Acquire: Our Favorite Board Game

My mother-in-law gave us Acquire for Christmas last year, and it has quickly become our favorite board game. It is easy to learn and hard to master.

The object of the game is to have the most money at the end (easy enough concept). Each player has random tiles with a number and letter that correspond to a spot on the board.

Each player takes turns laying down tiles. As soon as two tiles touch, a corporation can be started, and players can start buying stock in the corporation.

As tiles are added to corporations, their stock value increases.

The real fun occurs when a tile is played that connects two corporations: then a merger occurs and the smaller corporation is bought out.

This process continues until no new corporations or mergers can occur. Then stocks are cashed out, and the richest player wins!

The merger is where all the action happens in the game. When a tile is placed in a space that connects two (or more) corporations, the corporation with less tiles is absorbed into the larger one and its stocks are liquidated.

If you own stock in a corporation that is liquidated, you have three options: (1) keep your stocks, (2) trade them 2 for 1 for the corporation that overtook yours, or (3) cash them in.

One more note: once a corporation has eleven tiles, it cannot be merged. It is invincible; it can take over other corporations, but cannot be taken over itself.

Acquire definitely will please business-minded people, since it involves building corporations and trading stocks.

But its fun for anyone who likes strategy games. We brought it on our family vacation this summer and my nine-year-old little brother played it with us and kept asking to play again!

If this looks like your kind of board game, be sure to check it out on the links I have provided.