John Company: Second Edition FAQ
398 questions players ask · Updated Nov 7, 2026 · Full rulebook
Setup
- Where do the Company share victory point markers start in the 1813 scenario?
- Where do the loot/control tokens go during setup?
- How many setup cards are used at each player count, and are they all dealt out?
- How does the setup-card draft work?
- How do I build the London Season display at setup, and when are blackmail cards shuffled in?
- Does the 1813 scenario start with a Company ship in China, and how do storms treat it?
- Which turns does each scenario start and end on?
- What is different between the 1710 and the Long 1710 scenario?
- Where does the Prime Minister dial start?
- How do players get starting money and offices?
- What happens if the Crown is dealt a private firm setup card in 1813?
Components
I. The London Season
- What happens if the Company Fraud blackmail roll is larger than the Company Balance?
- Does the Crown keep retiring pensioners, spending half its remaining funds each time?
- Does the Crown ever use blackmail cards?
- Can I keep a pensioner to retire in a later turn?
- Can I retire a family member voluntarily, or skip retirement?
- Do I pay the prize cost for every family member I put on a prize?
- Which window icons count when ordering players to take prestige cards?
- Can I look at blackmail cards in the London Season display, and can I discard one instead of keeping it?
- Do blackmail cards have one-time or permanent effects?
- How often can a spouse's retirement discount be used?
- Do fatigue cubes add to every roll or only the attrition roll?
- Do Commanders roll for attrition?
- Is the London Season played on the first turn?
- What happens when the Chairman takes the Joseph Sedley card?
V. Bonuses
VI. Revenue
- What costs £1 in the Expenses step?
- When do emergency loans happen and what do they do?
- How much Standing do emergency loans cost?
- What if the Crown is Chairman and the Company cannot afford a dividend?
- Does the Chairman count as a share for dividends?
- Must the Chairman pay dividends, and can it be partial?
- Can Standing fall for low profits and rise again for dividends in the same Revenue phase?
- Does the Calico Acts tariff apply every turn?
- How can Company Debt be reduced?
IX. Upkeep and Refresh
Game End
- How is the Power Award worked out and which turn row applies?
- How is a tie for the Power Award scored against the Crown?
- Do face-down blackmail cards count for power?
- Is there a final retirement or attrition if the Company fails?
- If the Company fails, do players still pay upkeep?
- What counts for power at the end, and when are points tracked?
- How are ties broken at Final Scoring?
- How does the Court of Directors failure card score shares, and does British Despots of India cost regions?
- Do firm shares still score if the Company fails?
Deregulation: Firms
- What are the firm's treasuries and can family money be used?
- Can a firm on Hobnob place money or trade?
- Which ships can a firm fit, and does the shipyard change hands?
- Is there a limit on firm investments, and how do mergers work?
- How do firm dividends and the dividend record work?
- How much does a firm manager earn per dividend?
- Does a firm manager get an extra vote in a hostile takeover?
- Does a firm's dividend marker reset every round?
- Is there a limit on firm investments per phase?
- What is a firm's value after a merger?
- Can a manager stop a hostile takeover by investing more?
- Can the Company fill orders that firms filled earlier?
- Can firms trade when the President fails?
- Do firms pay in initiative order?
Concepts and Key Terms
- Are negotiated deals binding in John Company?
- Must a player carry out a Promise card they handed to someone else?
- What if several promise cards are called in at once and the guarantor cannot honour them all?
- Can I pass a promise card I hold to a third player or hand it back to its guarantor?
- Where does a promise card go after it is called in? Is it single use?
- Can I call in a promise card (such as Take 2 or less from me) right after receiving it?
- Does the "Child as a ward" promise still exist?
- Which things can and cannot be traded in negotiations?
- What does a promise for an officeholder's bonus give me?
- When does John Company round up or down?
- What are "windows" or "window icons" in the rules?
- What are the clear glass beads for?
- What is an "open home port"?
- Are filled orders closed for Turmoil, cascades or cards like Envoy to the Mughals?
- What is the difference between a sovereign and a dominated region?
- What makes a region Company-controlled, and can it still have a tower?
- How do empire flags work, and does an empire's strength count all its regions?
- Is there a maximum tower height or army size in a region?
- What happens if the Company Balance goes past the top of the track?
- Is there a limit to how many dice I can roll in a check?
- Can cash in an office treasury be used for other things, and does it carry over?
- What counts as an "officeholder" or an "office"?
- What counts as a vacant office?
