Acquire rules and strategy guide

Goal of the game

You are an investor building hotel chains. The goal is simple: finish the game with more money than anyone else. Money comes from majority and minority bonuses when chains are absorbed, and from selling your shares. Owning hotels is not what counts; owning the right shares at the right time is.

Setup

• The board is a grid of 12 columns by 9 rows, with squares named from 1A to 12I. There is one tile for every square.
• Each player starts with $6,000 in cash and 6 tiles hidden from the others.
• There are seven hotel chains, each with a limited supply of shares in the bank (25 per chain in the original game):

• Luxor
• Tower
• American
• Festival
• Worldwide
• Continental
• Imperial

Luxor is red, Tower yellow, American blue, Festival green, Worldwide brown, Continental light blue and Imperial purple.

How a turn works

1. Place a tile from your hand on its matching square.
2. Resolve what the tile did: nothing, found a new chain, grow an existing chain or trigger a merger.
3. Buy up to 3 shares of any chains already on the board, in any combination, at their current price. Buying is optional.
4. Draw a tile so you are back to six.

A tile that touches nothing just sits on the board as a loose tile. Tiles only count as neighbors when they share a side, never diagonally.

Founding a chain

When you place a tile next to one or more loose tiles that do not belong to any chain, you found a new chain. You pick which of the available chains it will be, and you receive one free share of it as the founder’s reward (if the bank still has one). All connected loose tiles become part of that chain, so the smallest possible chain has 2 tiles.

Growing a chain

Placing a tile next to a single chain adds it to that chain, together with any loose tiles it connects. Bigger chains have more expensive shares, which is good news for whoever already owns them.

Share prices

A share’s price depends on two things: how many tiles the chain has and its tier. Luxor and Tower are the cheap chains, American, Festival and Worldwide are medium, and Continental and Imperial are expensive. The medium tier costs $100 more than the low tier at every size, and the high tier $200 more.

Bonuses are tied to that price: the majority bonus is 10 times the share price and the minority bonus is 5 times. For example, a Worldwide chain with 12 tiles has a share price of $800, so its majority bonus is $8,000 and its minority bonus $4,000.

Mergers

When a tile connects two or more chains, they merge.

• The largest chain survives and absorbs the others. If they are the same size, the player who placed the tile chooses which one survives.
• Bonuses are paid to the shareholders of each chain that disappears, based on its size just before the merger. The player with the most shares gets the majority bonus (10× price) and the second-largest shareholder gets the minority bonus (5× price).
• Ties are split. If two or more players tie for the majority, they share the majority and minority bonuses combined, and no separate minority is paid. If players tie for second place, they share the minority bonus. Shared bonuses are rounded up to the nearest $100.
• A single shareholder who is the only owner of a defunct chain collects both bonuses.

Then, starting with the player who placed the tile and going around the table, every holder of the defunct chain decides what to do with those shares, in any mix:

• Sell them to the bank at the defunct chain’s price.
• Trade them 2 for 1 for shares of the surviving chain, as long as the bank has them.
• Keep them, hoping the chain will be founded again later.

If a tile joins three or four chains at once, the largest survives and the others are handled one at a time, from biggest to smallest. After the merger is settled, the player who placed the tile continues the turn and may buy shares.

Safe chains

A chain with 11 or more tiles is safe. It can still grow and absorb smaller chains, but it can never be absorbed.

Unplayable tiles

• Dead tiles: a tile that would connect two safe chains can never be played, because safe chains cannot merge. Under the rules it is discarded and replaced with a new tile.
• Eighth chain: if all seven chains are already on the board, a tile that would found a new chain cannot be placed. You keep it until a chain disappears in a merger and a slot opens up.

End of the game

The game can be ended on a player’s turn when either condition is true:

• one chain has 41 or more tiles, or
• every chain on the board is safe (11 tiles or more).

At the end, majority and minority bonuses are paid for every chain still on the board, all shares are sold at their current price, and the player with the most money wins.

Strategy guide: 10 tips to win more games

1. Found chains early. The free share is worth more than it looks: it is a head start toward a majority, and small chains have the cheapest shares you will ever see.
2. Second place is often the better deal. When a rival clearly owns a chain, a few shares can lock in the minority bonus for a fraction of the cost of fighting for first.
3. Never run out of cash. A player with $0 can’t buy after a merger, which is exactly when the surviving chain is worth investing in. Keep a reserve, and sell defunct shares when you need liquidity.
4. Trigger mergers that pay you. If you lead a small chain and hold a tile that connects it to a bigger one, playing it turns shares into cash right now.
5. Be careful making a chain safe. Pushing a chain to 11 tiles ends any chance of cashing in through a merger. Only do it when you have the majority there, or when it protects your lead.
6. Trade 2 for 1 when the survivor is strong. If the surviving chain is expensive or likely to become the biggest on the board, trading keeps your money working. If it is already safe and a rival controls it, selling is usually better.
7. Track dead and blocked tiles. Look at which squares can no longer join chains. It tells you which chains can still grow, which can still be merged and which tiles opponents might be holding.
8. Don’t spread yourself thin. Two or three shares in every chain rarely wins a bonus. Pick your fights and concentrate.
9. Watch your rivals’ money. A player low on cash can’t defend a majority. That is the moment to buy into their chain.
10. Close the market at the right moment. When you can end the game and you are ahead after bonuses, do it. If you are behind, keep playing and look for one more profitable merger.

The fastest way to absorb these ideas is to play a few games with nothing at stake.

Practice against the computer