hotel chains: If placed so it connects two or more hotel chains, a merger occurs where the smaller chain is absorbed by the larger one, triggering payouts and stock decisions (p. 8, 9).

The game ends when one player announces during their turn that either all active hotel chains are safe (having 11 or more building tiles) or that one active hotel chain has 41 or more building tiles (p. 14). After that player finishes their turn, the game ends immediately (p. 14).

At the end of the game, players do the following:

Pay out primary, secondary, and tertiary stockholder bonuses for all active hotel chains (p. 14).
Players sell all their stocks back to the bank based on the hotel chain's name and size (p. 14).
Each player adds up their money, and the player with the most money wins (p. 14).

This summary was written by Eko from the game's own rulebook. It covers the essentials, not every edge case. For a specific rule, ask Eko and get the page it came from, or open the manual in the Archive.