Glossary

Taking an available company deed from the board, for free, into one of your slots.

Acquisitions happen in phase 4. Following the order of play each player may start one available company of the current era, placing a goods counter or a ship for it. Starting a company costs nothing, but you must have a free slot to hold it, and a production company that has nowhere legal to place its first counter cannot be started at all.

One of the game's three ages — a, b and c — each with its own set of company deeds and city cards.

A new era begins when no companies of the previous era are left to acquire, or when only one type remains. New eras bring a fresh set of company deeds onto the map and a round of city building. The game ends when era c ends.

How many goods one ship may carry for each production company in a single operations phase.

Hull size is an R&D track. Each step lets every ship of that player's shipping companies be used one more time by each production company. Ships are re-used freely by the next production company to operate, so hull size limits use per company, not per phase.

Combining two companies of the same type into one, decided by an open auction.

The announcing player must have researched the Mergers track far enough to hold the resulting number of deeds. Bidding opens at the nominal value of the two companies and rises in multiples of their combined goods. The winner pays the former owners in proportion to the goods each company had on the board.

The opening bid in a merger — every good on the board for both companies, priced by type.

Count the goods or ships each merging company has on the board and multiply by the value of that good: 10 for ships, 20 rice, 25 spice, 30 rubber, 35 siap faji, 40 oil. The total is the minimum first bid, even when the announcing player already owns both companies.

A block of adjacent areas producing the same good, all belonging to one company.

Goods move freely within a production zone, so only one area of it needs to touch a ship. A company that owns two separate zones — which can only happen through a merger — must ship each zone independently.

The game's currency. Whoever holds the most at the end wins.

Each player starts with 100 rupiah. Money is earned by selling goods to cities and by shipping other players' goods, and spent on bidding in mergers, on turn order and on paid expansion. Money moved to the Bank box during the turn order bid can never be spent again but still counts for victory.

Microwave meals — the good made by merging a rice company with a spice company.

The only merger between companies producing different goods. It cannot be formed in era a. The new owner gives up half the merged land areas, rounded up, taking only from the edges of the estate, and the remaining areas switch to siap faji. Once formed, a siap faji company can merge only with another siap faji company.

A space on your R&D track for one company. A merged company of several deeds still occupies one slot.

Slots cap how many companies you may hold at any one time. You cannot acquire a company without a free slot, and you may only announce a merger whose result you could legally hold — so freeing a slot is often the point of a merger rather than a side effect.