Money Making

Even though I got hold of Acquire just this past decade, this is a game that was actually first published in the early 1960's [Wikipedia].  Surprising, at least for me, because it came before Dungeons & Dragons which I refer to when drawing the line between classic games (such as Monopoly, Cluedo, Risk, and Scrabble) and the modern ones (most of the games I will discuss in this blog).  I assumed that the majority of classic games would have penetrated the local household, particularly the middle class household who were willing to try these foreign mass market games.  Most of our generation (80's babies) were aware of Monopoly and Cluedo by the time we reached high school, at the latest.  This was years before Hobbes and Landes and The Gaming Library and any of the various movements to promote tabletop gaming to Filipino homes.

So who has heard of Acquire?

Let's put that aside for now and get on with describing the game.  Judging by how they look, Acquire and Monopoly have a few similarities.  Both have play money, cards that represent holdings, and boards, but these components are very, very different in actual features.  Acquire is a deeply involved game.  Monopoly has nothing to do with investing, but rather a game of waiting for opponents to fall in your financial bear trap of properties.  Acquire is heavily strategic.  Monopoly is random and makes you feel bad after losing all your fake money after a bad dice roll.

Now, I'm not totally bashing Monopoly.  I have a few good memories with the game.  However, it teaches a lot of nonsense, especially to kids who have yet to understand how money works.  It is about spending on whatever "property" fate brings your way because of a dice roll, and taking money from others who are "unlucky" to have landed on one of your properties.  That's not even how rents work!  But anyway, this is a game that breeds a negative experience about money and the concept of being wealthy, even if we're just talking about play money.

Acquire, on the other hand, provides an incremental experience with money.  This is a game about corporations and controlling shares of these corporations.  The growth and decline of corporations are decided by the players, but in an abstracted way.  The real meat and source of competition lies in the acquisition of stock certificates.  Corporations in the game are not wholly under a single player's control.  Most of the time, two or more players own a corporation holding a varying number of shares.  The game is won by having the most money in the end.  In the end, unless you arrogantly just sat on the stocks of eliminated corporations, you will most likely have a lot of (play) money to count.

Each player starts with some money and six tiles.  These tiles are the abstract representation of what I could surmise as business growth.  Corporations grow larger as you add more tiles connecting to them.  You place these tiles on the board, wherein the name of the tile (I mean the label represented by a number and letter, e.g. 1A) must match its position on the board where you place it.  

So each turn, you must play one tile.  You may play a tile that will connect to a corporation (if any), which will cause the value of its stock certificates to rise.  You may also play a tile that does not connect to anything.  This is an orphan tile.  Or you may also play a tile next to an orphan tile, causing the birth of a new corporation.

Then, you buy stocks from existing corporations.  The price of each stock certificate depends on the size (number of tiles connected) of the corporation, and you will see the values in an information sheet.  There are certain limits, though.  First, you may only buy up to three stocks each turn, forcing you to analyze immediately with multiple corporations in play which has the most value for you.  Second, each corporation only has 25 stocks available, making it a race between players vying for the most shares of one corporation.

Before you end your turn, you draw back up to six tiles.

An interesting (and common) behavior between corporations is the merger.  When a tile connects a small corporation to a large corporation, the small corporation is removed --acquired by the larger corporation.  The stocks of the small corporation that is owned by the players can be liquidated, traded for the acquiring corporation's stocks (2-to-1), or kept in hopes that the removed corporation will be revived later in the game.  The majority and minority (first and second largest) stock holders of that removed corporation also gets financial compensation in the process.  In fact, mergers are very exciting whenever they occur.

The game ends when all corporations are safe, meaning their sizes prevent other corporations to acquire them.  At this point, the players count their cash-on-hand, if any, and the total value of their owned stocks.  The player with the most money wins.

As you can see, Acquire is relatively easy to take up with just a few general rules: play tiles and buy stocks.  But it can, in fact, turn into a very heady game.  It is rare to play the game without feeling a bit competitive somewhere along the way.  Speculating which corporations will stay long and which will get acquired quickly compels the player to make important decisions each turn, and thus can sometimes slow him or her down.  The interaction and depth of play might be its greatest achievement (a bit similar to Chess with regard to rules complexity in relation to strategic depth).  It may also be its discouraging factor for a light-heart fun, which excludes it from mass market games like Monopoly.  Even if the ease of entry qualifies it with the classics, the seriousness of the game may scare away some.  However, like many games, multiple plays will help these decision-making skills second nature.

Still, if you like light, mindless (in a positive way), or casual games, Acquire is a game you might want to get into with some mental preparation.  Otherwise, play it as soon as you can, because this is one experience that will open your mind, and a good way to teach some truth about money.

Board Game Geek entry for Acquire: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5/acquire

Photos 2 and 3 courtesy of Marye.