MEGAcquire Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Game Contents
• MEGAcquire GOLD
• Goal
• Setup
• Turn Summary
• Buying Stock
• Trading Stock
• Game Play
• Ending the Game
• Sample Game (MEGAcquire GOLD)
• Stock Price Extensions
  • Stock Price Extensions (cont'd.)
  • Stock Price Extensions (cont'd., 11M–15M)

Game Contents

• 1 Board with 182 Hexagons Designated from A-1 to N-13
• 182 Hexagon Tiles
• 6 Tile Holders
• 1 Tile Bag
• 14 Colored Company Tiles
• 7 Hotels:
  • Luster — Red
  • Teton — Yellow
  • Global — Brown
  • Fanfare — Green
  • Arcadia — Blue
  • Regal — Pink
  • Krause — Teal
• 7 Corporations:
  • Unity — Beige
  • Solon — Grey
  • Helix — Orange
  • Watts — Purple
  • Digital — Baby Blue
  • Physics — Burgundy
  • Quasar — Charcoal
• 350 Stock Certificates (25 for Each Company)
• 6 Information Cards
• 220 Total Prepaid Debit Cards:
  • 40 — 1M Copper Debit Cards
  • 40 — 5M Bronze Debit Cards
  • 80 — 10M Silver Debit Cards
  • 60 — 50M Gold Debit Cards

MEGAcquire GOLD

At first glance, MEGAcquire GOLD can appear intimidating because of the complexity of the board, the amount of companies, and the extensive rules. (Rules that are too basic do not allow for many variables and leave too much gray area.)

In the games basic concept, the player creates and grows companies by playing the tiles from their hand. The tiles available to the player are provided strictly by the luck of the draw. The skill in the game of MEGAcquire GOLD, to generate Prepaid Debit Cards, comes from the ability to buy stocks in the companies that will grow or even in the companies that are purchased by larger companies. Stock purchases are generally made in companies based on the players' capability to grow those companies with their tiles on hand. However, players can make Prepaid Debit Cards by buying into companies that grow from the other players' tile placement.

Goal

The main objective of MEGAcquire GOLD is to become the wealthiest player at the end of the game. This is done by forming companies and obtaining stock, while shrewdly buying and trading the right stock at the right time. Merging companies to obtain capital and adding tiles to the companies in which you have stock to increase their value.

Setup

Put the game board in the center of the table with the tiles face down in either the top or bottom of the box. (Tiles can be left in bag and shaken before player draws.) Designate a "banker" and a "stock broker" to handle distribution of Prepaid Debit Cards and stock certificates (if desired).

The banker distributes 120M to each player. The banker keeps the rest of the Prepaid Debit Cards in front of them in four piles. To determine who goes first, each player draws one of the tiles and places it on the board. The player whose tile is closest to "A-1" goes first. The progression of tiles goes A-1 thru A-13 and then B-1 thru B-13 (A-13 is closer than B-1 to A-1.)

The tiles are placed back into the pile or bag of tiles and shuffled. All players draw 12 tiles and keep the tiles in front of them and concealed from the other players. The play then progresses to the left of the first player.

Turn Summary

Play a tile on the game board onto its matching space.

Buy or trade stocks in any active company. No more than six individual stock certificates can be purchased or obtained through trade in one turn.

Buying Stock

A player can buy up to six individual stock certificates from active companies.

Stock prices are determined as follows: Find the name of the company on the information card for which stock is being purchased. Refer down the appropriate column to find the tile size of the company. (The information cards are separate components listed in the Game Contents; this booklet does not reproduce their text.)

Cross-reference that to the stock price column for the cost per certificate.

There are only 25 certificates for each company – once those certificates are gone, they cannot be purchased (unless stocks are returned through sale after merger or through trade.)

The declaration of stock amounts held by individual players must be determined before game play begins.

There are four different methods that can be chosen:

1. No disclosure of stock amounts during regular game play. Players keep track by memory.
2. Bank discloses stock amounts left.
3. Players disclose stock amounts on hand.
4. Total disclosure of stock amounts.

Trading Stock

A player on their turn may trade stock for other stock ONLY if they do not have enough Prepaid Debit Cards to purchase the stock they want to buy. They can only trade the amount of stock it takes to raise the funds needed to make the purchase of up to six stocks.

