Description

According to the rules Acquisition was created for The Shidler Group (a commercial real estate investment firm) by Prince Joli Kansil, presumably as an educational tool of some sort. It is not clear if it was ever published as such.

The game is designed for 12 players plus an umpire, but can be played by fewer (the rules only specifically mention changes for as few as 8 players). The umpire is not strictly necessary, but would make sense if the game were intended to be played by groups of children. The game is played cooperatively.

Each player has his or her own board. Each corresponds to a city or section of a city in the US, and is a stylized representation of one of its commercial real estate districts. Players move around their board by die roll (using the difference of two dice, not the sum) and can buy properties when they land on them. When a player rolls doubles they do not move, but all owned properties pay rent to the owner (from the bank).

There are a few other aspects to the system. When players buy or sell property they may do so at face value or may try rolling a 12-sided die to "negotiate." Odds are they will do better this way but there is a chance they will do considerably worse. A player may travel to another player's board, which allows them or the other player to propose a joint venture, where both chip in to buy a property. Only the board's player gets rent, but since it is a cooperative game this is not an issue. Finally, there are spaces which cause players to draw event cards which do the usual sorts of things.

Play is for a specified amount of time - 75 minutes is suggested in the rules. At this point the net worth of all players is totaled, and if more than one group is playing (which would require multiple copies of the game), the one with the most money is the winner.