- Does a catastrophic failure remove any officeholder, or only Presidents rolling for trade?
- If an officeholder takes no action, do automatic effects like the Governor General's tax still happen?
- Does the Chairman start with a fatigue cube?
- Are regiments the same as officers?
- How is a region's Presidency determined?
II. Family
- Do I get an extra writer from four or more vacant offices on any family action?
- If several laws give an extra family action, which can I use?
- Can I trade a family member sitting on the Stock Exchange track?
- Can I enlist another player's family member as my writer or officer?
- Does the opportunity marker stay on its action space between turns?
- Who goes first in the Family phase when the Chairman retired or the seat is vacant?
- How does Seek Share work and how do shares get into the Court?
- Does a piece on the Stock Exchange become a share if the Company has no debt?
- What if spouse restrictions leave me unable to take a family action?
- Is there a way to turn money into victory points?
- Can spouses be traded, and is the spouse discount optional?
- Do I pay for each pensioner when retiring, and is retirement optional?
- Do firms get their own family actions, and do I keep my personal treasury?
- How do the Crown's free writer enlistments work?
- Does the Crown still take the Tenure Limits extra action after its free writers?
III. Hiring
- Can a chosen candidate refuse an office?
- Can I leave an office vacant when a valid candidate exists?
- When do I need consent for nepotism, and from whom?
- Does nepotism apply when Military Affairs appoints a Commander?
- Does the Chairman count as a Company share, and what happens when they retire?
- How does the Chairman election work, and can the former Chairman set the threshold?
- Can players vote a Chairman out or force a new election?
- Can the Hiring Preference blackmail card make me Chairman or force an election?
- What happens if the Court of Directors is empty when a Chairman is needed?
- Is there a Chairman election or hiring on the first turn?
- Which writers or Governors can the Director of Trade hire as a President?
- What happens if a President office is vacant with no candidates?
- Does the Crown hire its own family before using candidate priority?
- Is the Crown's nepotism consent mandatory in a 2-player game?
- In solo play, must I consent to the Crown's nepotism?
- Do I get a cube for hiring a Crown family member in solo play?
- When can I take or give a share to the Crown?
- If shares are tied and I was the previous Chairman, do I owe the Crown a cube to install a Chairman?
IV. Company Operation: Success Checks
- After a failed check (a 3 or 4), can I try again with a different number of dice?
- Can a Commander retry a failed Deploy with pieces already exhausted, or buy more local alliances mid-turn?
- Does a roll of 3 or 4 on a Deploy count as a failure for loss checks, and what does a 5 or 6 do?
- Does a Blackmail reroll card (Mercantile or Diplomatic Connection) replace the earlier roll, and how many dice are used?
- Does a firm suffer any extra penalty on a catastrophic failure?
- Which Company Operation actions are mandatory and which are optional?
IV. Company Operation: Chairman and Debt
IV. Company Operation: Director of Trade and Shipping
- Can the Director of Trade still move ships and writers after a failed Special Envoy roll?
- Which regions can the Director of Trade open a closed order in?
- Can ships and writers be moved if there is no Director of Trade, or under the Governor General?
- Can the Manager of Shipping buy a Company ship while ships are still on shipyards?
IV. Company Operation: Military Affairs and Armies
- Can Military Affairs move a Commander to another Army?
- What if there is no Commander in an Army — who acts and can the Army Deploy?
- How do new regiments get into the Armies?
- When Army Spending passes, are two regiments added to each Army, or does each Army get up to two?
- Can regiments be removed once built?
- What do the top and bottom halves of the Army boxes mean?
- What are the small hexes on the exhausted side of the Army box for?
- Are exhausted pieces or newly-hired local alliances able to defend in the same turn they Deploy?
IV. Company Operation: Presidency Operations and Trade
IV. Company Operation: Commanders and Deploy
- Which regions can a Commander Deploy into?
- Can a Commander take a region associated with another Presidency, or can governorships be transferred?
- Can a Commander Deploy more than once in a turn?
- Can a Commander Deploy into a Company-controlled region, and why would they?
- Do unrest cubes or a Company-controlled region reduce or increase the defence when I Deploy there?
- Is the region's strength subtracted from my Deploy dice, and do I choose how many pieces to exhaust?
- Does the Commander add dice, get exhausted, or roll for losses on a Deploy?
- Does a Commander lose an office card on a catastrophic Deploy failure?
- In the Deploy example on page 22, why are no officers lost when a six appears among the dice shown?