If the monetary trade is not exactly even, the player is allowed to get a small amount of change. If the value of the change is more than one of the shares being used in the trade, then the player must keep that share instead of receiving Prepaid Debit Cards .

Example: If a person has stock in Regal and the company has 3 tiles, the stock is worth 5M for each share traded. The person wants to purchase 3 shares of Solon that has 4 tiles or 10M for each share. The person could trade 6 shares of Regal for 3 shares of Solon.

A player can trade as many shares as they wish in one turn, but they can only obtain six shares.

Finish the turn by drawing one tile from the supply to replace the tile that was just played. Players should always have twelve tiles in front of them.

Game Play

Playing a tile – Depending on how a tile is played, one of four things can happen:

1. The tile is not adjacent to other tiles and is "unincorporated". (The hexagon shape of the tiles allows for connection to any tile that is adjacent in every direction.)

2. The tile is adjacent to another unincorporated tile and so forms a company. (Note: If all of player's tiles would form new companies, but all companies are already on the board with none available to be formed, then the player does not play a tile and does not draw a new one. The player is still allowed to purchase stock.)

• When a company is formed the player selects an available companies marker from the tray and places it on any one of the new companies' tiles on the board. The player gets one free stock certificate for founding the company.

  (If players hold all the stocks, then the founding player gets the "founding bonus" in Prepaid Debit Cards that is equal to the companies value at time of opening.)

3. The tile is adjacent to an existing company, in which case the company grows in size by one tile and its stock increases in value according to the stock value chart.

• A company that is 21 tiles or more in size is "safe"
• A safe company can absorb a smaller company through merger, but can never be absorbed itself.
• A tile cannot be placed in a location that would cause two safe corporations to merge. Such a tile is turned upside down and placed on the board in the proper location. The player draws another tile to replace that tile. (If a player has a tile that will cause two safe companies to merge, they may turn it over immediately, whether it is their turn or not, and draw a replacement tile.)

4. The tile is placed adjacent to two (or more) existing companies. In this case the two companies merge:

• Count the number of tiles in each company (do not include the merging tile in the count for either)

• The larger company always absorbs the smaller company. If merging companies are the same sizes, then it is the Merge Maker who decides the fate of these same size companies.

• If a tile is placed that merges more than two companies, the larger one survives and the smaller ones become defunct. The companies are absorbed one at a time from smallest to largest.

• Remove the colored marker from the smaller company(s) and return it to the tray.

• All players reveal how many stock certificates they hold in the now defunct company. The player with the most becomes the "Majority Stockholder" while the player with the next most becomes the "Minority Stockholder".

• The Majority Stockholder receives the bonus indicated on the information card in the 1st Majority column. Cross-reference the number of tiles in the defunct company and type of company (small, medium, large). The Minority stockholder receives the bonus indicated in the next column to the right.

• If one player is the sole stockholder in a company, that player gets both bonuses.

• If there is a tie for Majority Stockholder, add the majority and minority bonus and divide evenly between the two players who are tied. No other players are paid a bonus. If the bonuses do not divide equally into even 1M amounts then the bonus is rounded up to the next 1M amount.

• If there is a tie for Minority Stockholder, split the Minority Stockholder bonus indicated among those tied.

• Players must now decide what to do with their defunct stock. They may (starting with the player who holds majority, and proceeding with the next largest stock holder):

Ending the Game

The games ends when all disputed borders are resolved. (When all the safe companies left on the board can no longer benefit from growth.) After all disputed borders are resolved; place the remaining tiles on the board. Remove the "turnover tiles" between the companies and count the tiles for each company, starting with the smallest.

Players can also decide to end the game early due to time constraints. When the decision is made to end the game, all players should be in agreement, and the last player to play in the first round of the game should be the last player to play in the last round.

Majority and Minority bonuses are paid out in the surviving active companies at the market rate.

All stocks in surviving active companies are sold back at their market price.

The player with the most Prepaid Debit Cards wins.

Sample Game (MEGAcquire GOLD)

The easiest way to learn how to play MEGAcquire GOLD is to play a sample game (without bothering to match tiles to hexagons.) Imagine 4 players with 12 tiles each. Play rotates in clockwise direction.

