FAQ

A player may announce a merger of two companies regardless of ownership (both, neither, or one). Any player who could legally own the resulting company (has a free slot, or already owns one of the two) may bid in the auction. Merger R&D level only governs who may announce/propose a merger, not who may bid — this corrects an earlier mistaken claim in one thread.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Bidding starts with the proposer, then proceeds in normal turn order, wrapping around (e.g., turn order 1-2-3-4, proposer is 3 → bidding goes 3,4,1,2). Confirmed as correct by the designer.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Bids must rise in the fixed required multiple; a player who lacks enough cash to reach the next valid increment cannot bid higher, even if they have more cash than the current bid.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

One merger announcement per player per round, but the phase itself has multiple rounds and continues until all players pass consecutively — so a player can propose multiple mergers across a phase, and a passed player may re-enter later (e.g., if a slot frees up).

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Only two companies can merge in a single action; building a larger combined company requires sequential two-company mergers.

Source: BGG thread

Only rice and spice may combine into a mixed-good (Siap Saji/Faji) company; all other mergers must be same-type (e.g., rubber+rubber).

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

A bidding player must have the entire bid amount in cash, even if (a) they'll only owe a fraction after payout splitting among sellers, or (b) they already own both merging companies and the money will return to them entirely. This liquidity requirement is itself a strategic lever other players can exploit to block a merger.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Winning bid ÷ total goods (not deeds) across both companies = per-good share; each prior owner gets that share × goods they owned. Winning bids must be a multiple of total goods involved.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Into the paid owners' available cash (not a "bank" or pot); the separate player "bank" concept is used only for turn-order bids.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

A player may still bid high to retain ownership since the money returns to them, but it may be more profitable to let someone else win and keep the cash instead of the company. [Community-only strategic discussion, not a rules conflict]

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Cash is used first, then Earnings if Cash is insufficient.

Source: BGG thread

Merger money goes into Cash, not Earnings, and is therefore not doubled in the final round (only operations earnings are doubled). Confirmed by the designer: it is a "payment," not earnings.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Yes, ratio doesn't matter; rulebook examples are illustrative only.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

(units of rice + units of spice) × 25 — not the 35 per-good sale price — because roughly half the goods are lost in the merger.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

• Remove half the combined goods (rounded up), keeping half (rounded down).
• "Half" is calculated on the sum of both companies' goods, not each separately.
• Only border tiles of the contiguous zone may be removed (not from the middle, which would split the zone); removing an entire disconnected production area entirely is allowed.
• If the merging zones are already physically adjacent at merger time, they're treated as one zone for this purpose — you can't remove a tile that would split it, even an original "border" tile between the two source companies.
• Tiles that would end up adjacent to an existing Siap Saji/Faji company must also be discarded — even beyond the normal half, potentially leaving a company with zero production area ("dead" but still occupying a slot).
• No requirement to leave at least one good in each original production area.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Should be read as "half of the goods owned by the old companies" (pre-merger total), not the post-merger total.

Source: BGG thread

If all production zones are removed, the company still occupies a slot, can "activate" (pass-equivalent), but cannot expand (no adjacency available) even though the "must expand if sold out" rule would otherwise apply.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

One poster suggested it could expand from any legal starting point of its original constituent companies, but this scenario doesn't actually arise under the rules as written.

Source: BGG thread

Whether removal rules could leave a remaining company landlocked was raised but not definitively answered by the designer in the relevant thread; community interpretation suggests the border-only removal mechanic could shift the border inward and a company could disappear entirely, but no official ruling resolves the landlocking question specifically.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

