Revenue and Events
Phases V to VII of John Company: bonuses, Company expenses, emergency loans, expectations and dividends; the storm die; every event in India, Cascades, crises, attacks on the Company, region loss and the Elephant's March.
Bonuses
Every player takes £1 for each shipyard whose ship is fitted and for each workshop they own.
Revenue
The Company pays expenses, checks expectations and may pay dividends. Its Standing moves along the way; if the Standing marker ever reaches the leftmost space, the Company fails and the game goes straight to Final Scoring.
Expenses
Lower the Company Balance by £1 for each:
- point of Company Debt;
- regiment and officer in the Armies (not Commanders);
- ship in the three sea zones.
Emergency loans. If the Balance can’t cover it, take loans: each moves Debt one space right and adds £5, until everything is paid (at the end of the Debt track, still take the £5 without moving). These new loans cost nothing this turn. Once expenses are paid, set the Balance to zero: loan money left over is lost.
Public embarrassment. One or two emergency loans this turn: Standing −1. Three or more: Standing −2.
Expectations
If the Balance is now below the expectations printed under the Standing marker, Standing −1.
Dividends
The Chairman may pay any number of dividends. Each costs the Balance £1 per Company share and gives each player £1 per share they hold (the Chairman’s share counts).
Public enthusiasm. If the total paid in dividends is more than expectations, Standing +1.
Storms
Roll the storm die. Its face names a sea zone, all three, or none, and shows how many events happen in India.
In a stormy sea zone, roll a die for each player ship there (Company and extra ships are safe):
| Die | Ship |
|---|---|
| 1–2 | Safe. |
| 3–4 | Flip to its fatigued side; if already fatigued, it sinks. |
| 5–6 | Sinks. |
A sunk ship goes back to its shipyard, unfatigued, waiting to be fitted again.
Events in India
After storms, draw as many event tiles as the storm die shows, one at a time. Most events happen in the region pictured on the back of the next tile in the draw stack; Peace and Crisis happen where the Elephant stands.
Writer loss. When an order closes, a writer on it goes home to its owner’s supply (a filled-order token is just flipped over).
Cascade
If an order must close in a region whose orders are all closed already, the region overflows: close every open order connected to its orders in neighbouring regions. If a connected order is already closed, close the northernmost open order of that region instead. A region whose orders are then all closed Cascades in turn.
Each region overflows at most once per event tile, though it can be flooded by several.
Turmoil
Close the northernmost open order in the pictured region. If all are closed, Cascade.
Windfall
Each player takes £1 per writer they have on an order in the pictured region and every region bordering it.
Shuffle
Perform the Elephant’s March. Then shuffle this tile into the draw stack, shuffle the discards and put them on top, face down.
Leader
If the pictured region is sovereign, add a tower level. Otherwise it rebels against whoever dominates it, with the modifier shown on the tile. If a Company-controlled region holding the Elephant rebels successfully, the Elephant marches.
Peace
Where the Elephant stands on a border, open the orders linked across that border and add a tower level to each region it touches that the Company doesn’t control. If it stands inside a region, open all orders there and remove all unrest instead. Then the Elephant marches.
Crisis
The Elephant’s tail is the attacker, its head the defender. Add the modifier on the tile to the attacker.
- Invasion (the attacker is sovereign): the attacker’s strength — with its whole empire — plus
the modifier must be greater than the defender’s (with its whole empire).
- Success: the defender takes the attacker’s flag. If the defender was a capital, its other flags go. An attacker without a flag takes a free star flag, if any is left, and starts an empire.
- Failure: the attacker loses a tower level.
- Rebellion (the attacker is dominated): only the attacker and the region that dominates it count;
attacker plus modifier must beat the capital’s strength.
- Success: the rebel is sovereign again, loses its flag, and closes all its open orders (Cascade if none).
- Failure: the capital loses a tower level.
Then the Elephant marches.
Attacks on the Company
When a crisis hits a Company-controlled region, resolve that one first. Then every other Company region with unrest rebels too: Bombay’s Commander first, then Madras, then Bengal, each in the order they like.
- Strength. The first attack: the normal crisis strength +1 per unrest in the region. Each other one: the number of unrest cubes.
- Defence. The region’s Commander must exhaust Army pieces (officers, regiments, local alliances by value) equal to the strength. Short? The region is lost — Region Loss.
- Held. Remove all unrest there; the Commander takes a trophy. A failed invasion also costs the attacker a tower level.
A vacant Commander is replaced by Military Affairs, else the Chairman, who gains or loses no trophies.
Foreign Invasion
Roll the storm die. Resolve an invasion in each region linked to a stormy sea zone (West → Bombay, South → Madras, East → Bengal; all three if all storms). No storm: use the pictured region instead. Each invasion’s strength is one die roll.
If it succeeds: close every open order there (Cascade if none), remove any flag (all of that colour if it was a capital), give a Company-controlled region its dome back, and set the region’s strength to half the roll, rounded down. If the Elephant was inside a Company region that fell, it marches.
Region Loss
- Tarnished name. That Army’s Commander loses half their trophies (round up) and goes home.
- Rout. Roll a die for each officer in that Army; each 6 is removed.
- Governor. The Governor goes home, the card back to the unused offices, its fatigue to supply.
- Local rule. Remove the overlay, any Company ship and all unrest there. Put back a dome with one tower level (and the conqueror’s flag after an invasion). Return the control token with its loot side down: no more loot. After an invasion crisis, close all its open orders.
- Humiliation. Standing drops by the number of regions lost this turn, counting this one: 1 for the first, 2 more for the second, 3 more for the third…
If the Company fails, finish the Events phase, then go to Final Scoring.
Elephant’s March
The Elephant moves to the region pictured on the top tile of the draw stack — except after a successful invasion, when it always goes to the winning capital (imperial ambitions). Then:
- Company-controlled region — in the centre.
- Dominated region — on the border facing its sovereign (a looming rebellion).
- Sovereign region — on the border marked with the tile’s shape (circle, triangle or square), facing out (a looming invasion). If that neighbour is already dominated by this region, use the next border clockwise that isn’t. If every neighbour is dominated, use the shape on the redirect arrow and point at the empire’s capital.