Rumors abound. Two great hotel chains are said to be planning a merger. You calculate the odds and decide to buy stock in one of the chains in the hope it will pay off if the merger occurs. The two hotels do merge and your gamble pays off as you collect a fortune in profits. You begin to build your own hotel chain. Ads for your hotels appear on the billboards with Sheraton, Hilton, and Marriott. ACQUIRE is a game for two to six players that takes you into the world of hotels. Players must start hotel chains and then expand them by building more and more hotels around them, At the same time, players may buy stock in any active chains, even those begun by other players. The players with the most stock in a chain control that chain. They will then try to make a profit by merging this chain with other chains, because the major stockholders receive bonuses during mergers. Luck will play its part, but the winner will be the player who has had the foresight to buy the right stock at the right time. It will be important to know how many shares of stock other players have though, so you will know when you have, or don't have, the majority of shares. You must spend your money carefully. The game ends when all the chains have been merged into one giant one, or when several chains have all grown to a size where they cannot be merged with each other. The Winner will be the person with the most money at the end of the game after all profits and bonuses for stockholders have been given out.