• No goods/tiles are given up in this case — fields are simply combined.
• Siap Saji companies can only merge with other Siap Saji companies, never directly with plain rice/spice again.
• Required Merger R&D level is based on total deeds (cards) combined, not number of companies (since only two companies merge at a time). E.g., two 1-deed Siap Saji companies require level 2; a 3-deed rice + 2-deed spice requires level 5.
• Combining a 2-deed rice + 3-deed spice forms one combined Siap Saji company (not split by original pairing); bid payouts are proportional to each original company's goods contributed.
• 4 separate deeds (2 rice + 2 spice) must be merged in stages: rice+spice twice (forming two Siap Saji companies), then those two merged later.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Remaining rice/spice tiles become Siap Saji tiles; further expansion is Siap Saji-only, and shipping all Siap Saji goods (not separate rice/spice) triggers free expansion.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Siap Saji is a fully separate commodity from rice/spice; cities only need goods currently in production to grow, and receiving one good type doesn't block or substitute for another in the same turn.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

No requirement that merging companies' deed/goods counts be balanced in any way.

Source: BGG thread

A merged company expands up to its full Expansion R&D level (e.g., 4 new areas), placed anywhere in its territory — "expand once" means it acts as a single unit, not that each original constituent company expands separately.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

• If a production company sells all its goods, expansion is free and mandatory, up to the full R&D expansion level (cannot be refused).
• If it does not sell all goods, it may choose to pay to expand, any number up to (not necessarily equal to) its R&D level — this is optional.
• These are two separate, mutually exclusive conditions, not a "first free, rest paid" structure.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Always free, never mandatory, and not required to reach the player's hull/expansion R&D maximum — can be any amount desired, or skipped (flip deed to show it operated).

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

One ruling (via linked prior FAQ) states a company that must pay to expand (failed to ship all goods) must expand to the maximum allowed by tech level, not fewer — this appears to conflict with other threads stating paid expansion can be any number up to the max. Readers should verify which applies to their edition. (compare with)

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

One view: never a reason not to, since more ships improve connectivity. Counterpoint: may want to save ships for an anticipated merger or avoid redundant placement. Designer later confirmed expansion itself is never mandatory, but the strategic question remains debated.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Expansion always happens after goods are sold; newly expanded tiles cannot be used to sell in the same activation.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Permitted for both production and shipping expansion — each placement is evaluated independently and can use adjacency created by earlier placements in the same action.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Confirmed — expansion is not limited to the company's founding province, provided new areas are adjacent to existing zone and not blocked. Straits with connecting arrows may be crossed. If expansion across a strait is legal, shipping through the resulting new sea zone is equally legal.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

A production company must sell/deliver as many goods as it possibly can, even if net negative due to shipping cost; it cannot deliberately ship less to save money, nor "clog" a route to avoid an unfavorable shipment, unless a genuine bottleneck forces a choice between two goods.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Permitted; either split or max-to-one-city is fine as long as total shipped is maximized.

Source: BGG thread

, even if that means shipping less from one plantation piece to ship more overall (e.g., must choose 8 total over 7), unlike two separate unmerged companies under the same owner, which can be sequenced freely.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Legal to exist/acquire (rule only requires "any empty land area"); they simply cannot ship until/unless they expand to the coast. Cities, by contrast, must always be coastal.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Not discarded; remain on board/acquirable even if permanently unable to operate meaningfully.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

If a deed's entire starting area is permanently covered by another company's expansion, it is discarded, and (per community consensus) does not return even if the covering area later changes.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

If a deed loses its last eligible starting space, it's removed from the board immediately, in whatever phase this occurs — which can even end the game unexpectedly mid-Operations.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

New companies may be placed on any empty land space within the named province shown on the card, not necessarily the exact symbol location.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Companies of the same good type can never be adjacent, regardless of ownership; different goods (e.g., rice and rubber) may be directly adjacent. [Unresolved/Community-only house-rule question]: Whether this rule could be safely ignored if using distinguishing tokens instead is debated — some say it's purely cosmetic, others argue it has major strategic/board-control implications.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Each ship's hull capacity is available fresh for every company that operates, even within the same round, and even when the same player owns multiple companies sharing a ship. It is not a global/shared pool across the round.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

