Solo: the Conglomerate

The official solo mode — set up the Conglomerate, play against its action deck and beat its fortune.

How solo works

You play the Short Game against the Conglomerate, a Major Corporation that is also your rival investor. It starts as a merger of two Minors with a ready-made network, buys a share of every company you launch and acts in Operating Rounds from an Action Deck of its Minors’ certificates. After four cycles, compare fortunes. Everything not changed here follows the normal rules (Solo Mode rulebook, second printing).

Solo setup

Use the setup checklist with 1 player. In short:

1. A pre-set Short Game map, or one built with Short Game with randomized Minors.
2. Reveal one random Minor on the map and choose its partner from the others on the map.
3. Merge them under the Conglomerate charter (or any Major): two hubs on its 60 spaces; six shares, president’s certificate included, in its treasury; three singles under the charter (not in its treasury); one in the bank pool; 450 in its treasury.
4. Shuffle the two Minors’ certificates into a face-up Action Deck.
5. Join the two homes with yellow track: each home’s legs point along the shortest way to the other home and toward the nearest Capital, unlaunched Minor home or Distant Destination (ties in that order, then your choice). Between equal hexes prefer Capital, unlaunched Minor home, basic city, blank, mountain. Mountains are paid from its treasury; use bridges if there is no other way.
6. Each Minor hub goes on its home with a Conglomerate hub on top. Stock price = total city revenue of the network, at least 60, at most 90.
7. You take 450 and the priority marker for the whole game. Deal the other six Minors in two columns of three.

Difficulty

Being close to Capitals and unlaunched Minors also makes it stronger. The booklet’s three example setups (starting at 60, 80 and 90) show it: in the medium and hard ones the Conglomerate reaches a Capital hub in its first Operating Round, and in the hard one it also absorbs an unlaunched Tunneling in the first Merger Round.

Company setup exceptions

Minor in the Conglomerate	Setup change
Bridging	Water counts as blank while the needed bridge is in its supply; blank wins a tie to save bridges.
Adaptive	Home goes in the nearest basic city on the far side of the Capital nearest the partner’s home; both connect to that Capital.
Tunneling	+20 per mountain covered; mountains are preferred to blank hexes.
Suburban	Suburbs go on non-hub basic cities of the starting track, nearest first; they count toward the starting price.
Expansive	Its token goes under the Conglomerate token on the 40 space.

Solo Stock Rounds

You:

• Conglomerate shares can only be bought from the bank pool, and none can be sold in the first Stock Round.
• You may not sell shares of your company if that would give the Conglomerate its presidency.
• Starting an auction wins it at your opening bid.

The Conglomerate, with its treasury money:

• Buys one share of every company or Corporation you launch that it has no share of yet (Major shares from the bank pool when possible). Those shares sit in its treasury and pay it dividends.
• Sells any share it holds that is priced above the top starting price of the phase: 100+ in yellow, 120+ in green, 150+ in purple and grey.
• Does nothing else.

Solo Operating Rounds

At the start of OR1 in each of the first three cycles, the Conglomerate issues one of the three shares under its charter to the bank pool: it receives the current price and drops one step.

Trains. Before acting, each Operating Round it buys the top available train, paying only the difference between that train and the last one it bought (0 if they are the same type). It has no train limit and its trains never rust; keep them in one stack, newest on top. If it cannot pay, it buys nothing and runs with its top train.

Action. Turn the top Action Deck card aside: that is this round’s action (and shows the next one). A single share means the basic action; a president’s certificate means the special action of that company (table below) — if impossible, the basic action — and then it buys one more train. Actions that mention a home use that Minor’s home hub. Its upgrades ignore phase limits, and open track legs point at the nearest revenue spot where possible.

