Taking Actions

Panamax rounds and turns: the Action table, choosing a die, Executive and Market actions, moving a die across the table, and bonus cards

Rounds and turns

The game has 3 rounds. In each round players take turns in the order of the discs on the Rail table, round and round, until no Action dice are left: 4 turns each with 3–4 players, 6 with 2.
On your turn you take one white die and do its action. Around that action you may also build ships, move a die across the table, and play one Captain and one Stevedore card earned on an earlier turn.
When the last Action die is taken the round ends: follow End of round. After round 3 comes Final scoring.

The Action table from the rulebook's setup picture: blue Movement columns on the left, grey Contract columns on the right, Executive dice on top

Six columns, one per die value, three rows each. Columns 1–3 (blue) are Movement; columns 4–6 (grey) are Contract / Load Cargo, each with a contract card beside it.
Executive spaces on top hold one die per value.
The number printed at the foot of a blue column is how many lock moves it gives; the row symbols on a grey column show how many containers you may load.

Take the die in the lowest occupied row of a column. You may take an Executive die only when no Action dice are left in its column.
Contract / Load Cargo (grey, 4–6). You may take the contract beside the column, then load as many containers as the row you just uncovered: bottom row 1, middle 2, top 3. An Executive die always loads 3. See Contracts and Loading.
Movement (blue, 1–3). Make lock moves equal to the column number and waterway moves equal to the empty spaces left in that column after you take the die (0–2). An Executive die gives 3 waterway moves and as many lock moves as its value. See Moving Through the Canal.
You may take a Contract die and decline the contract, loading from the contracts you already hold. You may even take a die and do nothing, which is a pass.

An Executive die does its side’s action as above, or a Market action instead:

Buy one share of any company with shares left, including your own, at its current price from your own money (Market actions); or
Raise your company’s stock by $2 — move its cube up two spaces. It is all or nothing: you cannot raise it by only $1 (BGG thread).

Before taking your action you may move one die to the other side of the table:

Pay $5 from company money (only $2 with the Passenger benefit, free once the first Clipboard column holds four different flags — see Passenger benefits).
Take the lowest die of a column (or an Executive die) and put it in the highest free row of any column on the other side. It takes that column’s value and you must use it at once as your action.
You cannot move a die to another column on the same side or to another Executive space. A moved Executive die becomes a normal Action die (BGG thread).
Transferring is not an action in itself.

These do not use your die:

Build ships at any time on your turn: 1-slot $5, 3-slot $7, paid from company money; place it in any Loading zone (Build ships).
Captain card — extra moves (3, 4 or 5, any mix of lock and waterway). Stevedore card — load one extra die, or cut your cargo fees at round end. Details in Cards & Components.
You may hold one Captain and one Stevedore card. Play each on a later turn than the one you earned it on — a card earned during another player’s turn is ready on yours. Play them before or after your die action, not in the middle of it; used cards go to the bottom of their pile.

Finish all movement you were given unless no legal move is left.
At the end of your turn you may hold at most two incomplete contracts.
Free actions from flags you placed this turn are used at once or lost (except a deferred Market action, see Flags and free actions).