December 20, 2011 v28c changes: Corrected Section 4.1 to handle when the player can't sell anything because all shares are IPO only. Clarified trains can not be purchased from companies in liquidation. December 2, 2011 v28b changes: Clarified section 4.5 Corrected share number inconsistency in section 4.3. Added paragraph to 6.1.3 to handle case after two 5-share companies merge and have more than five short shares. November 26, 2011 v28a changes Clarified stock purchases and sales in section 6. Other small changes. Reformatted to two columns. November 19, 2011 v28 changes Short selling of 10-share companies limited to five shares instead of ten. Added variant section: * Increased Short Sales! Allow ten shares to be shorted in a 10-share company. * More Players! Include up to 12 players in the game. * Short Squeeze! The stock price increases faster when short sellers can't close their position. * Modern Trains! 7-trains and 8-trains receive a bonus for each station marker on their route. Other miscellaneous small corrections and clarifications were made. No further changes are planned prior to publication. August 17, 2011 V27f of the rules has been posted. This corrects an omission on dropping the stock value when not paying a dividend in section 5.6. Thanks Nicolai! July 21, 2011 v27e of the rules has been posted. This update primarily provided clarifications to section 6 of the rules provided by Dave Berry. Other minor clarifications were also made. April 24, 2011 v27d updates the following: * The mechanic for closing short positions added to section 4.1. Section 4.1 was chosen rather than section 4.4 because a player can find himself with a regular share and short share as a result of a purchase or a merger. * Corrected the number of private companies to eleven * Several small clarifications Feedback requested for the following proposed rule change: A change is being proposed to limit the number of short shares available on 10-share companies to 5 shares from the current 10. If two 5-share companies merged that together exceeded 5 short shares, the existing short sales would not be required to close, but no new short selling could take place. Any feedback on this change is appreciated. The change is expected improve the viability of 10-share companies and decrease the overall volatility of the game. This change should: * Reduce the damage shorting does to 10-share companies. It should still be damaging, but healthy companies should be better able to survive the assault. * Reduce the amount of capital short sellers can raise to a more reasonable amount. Feedback questions: * Is it it too hard to short 10-share companies because they need to buy back fewer shares when shorted but can still take 10 loans to assist in the buy back? * Are weak 10-share companies still able to be shorted profitably? * Does it reduce the 'too much capital raised by short sellers' issue? Was this an issue to begin with? * Does shorting 5-share companies drive merges to prevent further shorting? Is this an interesting decision? * Does this change improve the game? January 8, 2010 Clarified section 6.2 so that only companies with stock value in the green may bid to purchase other companies. Companies moving into acquisition during M&A may not be offered for sale. This was in previous versions of the rules, but fell out somewhere. Updated 6.1.2 and 6.1.3 to make wording for 2-share company mergers consistent with the wording for 5-share company mergers. Improved wording when referring to other sections of the rules. Several minor grammatical improvements. December 23, 2010 Rules updated to v27b. Minor grammar corrections and clarifications mostly in the strategy section. November 27, 2010 The rule book was updated to v27. No changes to any rules were intended. There were numerous grammar corrections and small rules clarifications. More detail was added to section 6.2 on company liquidations, acquisitions, and friendly sales. An strategy guide was added to section 9. Section 10 now lists all companies included in the game as well as a short history of each company. Section 11 was added to include design and historical notes. July 24, 2010 Rules updated: Players may sell shares in addition buying one share during a merger or conversion. Private companies: Port company removed, bridge companies slightly changed. (The port company is still available to print in the private company files for those that wish to us it.) Map: Cosmetic improvements. Company charters, stock certificates, and station markers cosmetically improved. Tokens are now formatted for onlinelabels.com OL32 product. June 7, 2010 Many small rules clarifications. Updated instructions for acquisitions when there are too many loans. Updated merger stock value placement instructions. Changed president of merged company to be president of company that initiated the merger when the two contributing companies have different presidents. Coal mines must be directly connected to a city. This was changed to be simpler, and should make the coal mines slightly more valuable. Added rule clarifying that all information is public. Added detail on when a company may take loans. Coming soon: Updated company charters to improve layout. Likely remove the Port private company. The East Coast already gets built up and doesn't need any further incentive the Port Private Company provides. Likely change to bridge companies to allow choice of city placement in placement in Louisville, Cincinnati, or Charleston . May 10, 2001 Rules updated mostly due to helpful feedback from Steve. Cosmetic updates to the Stock Certificates and Company Charters. The station markers have not been updated to match yet. Next up: Update station markers to match new Stock Certificates and Company Charters. Improve illustrations and images in rules. April 20, 2010 Section 6.2 completely rewritten. Old version of the rules remains online to compare. April 17, 2010 Minor update to private company images and wording. April 11, 2010 Improved wording on rules v22. Section 6 needs to be rewritten to improve clarity. Tiles and map no longer need "K" and "L" printed on them due to rules wording for brown tiles. March 7,2010 Improved wording on private companies to match updated rules. March 6, 2010: Rules updated for improved clarity. Map tiles Toronto and Cleveland changed to gray. Tile numbering added to tiles #116 and #117. March 5, 2010: Rules updated from user feedback. Many clarifications added. Table of contents added. More minor updates in the next few days along with a minor map update. February 28, 2010: Corrected number of certificates to print in instructions. February 22, 2010: Cosmetic update to tiles. February 21, 2010: Print and play files for 1817. These files will be continuously updated. The Trains file is ridiculously large due to the inefficient method used to create it. |