- When can local alliances be bought, and can I Deploy with alliances but no officers?
- What makes a region Company-controlled and associated with a Presidency?
IV. Company Operation: Loot and Trophies
IV. Company Operation: Governors and Governor General
IV. Company Operation: The Crown Automa
- Does bribing the Crown to change its Special Envoy spending affect later envoys?
- If I hold the button and the Crown is Director of Trade, can I wait before using priority to stop envoys?
- Which region does the Crown Director of Trade pick for Special Envoy?
- If the Crown is President and ties for initiative with a private firm when trading, who trades first?
- Can I make the Crown Commander buy a local alliance?
- How many local alliances does a Crown Commander buy, and how many dice does it use?
- Will the Crown invest in my firm if it would give the Crown the majority?
- Why does the Crown invest in a player's firm, and does stopping it cost cubes?
- Where does a Crown Governor General place Company ships when no region is given?
- If I spend a promise cube to redirect Crown funds as Chairman, is the Crown's normal step skipped?
- How does Military Affairs assign Crown officers when priorities conflict?
- Can I pay cubes to change which pieces the Crown uses in a Deploy?
- Does the Office of Military Affairs have a treasury?
Company Offices and Chairman
- Can an office holder pass without taking an action?
- Can the Chairman push Company Debt past the end of the track to raise the Company Balance?
- Can the Director of Trade, Commanders or the China office repeat their actions in one turn?
- Can the Director of Trade move ships out of the Superintendent of Trade in China's treasury?
Presidency Operations: Trade
- Can a President attempt Trade more than once in their Presidency's operations?
- Who decides the order in which the President, Commander and Governors act?
- If the President rolls a catastrophic failure on Trade, can the Commander and Governors still act, and who orders them?
- Do a President or Commander still act when they have no funds, no open orders or no officers?
- Can I add my own family money to a Presidency's treasury to boost a Trade check?
- Can a President trade when the home port is closed?
- If a Trade roll fails and I try again, do I lose the penalty dice again?
- Does each extra region on a trade route cost a die?
- Must each newly placed writer be next to the previous one, or can a trade branch?
- Can I trade in a region if I don't have enough ships to fill all its open orders?
- What happens when a Trade has more ships than writers available?
- If a Presidency has more writers than orders, which writers get placed?
- Can a President fill an order in another President's home region?
- Can a Presidency fill an order that another Presidency already filled this round?
- If several players fill the same order, does its value keep halving?
- Must the longest and shortest trade routes be one continuous line?
- Can a President hire extra local armies to defend a region under attack?
- What does a region "associated with a Presidency" mean?
Military Affairs, Commanders and Deploy
- Does Military Affairs need the owner's consent to move an officer?
- Do regiments count toward the majority that decides a Commander?
- What can an Army do when it has no Commander?
- How can a Commander lose command?
- Does the Crown's Military Oversight law let the Crown's Chief of Military Affairs demote a Commander?
- How long do local alliances last, and can they be bought to defend in Events in India?
- Can a President refuse a Commander's request to buy a local alliance?
- Do local alliances and regiments receive loot?
- When loot remains, who gets paid first?
- Can a region be looted again after it is lost and retaken?
- Is loot based on the target region only, or on the whole empire?
- What is removed when the Company defeats an empire's capital?
- When do you get trophies?
- Can a Commander deploy into a region the Company already controls?
- Can a Commander target a region that only borders a Company region?
- Can regiments be removed once recruited?
Governors, Governor General and China
- What happens when a Governor rolls a catastrophic failure?
- Do Governors pay for Company ships, and where can they place them?
- Is the Governor's dice pool carried over to the next turn?
- Does a Governor's action apply only to their own Presidency, including for the Crown?
- After the Governor General law passes, can ships be moved between sea zones?
- Does the Governor General add £3 per region if they don't roll?
- Can the Governor General's tax choice be used more than once per turn?
- How much unrest does a failed Govern with a 6 place?
- Can the Governor General govern successfully more than once per turn?
Region Loss and Laws
The Storm Die and Writer Loss
- Do storms affect Company ships?
- Does the Events in India phase matter on the final turn?
- How many Foreign Invasions happen when the storm die shows sea zones?
- If a Foreign Invasion comes up during Events in India, are the remaining events still resolved?
- What if the Company fails during the Events in India phase?
- In what order are cascades resolved when an event cascades into several regions?
- How does a cascade close orders, and what if two paths lead to the same order?