PLAYER 1: Places one of their tiles face downward on B-3. They draw another tile, bringing their total back to twelve.

PLAYER 2: Places tile on C-5 and replaces played tile with another.

PLAYER 3: Places tile on E-5 and draws another tile.

PLAYER 4: Places tile on B-4. Player 4 has created a chain by placing a tile on the hexagon adjoining B-3. They now have the right to name the chain. They decide which value of company they want to open (2M, 3M, or 4M). In this case they

decide to open "Luster" and place the red "LH" tile on top of one of the tiles (B-2 or B-3) in that chain. Player 4 is given one share of Luster as a founding bonus and can now buy six shares of Luster stock. They check their information card and note that since there are two tiles in the chain, the price is 2M per block. They pay the banker, who places the 12M in the bank and they receive six Luster stock certificates from the stock broker. They may now draw a tile to replace the one just played.

PLAYER 1: Places tile on F-4, buys six blocks of Luster stock for 12M, and draws another tile.

PLAYER 2: Places tile on D-5. They have formed another chain, this one of three tiles (C-5, D-5, and E-5.) They decide to call the chain "Krause" and place the turquoise "KH" tile on one of the "chained" tiles. Player 2 receives one share for a founding bonus and may now buy any combination of six shares of either Luster or Krause. They choose Krause to strategically keep majority, as the next player can also only purchase six shares and Player 2 has seven with the founding bonus. They pay 30M since Krause is 5M per share with three tiles. They draw another tile.

PLAYER 3: Places tile on A-1 as they don't want to increase the size of an existing chain since they don't own any stocks. They check their information card, and buy six shares of Krause for 30M to gain a second majority, since player 1 & 4 have first and second in Luster. They draw another tile.

PLAYER 4: Places tile on B-5, increasing the Luster chain to 3 tiles (B-3, B-4, & B-5.) They check their information card, and buy six shares of Luster for 18M. This gives Player 4 a solid majority in the company since the total number of stocks is 25 and they now have 13. (Note: Usually a player will wait to play a tile that increases a company until after they have purchased the sufficient amount of stocks. This allows for growth of investment instead of growth of cost. But for sample reasons, we have constructed this move.)

PLAYER 1: Places tile on C-4, merging two open chains. The larger chain will always take over the smaller chain, but since these two chains are of equal size, Player 1 can make the decision since they caused the merger. This is the point where strategy comes into play. The choice must be made as to whether Player

I wants the Prepaid Debit Cards for future investments by sacrificing their company or if they want the growth of their stock portfolio that will be gained taking over the other company. Player 1, because it is early in the game and they still have Prepaid Debit Cards decides to take out Krause.

So the "KH" tile is returned to the Krause stock pile until the displaced hotel is put back on the board. Because the Krause chain is now defunct, each player counts their Krause stock. The shareholder with the most Krause stock receives a first majority holder's bonus of 50M (since there were three tiles in the Krause chain), and the shareholder with the next largest amount of Krause stock receives a second majority holder's bonus of 25M (see information card).

At this point, each shareholder would decide what to do with their Krause stock (see "Item 4 in Game Play"), and Player 1 would finish their turn by buying six shares of the only salable stock, Luster for 36M since the chain now has seven tiles, and then drawing another tile (see "note" in Player 4 above).

Stock Price Extensions

Printed as a grid of multipliers (x 2 through x 13) for each base value, from 2M to 15M. Each cell is the printed amount.

Tiles	2M	3M	4M
x 2	4M	6M	8M
x 3	6M	9M	12M
x 4	8M	12M	16M
x 5	10M	15M	20M
x 6	12M	18M	24M
x 7	14M	21M	28M
x 8	16M

Stock Price Extensions (cont'd.)

Tiles	5M	6M	7M	8M	9M	10M
x 2	10M	12M	14M	16M	18M	20M
x 3	15M	18M	21M	24M	27M	30M
x 4	20M	24M	28M	32M	36M	40M
x 5	25M	30M	35M

Stock Price Extensions (cont'd., 11M–15M)

Tiles	11M	12M	13M	14M	15M
x 2	22M	24M	26M	28M	30M
x 3	33M	36M	39M	42M	45M
x 4	44M	48M	52M	56M	60M
x 5	55M	60M	65M	70M	75M
x 6