"Hull Player" is the actual capacity-determining R&D track (applies to every ship the player controls). "Hull Company" is just a reference display of the current owner's Hull Player value for a specific company — not an independent track. When a shipping company changes owners (e.g., via merger), its displayed Hull Company value updates immediately to the new owner's Hull Player level; no prior boost persists independently.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

$5 is paid per good per ship actually used — not a flat fee per "trip." A hull-2 ship carrying 2 goods to the same city costs $10, not $5.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

A single good's entire shipment must use one shipping company throughout (cannot switch companies mid-route), but different goods in the same delivery can use different shipping companies. Example: shipping 4 rice progressively through 1,2,3,4 ships costs 5+10+15+20 = $50.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

No limit to how many ships (same or different companies) can occupy one zone; each ship's capacity is tracked independently, effectively multiplying available capacity there. Ships are never removed, moved, or consolidated once placed — not even by mergers — though a player may use unused capacity elsewhere via differently-shaped tokens. A [Community house-rule] exists allowing a "freed up" redundant ship from a merger to extend a shipping line elsewhere, but this is explicitly not official.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Mechanically identical to colored ships; shapes/colors exist purely to distinguish ownership when a player controls multiple shipping companies. Neutral ships may be used when a player runs out of their own colored ships, with no separate payment required. Note: 3rd edition only includes large neutral ships, no small ones.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Permitted even where another shipping/production company already exists; the first ship may go in any adjacent sea zone, no requirement for a "vacant" zone.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

All ships remain on the board permanently (none removed), even resulting in overlapping ships in the same zone (which increases capacity there). Merged company's max ship count = sum of both companies' era maximums; but the hull capacity (goods/ship) always becomes that of the new owner's Hull Player level.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Goods must travel along a single shipping company's chain only, even if the same player owns bordering/overlapping companies.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

The designer (Jeroen, jmdsplotter) explicitly confirmed goods can be freely moved to any area within the entire contiguous production zone, not just one hop to a neighbor — despite rulebook wording ("a neighboring area") being ambiguous/unclear. A [Community house-rule variant] restricting movement to one hop was tried by one group and felt it produced a "better game," but this is explicitly not the official rule.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

A company adjacent to multiple sea zones may ship from any owned coastal tile, in any combination, as long as hull capacity allows.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Operates as a single company; cannot "reset" ship usage between operating each disconnected part — all zones share the same ship-usage pool in one operation. City/shipping capacity limits also apply across the whole turn, not per sub-company.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Goods can never be shipped over land, even between directly adjacent production area and city — must always go via ship.

Source: BGG thread

"5" = cost per good per ship when shipping; "10" = per-ship value used in merger-bid valuation for shipping companies.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

The producing player chooses the shipping route (not necessarily shortest/cheapest), as long as the maximum possible goods are delivered. If the same player owns both production and shipping companies, route length doesn't change their net profit (paying their own shipping company is a wash) — using more of one's own ships never extracts extra profit.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Net earnings (profit) from production and shipping companies' operations in the final round are doubled — including negative earnings (losses), which are doubled too. Doubled money comes from the bank. This doubling is an additional bank payment equal to your turn's net profit (e.g., $100 profit → $200 total), not a tripling.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

• Merger money (it's a "payment" into Cash, not Earnings).
• Paid expansion costs (per designer ruling, not taken from round earnings).

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

You still pay the standard $5/ship/good at time of shipping (not doubled at that point); only final net earnings are doubled. If you own both companies, route length is irrelevant to your doubled gain since production's shipping expense exactly offsets shipping's income for the same player.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

A long dispute asked whether shipping cost itself is doubled (shipper earning $10/boat instead of $5). Consensus settled on: production still pays the ordinary $5/ship (not doubled as an expense); each party's final net profit is calculated normally then doubled separately — so a shipper effectively nets $10/boat on the final turn (their $5 profit doubled), while production's cost figure is not itself doubled, only its final net result.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Keep a separate "last round earnings" pile (net profit only) throughout the final era since you may not know in advance which round is truly last (a deed can become unplaceable mid-Operations, ending the game unexpectedly). Formula: (money after last ops round − money before) × 2. If a shipping loss exceeds the turn-earnings pile, track an IOU within that pile (so it's still doubled) rather than drawing silently from main cash.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

So mergers in the final round can still be profitable for the buyer, since otherwise a final-turn purchase (with only one operations phase left) would rarely be worthwhile.

