Of all the games that I've been introduced to via BGG since I first joined in 2004, <PERSON> game ACQUIRE has been my favorite, and the game with the most staying power.
It's amazing that some numbered tiles, a corresponding board, stock cards and paper money can create this much tension and excitement.
You're never paralyzed with too many options in this game, but the decisions you do have to make at every turn are usually painful. Do you play this tile to bring your company closer to a merger, or that one to start a new chain? Do you buy stocks to increase dominance in one company or branch out into another one? After a merger, do you sell your stocks for liquid cash, hold onto them for future investments, or trade them in for dominance in the safe chain?
This game is a work of genius. In one design, <PERSON> created the modern tile-laying genre as we know it and invented the concept of majority-control , which is a staple of so many important games.
Let me tell you more about why I like Acquire.
Background
I admit that a lot of what drew me into euro-style games was the eye candy. A certain child-like wonder swelled up in me on seeing the photographs of the pastel camels in THROUGH THE DESERT, the wooden city in MEDINA, or the criss-crossing colorful trains in TICKET TO RIDE. I felt a little like that kid again, watching Saturday morning cartoons and ogling over ads for chrome-plated games like CROSSBOWS & CATAPAULTS and KEY TO THE KINGDOM. I wanted to play games again with that same tactile and visual wonder, but with grown-up strategy and depth under it all.
My reaction to the pictures of ACQUIRE's components were just the opposite. "What a dull looking game!" and "This looks like the kind of thing a teacher would make you play for 'edutainment' in accounting class!"
(Image by Flo711)
And yet, this made me more curious to play the game, not less. I figured there must be something substantive behind ACQUIRE if grown-up geeks rated the experience of staring at a board of black tiles with white lettering as one of the top 50 gaming experiences going. I promptly purchased a secondhand copy of the Avalon Hill edition on eBay.
Now, about that board. It's a 9 x 12 grid, essentially a big Bingo card with the columns marked with the letters A through I down, and the rows marked 1 through 12 across. There are 108 black tiles, and each one is marked to correspond with one slot on the board. (A-7, G-8, H-4, etc.) You throw these tiles into a bag and draw six as your hand.
Sackson's original rules state that the tiles on the board are supposed to represent "hotel chains." Let me tell you that is complete hogwash. They don't look like hotel chains, and it doesn't even make sense, thematically. 118
Do hotels automatically merge companies when they are built adjacent to one another? Uh, no . . . .
Instead, I've always seen the board in ACQUIRE to be an abstract representation of company status and the potential for events in the game.
Let me be more clear. During each player's turn, he has to play one and only one tile. When one tile is placed othogonally adjacent to another already on board, a Company is formed. The player decides which of 7 possible Companies the tile chain will become. A player's "reward" for founding the company is one share of that company's Stock.
The Companies are demarcated in the above photo by the colored chips placed on top of the black ones. The number of tiles directly connected to the Company determine the Company's size. Size determines the Stock price, and the value of the Bonus payouts that may happen.
After a player makes his obligatory tile placement, he has the option to buy up to three Stock of any currently extant company. For pricing, he refers to a small reference card each player has. One Stock of Luxor when it is a 2-tile company may be worth $200, or $300 if the chain becomes a 3-tile Company. One Stock of Continental is worth $400 as a 2-tile company, and $500 when it is a 3-tile company. It's all explained by the reference card.
Merger Bonuses as The Bomb
This is a good point to stop and point something out: ACQUIRE is NOT a stock market simulation! Despite the shared lingo, if you play as one would play the stock market, by simply trying to buy low and sell high, you will lose the game! That's a beginner's mistake... 349