-
Acquire. It's a classic that's stood the test of time since 1962 and is widely regarded as influencing many other games along the way. So what are some examples of games it has influenced, and which show the mark of Acquire in their design? I can think of a couple of games that might be influenced by Acquire. Am I right? Are there more?
1. Santiago (2003). First game I thought of after playing Acquire for the very first time recently. The value of cubes depends on the number of adjacent field tiles of the same type, i.e if the overall field consists of 1 tile the cubes are worth 1, if the field consists of 2 tiles the cubes are worth 2, etc. The bigger the size of the field, the greater the value of the cubes on the tiles making up that field. Grow those fields big and cash in big at the end of the game - definitely Acquire-like!
2. Blockers! (2007). Pictured here is the original Uptown edition, which was revamped with new components and the new name of Blockers! in 2010. Players draw five tiles from a common pool of tiles corresponding to various locations on the board, and ideally place them adjacent to existing sets of tiles which grow in size. With the racks, tiles and board in front of you, it feels like you're playing the Hasbro edition of Acquire. There are obvious differences, but the mechanic of having tiles corresponding to places on the board and the mechanic of trying to place them adjacent to existing sets of tiles on the board all remind me strongly of Acquire.
Please share some suggestions for other games that would classify as candidates.
Edit: If I get enough suggestions for additions, I may turn this into a GeekList at a later point.
-
James 3
United States
Atlanta
Georgia
-
Airlines Europe reminds me of Acquire, but not for the geometric grid mechanic clearly, but for being a streamlined stock collection game. Substitute pulling chits from a bag and figuring out where to place them with deciding which airline routes to build up, as both allow players to choose which stocks get more valuable slowly with narrowing options. I suppose there are plenty of other stock games, but the weight and approach feels similar to me.
If nothing else, Airlines Europe is the game we'll play if we want to play a light stock game now, instead of Acquire...
Maybe mergers will come to AE in an expansion 
-
Huzonfirst
United States
Manassas
Virginia
San Antonio, OKC, Miami, and Boston..who will win out?
-
Pretty much any game that features majorities has been influenced by Acquire. I'm not certain of this, but AFAIK, Acquire was the first game where holding a majority of something (in this case, stocks) was significant. Following a merger, players not only get cash per share of stock, but the player with the most stock in the merged company (even if it's only by one share) gets a significant bonus. This has proven to be a very influential concept and has been used in a multitude of games in the past 50 years.
Acquire also gave a lesser bonus to the second place player and this idea has also proved popular in Eurogames.
-
Kelly Bass
United States
Venice
California
-
The thing that's counter-intuitive to most first time players of Acquire is that there is a benefit to having a lot of stock in the smaller company being merged with the bigger one.
Shark is less subtle. That is, the only thing you get when being taken over is a huge drop in the value of your stock.
Also, Tigris & Euphrates of course comes to mind.
-
Jeff M
United States
Windham
New Hampshire
-
this sounds like it would be better as a geeklist? in any case "big boss", and "shark"
-
Drew
United States
Eau Claire
Wisconsin
-
JeffyJeff wrote: this sounds like it would be better as a geeklist? in any case "big boss", and "shark"
And one can see how Rheinländer was influenced by Big Boss.
-
Huzonfirst
United States
Manassas
Virginia
San Antonio, OKC, Miami, and Boston..who will win out?
-
flamejuggler wrote: Airlines Europe reminds me of Acquire, but not for the geometric grid mechanic clearly, but for being a streamlined stock collection game.
The original version of Airlines Europe was Airlines and Alan Moon did say that it was partially inspired by Acquire. So there's those two games, along with Union Pacific.
Then there's Stephensons Rocket, which does have mergers and stock conversions. It really has very little else in common with Acquire and we all know that Knizia never plays other designer's games, but maybe in the deep, dark recesses of his mind, he drew a tiny bit of inspiration from Acquire when he designed this one. 
-
Derry Salewski
United States
Augusta
Maine
. . . give a ship.
-
The tile laying in Key Harvest reminds me of Acquire.
-
Martin G
United Kingdom
London
-
Lords of Vegas definitely has an Acquire vibe, with grid cards used to claim spots, and players gaining stakes in different casino chains.
-
Doug Bias
United States
Fairborn
Ohio
-
I'd second Lords of Vegas. Definitely a very different game but has the same feel.
-
Scott Humpert
United States
Dillsburg
Pennsylvania
-
I've always considered Chinatown to be like Acquire with negotiations.
It's got similarities in drawing tiles that represent certain board locations, and an increase in business value as more tiles are connected.
-
United States
Houston
Texas
-
Larry Levy wrote: Then there's Stephensons Rocket, which does have mergers and stock conversions. It really has very little else in common with Acquire and we all know that Knizia never plays other designer's games, but maybe in the deep, dark recesses of his mind, he drew a tiny bit of inspiration from Acquire when he designed this one.
I would say Tigris & Euphrates shows a lot more Acquire influence than Stephenson's Rocket. Grid board, tile placement, mergers, even a variation of "payouts" after an "acquisition." The scoring is radically different, but there are clear similarities.
-
Randall Bart
United States
Granada Hills
California
Red October
Earth is one of my favorite planets
-
If you replace the shares of stock with a board with 7 territories, and space for 25 cubes in each territory, Acquire is the original area majority game.
-
Jeff M
United States
Windham
New Hampshire
-
Barticus88 wrote: If you replace the shares of stock with a board with 7 territories, and space for 25 cubes in each territory, Acquire is the original area majority game.
there's no such thing as original  There's an area control/majority game that pre-dates even Acquire by several thousands of years...
Go
-
Lee Ambolt
Sweden
Lund
Skåne
Ingen Reklam Tack!
Linus Per Ambolt 13.12.2010
-
How has no one mentioned Reef Encounter? I would have picked that as the first option, with something akin to mergers of coral tiles, and buying "shares" in the colour of coral/hotel, and being able to influence the relative value of them.
-
|
|
Posted Sat Dec 10, 2011 1:55 am