Source: BGG thread

Suggested handling: pay from turn earnings into debt/IOU, or treat as an extreme bankruptcy scenario; several posters report never seeing this occur in actual play.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Even if the operation accomplishes nothing (e.g., just flipping the deed), per designer confirmation.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Proceeds in turn order; once a player passes, they cannot acquire companies later in that same phase (per rulebook text). A player may acquire multiple companies across a phase if they have enough slots, continuing in multiple rounds until all pass or no companies remain, but only one company per turn-order pass.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Entirely free — in fact everything in the game is free except paying to expand a production company that failed to ship all goods.

Source: BGG thread

The first year always starts a new era (era A), so it opens with phase 1, New Era: in order of play everyone builds their era A city, then the era A deeds go on the map. Then come Bid for Turn Order, Mergers (empty in year one — nobody has Merger research), and Acquisitions, the first chance to take a company. (Reworded against the 3rd-edition rulebook, which numbers New Era as phase 1.)

Turn-order bidding is "once around" (one bid each); merger bidding continues until all but one bidder passes, and a passed player may re-enter if bidding comes back around to them.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Companies are not dealt to players (fixed board locations); players are dealt one city card per era and are compelled to place it if able.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

If unclaimed companies become unreachable and players decline to act, the game could theoretically continue indefinitely; no designer ruling resolves this. Community view: this reflects player strategy (leading players have incentive to stall) rather than a rules flaw, and other players should act (merge/acquire) to force the end. Some groups report never needing a house-rule fix; others found one necessary.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Replaced city tokens return to general supply and may be used the same turn by another city's growth; if too few tokens remain for all eligible upgrades, the player first in turn order chooses which cities upgrade.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

, regardless of goods delivered.

Source: BGG thread

possible if tokens aren't cycling back fast enough; rules state no new city/growth occurs in this case.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

All delivered-goods markers are discarded at end of turn (not carried over); markers are drawn from an unlimited general supply, not physical plantation chits (which are never flipped/moved).

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Cities don't require goods that aren't currently produced anywhere on the board in order to grow.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Confirmed two separate, non-adjacent sea zones (north/south of Java Timur) despite artwork suggesting a wraparound; both are adjacent to Bali's western tip, requiring 3 ship-legs to cross from one to the other via Bali.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Confirmed the northern sea is only adjacent to the northern province, not the southern one — treated as separate rather than both accessible from either sea.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Nine separate land areas across three sea zones; all white/unlabeled islands included. The three southern areas are not connected to the six northern ones, so a single company can occupy at most six of the nine.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Treated as a single production area.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Confirmed a company's production area can span multiple provinces, and goods may be shipped from anywhere within the combined zone, limited only by which coasts the zone physically touches.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Original text wrongly implied Company A could ship to Sulawesi; actually only Company B's ship was adjacent. The 2nd edition rulebook corrected the ambiguous wording with a clearer example.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Deed locations are fixed each game, but variability arises from random city card placement, differing R&D/expansion pacing, and Siap Saji merger timing — producing unique games despite fixed locations.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Purely a player-color reminder, no rules function.

Source: BGG thread

Purely cosmetic/distinguishing, not mechanically different (see also Section 5, neutral ships).

Source: BGG thread

The rulebook does not address negotiation at all. Community opinions diverge ("not mentioned = not part of the game" vs. "not mentioned = not prohibited"), with no designer ruling present. Simple quid-pro-quo statements seem broadly accepted; more involved agreements (e.g., pre-arranging merger bids) are more contentious without consensus.

Source: BGG thread · BGG thread

Where a direct forum citation is available, it appears with the answer. Unresolved and community-only material is labeled.