- What happens to a writer and the order token when an order is closed by an event?
- Which events close orders in India?
Region Loss
- Does a successful Foreign Invasion close a region's orders and cascade twice?
- Do officers roll death checks when a region is lost?
- How far does Company Standing fall when several regions are lost in one turn?
- When one region is lost, do the Company's other regions or Governors in the same presidency go too?
- Which Company ships are removed when a region is lost?
Elephant's March and Event Tiles
- Where does the Elephant move after a Crisis or other event?
- When does Imperial Ambitions move the Elephant to the capital?
- What happens when an empire conquers another region but no flags remain?
- What do the plus and minus numbers by the border symbols on the India reference card mean?
- Must regions have a border symbol to count as adjacent for the Elephant's March?
- Is the Elephant's March example on page 30 correct?
- What does the "Invade or Rebel" note on the Shuffle tile mean?
- After a Shuffle event, where do the discards go?
- How do I place the Elephant on the border when the shape isn't on the neighbouring region?
- Where does the Elephant stand when it targets a Company-controlled region?
- When the Company takes over a region the Elephant is in or facing, does the Elephant move?
- What does a Peace event do?
- How does the Elephant choose its target when neighbours are already dominated?
- How does a Leader event resolve in each type of region?
- Does a Leader rebellion against the Company trigger the extra rebellions in other regions with unrest?
- Does a Leader event move the Elephant?
- Can the Elephant make a dominated region invade a sovereign one?
Invasions and Rebellions
- In what order are Company regions' attacks resolved when several are attacked?
- Why does a failed rebellion still lower the capital's tower, and what if it has none?
- When an invasion fails, which region loses the tower level?
- What happens when a rebellion succeeds?
- In a rebellion, is the rebel compared with the capital alone or the whole empire?
- What happens to an empire when its capital is conquered?
- Does the Commander need to defend against a Crisis of zero or negative strength?
Attacks Against the Company
- How is the strength of attacks on the Company calculated?
- How many pieces must the Commander exhaust to defend a Company region?
- What does a successful defence give the Commander?
- Which Commander defends a Company region, and what if that Commander is vacant?
- Are rebellions also resolved in regions already attacked by the primary Crisis?
- Are Invasions and Rebellions on the Company resolved the same way?
- How is a Crisis resolved when the Elephant sits inside a Company region?
Foreign Invasion
Choosing the Law and Policy
Policy Consequences: Tax, Bonus, Power
- What happens if I cannot pay the Parliament tax on my shares or other targets?
- What happens if I cannot pay the window tax?
- Do windows count once per retired family member on a prize?
- When the target's Power marker is already highest, can I swap the bottom two Power markers, and can I decline?
- When do Power markers move, and who can lose Power from a purple policy?
- If a policy taxes a player twice and they cannot pay both, what happens?
- When a Dilemma says to enact the policy a second time, is there another vote?
- Is a Prestige manufacturing enterprise hit by a workshop or manufacturing tax?
- If Window Tax Repeal passes on a window-tax policy space, is the window tax still paid that turn?
- Does a Parliament tax on shares apply to firm shares?
Voting
- How many rounds of voting can the Prime Minister call?
- Can a player, including the Prime Minister, abstain or vote fewer votes than they have?
- Can I split my votes across rounds, and does a card with several votes have to be used all at once?
- Do votes I bought in the first round still count in the second round?
- Can I change my vote after casting it?
- Can players make deals while Parliament is voting?
- Can I give or lend money, votes or vote cards to another player during Parliament?
- Can the Prime Minister vote against their own law, or let others use their enterprises against it?
- Can the Prime Minister vote against a Dilemma?
- Can I use a shipyard's vote icon when its ship is unfitted or sunk?
- What is the vote track on the board for?
Opposition Leader and Coalitions
- Who becomes Opposition Leader when votes against are tied?
- If nobody votes against a failing law, who becomes Prime Minister?
- When I vote on behalf of another player in a coalition, whose Opposition Leader tally gets those votes?
- What does the other player need to do to let me cast coalition votes for them?
- If I vote for a law the Crown opposes, do I get the Prime Minister dial?
Resolving the Vote
Specific Laws and Dilemmas
- How long do passed laws last, and which extra action applies if several laws grant one?
- When does Inclosure Acts pay, and do family members on a prize still pay upkeep?
- Does the Company get money under Writer Graft Reform for filled order tokens?
- How does the Foreign Invasion Dilemma resolve the India die?