• Basic action: lay two yellow tiles toward the nearest target it has an open path to, in this priority: Capital city, unlaunched Minor home, a home of one of your companies, Distant Destination, basic city. It never builds toward an empty edge of a tile already on the map. No target: upgrade its home tile; if that is impossible, upgrade the nearest city.
• Breakthrough: if it can connect to one of your networks it is not yet joined to by upgrading one tile or a pair of adjacent tiles, it upgrades the nearest such tile(s). With several networks, it picks the one with the most Capitals, then unlaunched Minor homes, then cities. No yellow tiles.
• Capital hubs: whenever it is connected to a Capital with an open spot, it places a hub there at once and pays for it.

Earnings. No routes: count its train value × hubs on the map cities (Distant Destinations included) it can trace to, most valuable first, counting each city with a Conglomerate hub twice. It always pays out.

Company exceptions and special actions

Company	Every Operating Round	Special action
Adaptive	—	Breakthrough
Agricultural	After any upgrade, lays a yellow tile (basic-action rules)	Breakthrough, then a yellow tile per upgrade
Bridging	Water counts as blank while the bridge is available (blank wins ties); city upgrades point as many edges into water as possible	Breakthrough
Eastern Mining	—	Breakthrough
Expansive	Places the 60 hubs before the 40 Expansive hub	Place the Expansive hub in the nearest basic city for 40 if not yet placed; upgrade every city with an Expansive hub
Express	—	Breakthrough
Northern Port	—	Upgrade the port tile to purple
Overnight	Cities full of your hubs in its network count as open, worth 0	Breakthrough
Resourceful	—	Breakthrough
Spacious	—	Buys an extra train before counting revenue
Suburban	After its action, places a remaining suburb on the nearest connected basic city without its hub or a suburb	Upgrade every suburb city; suburbs count +20 this round
Tunneling	Prefers mountains to blank hexes for yellow tiles	Put a mountain overlay on the blank hex nearest each open leg of every network with your hubs (you break ties)

Merger round, export and end

• Merger Round: if it has a hub available and is connected to an unlaunched Minor’s home, it absorbs that Minor: a free Conglomerate hub on top of the Minor’s token, the Minor’s certificates shuffled into the Action Deck, its charter beside the Conglomerate, and its price up one step.
• No train export in solo.
• End: after the fourth cycle. You score your cash and shares; the Conglomerate scores the cash and shares in its treasury. Higher fortune wins.

Solo with Landmarks

[Landmarks] The expansion’s solo sheet adds (Landmarks of the Lost Atlas Solo Rules):

• Setup: shuffle in 2 Landmark project tiles. The Metropolitan is not used.
• Targets: Landmarks join the priority list after unlaunched Minor homes; among Landmarks: Waterfall, Rock Formation, Grand Junction, Mirage + Deserts, Cave, Wildflower Valley, Void, Canyon. It ignores Ancient Ruins and Cliff.
• Landmarks: Cave adds its revenue while connected; Wildflower Valley +20 if connected stop–valley–stop; it never runs yellow legs into a Park but always runs green legs into it; Mirage counts if in its network and swaps with the Desert matching its top train; through the Void it may count the best open city in place of a lower stop; Waterfall, Rock Formation and Canyon replace its lowest stop as soon as it can reach them (once per game); the Canyon 2-train adds its two best hubs as revenue.
• New companies: Circus counts Distant Destinations twice; Coupling counts every city in its network; Manufacturing stops buying once a permanent train is on top (its 2-train adds the two best hubs; its special action is none, but it still buys a train); Twin Cities connects both homes to the partner (three hubs) and its special action upgrades both homes. A Direct-to-Major launch makes it buy two shares.
• Events: Overtime — it operates in OR3; Rural Expansion — it pays to reach the nearest city/Distant Destination/Landmark from its open legs; Stock Bonanza — it issues one share each Operating Round without a price drop; Corporate Subsidies — two shares of new companies; Merger Mania — absorbs in the extra round; Record Gains — triple jumps when it can; Train Auction Today — bids 10% of its cash; Tycoons Rejoice — buys up to two more of its own shares; Unions Win! — half pays only if its price still rises. Other events do not affect it. If its Action Deck runs out, it takes the basic action until it absorbs another Minor.