- Under Military Oversight, how does the Prime Minister choose the new commander?
- Can War with France press firm ships, or only Company ships?
- Can an exhausted officer be removed by War with France?
- Under Treasury Reform, do regiments and local alliances still get a cut?
- Is the Calico Acts £2 bonus paid every turn?
- Does Labour Newspaper depend on the selected policy or the law icon?
- Does Debt Restructure move Company Debt to zero?
- Does Royal Protection cancel all emergency loans the Crown takes in a turn?
- Which cards does Old Ideas Made New shuffle back?
- What can the Governor General do, and how do orders open?
The Crown in Parliament
- When the Crown is Prime Minister, when does the climate shift happen?
- When the Crown must return pieces for War with France, what order does it use?
- Does the Governor General count for the Crown having the most Governors (Zamindar Taxes)?
- How does the Crown choose between Power and Tax or Bonus on the policy dial?
- When the Crown is Prime Minister, how does it value its policy and vote?
- Do the Crown's extra Parliament votes cost it money?
- How does Board of Control work when the Crown is Prime Minister?
- Can the Crown, as Opposition Leader, move the wheel?
Crown Setup and Difficulty
- Do I need the Crown (solo bot) rules to play John Company with two players?
- How many family pieces does the Crown use, and do two-player games still give it two colours?
- What difficulty levels does the Crown have, and what do they change?
- How many promise cubes does a promise card give on Easy mode in the 1813 scenario?
- In a solo or two-player game on Easy, how do I use promise cards?
- When do I set the Crown's starting climate in solo setup, and do I evaluate the AI card?
- In solo, are any offices vacant at the start?
- Does the Crown have a player board, an opportunity marker, or two victory-point trackers?
- Does the Crown score and play like a normal family?
- Does the Crown use the effects of spouses on prestige cards it takes?
- In solo play, do I still get second-place points if the Crown wins the power contest?
Crown Family Phase and Actions
- What does "the most recently passed extra action" mean for the Crown in the Family phase?
- Does the Crown's extra action from a passed law use up one of its two family actions?
- In what order does the Crown take an extra action granted by a passed law?
- How many free writers does the Crown get when four or more offices are vacant?
- Do the Crown's free writer enlistments replace its two family actions?
- When does the Crown draw a new AI card?
- What determines the Crown's climate in solo play? Is it random?
- How many transfers does the Crown make with Military Affairs, and is it officers or armies?
- Can the Crown repeat a step in its Transfer Priority List, or does it restart from the top?
- How does the Crown break ties between equally good targets or presidencies?
- What does the Crown's Director of Trade do when it has no writers?
- If the Crown's preferred deploy region lacks enough dice, does it try the next region?
- What counts as the Crown's army strength for buying local alliances?
- How does the Crown choose policy moves, and why does it swap markers when Power is already at the top?
Crown Trade, Deploy and Transfers
- Does the Crown retry a failed trade if it still has money?
- Is the Crown's trade dice number a maximum or minimum?
- Do dice or ships decide how far the Crown trades, and does it cross borders it cannot reach?
- What happens if the Crown cannot pay taxes or family expenses?
- Is Royal Protection still available in Upkeep if used in Revenue?
Crown Voting and Parliament
- How many law cards does the Crown draw as Prime Minister, and which goes to a vote?
- Does Masses Demand Franchise halve the votes the Crown gets from its treasury?
- How does the Crown read an "otherwise" entry in its voting list?
- How does the Crown vote on a tax law that affects both sides?
- Who becomes Prime Minister if the Crown holds the PM role and a law fails?
- When the Crown is PM and the law fails, does the Crown move the policy marker?
Crown Favors, Cubes and Money
Firms
- Can I form a firm using another player's share or workshop?
- Can weak or immature Company shares be used to form a firm?
- How is a firm formed?
- Can a firm fill an order with zero ships?
- What can a firm's London Treasury pay for?
- How can a firm acquire ships, and can it buy a shipyard?
- What happens when a firm and the Company fill the same order?
- In a firm merger, who runs the merged firm?
- Can I make a Special Retirement without a pensioner?
- In a two-player game, can I refuse the Crown's firm investment?
- When a firm is dissolved voluntarily, do its shares go to Debtor's Prison?
- In the p. 41 trading example, should "Madras" be "Maratha"?
- Does an immature Company share stay immature when traded?
- Do writers go on orders a firm already filled?
- Does a new firm start with £5 or £8?