Tycoon Online Rules

The game is played in three sessions. Each session consists of a number of rounds where each player takes his turn in clockwise order. A session ends on the round when one or more players uses up his current hotel allotment, but the round is still finished so everyone has the same number of turns. A payday occurs at the end of each session when you earn income for your hotels and factories and you pay off your debt.

You begin the game by choosing a color. You get $15 million is starting cash, an airplane token, five factory markers of your color (the square markers), and six hotel markers (the round ones). At the beginning of each subsequent session, you add six more hotels to your allotment. Your airplane starts off-board in front of you (HOME).

There are two decks of airplane ticket cards, which are shuffled and placed near the board. Two scheduled flight tickets and six chartered flight tickets (the ones with two city names on each card) are turned up to form a display. At the end of each player's turn, replacement tickets are dealt to the display to replace purchased ones.

The Turn Sequence

• You may use tickets to fly to cities. When you stop movement, your plane must sit on a runway. Only one plane at at time may occupy a runway.
• You must construct one hotel or one factory in your current city. Hotel renovation counts as construction. You may not build more than one building during a turn.
• If you do not construct a building, then you must fly home to take out a loan. Flying home is free and does not require a ticket. Simply put your plane off board in front of you.
• Any time during your turn, you may purchase tickets from the display. (Exception: you may not buy tickets on turns that you fly home to borrow. When you fly home in Tycoon Online, any tickets you purchase that turn are automatically returned to the display.) You may buy as many of the eight available tickets that you can afford. You may use them immediately or save them for later turns. Used ticket are discarded.

The Online Game

Two windows will pop up when the game starts. The control panel window has all the game controls. The second window shows the gameboard. A status line is on the bottom of the gameboard window. The four colored lights in the bottom left corner shows whose turn it is and the turn order. You can also see how much cash you have and how many factories and hotels you have left.

Most controls on the control panel are grayed out when it is not your turn. Use your mouse or the keyboard. Use TAB or control-TAB to move the focus forward, and shift-TAB to move backwards. Press the space bar to press a button.

The small buttons on the bottom of the control panel show different views in the control panel, or they open information windows.

• The H button shows a history of player moves.
• The P button shows player information, including tickets, loans, hotels and factories remaining. The dollar amount is an estimate of that player's value at the next payday if it occurred just now. It will give you an idea of who is winning.
• The D button show the payday distribution table.
• The C button shows the chat window. The button will turn yellow if a player sends a message.
• To leave the game, close either the gameboard or control panel windows. If you are the only player, the game ends. Otherwise, you leave the game and no one takes your seat. You cannot return to a game if you leave.

Cities

• Each city has two runways. Your plane must be on a runway for you to build a factory or hotel. The number printed on your runway is your hotel price.
• Each city has two factories lots. The price is printed on the lot.
• The hotel track has 12 lots. Hotels are built in succession from left to right.
• If you build a hotel on a red lot, then the first hotel becomes obsolete, and it is placed on the center city picture. It does not then count for scoring. In the above picture, the three hotels that may become obsolete are blue, blue, and yellow.
• To renovate a hotel, fly to the city and land on a runway. Then as your build action, renovate the hotel by placing it on the next empty lot in sequence. It is not returned to its original space. Renovation is free.
• The next empty space after the last hotel shows that city's payday payout for factories and hotels. In the New York example, this is $16 and $8.

Tickets

You may use one or more tickets before you build. You may fly to a city with no open runways, but you may not stay there. Used tickets are discarded.

There are six chartered flight tickets in the "for sale" display. To use this ticket, your plane must be in one of the two cities listed on the ticket. To fly, simply move your plane to the other city.

There are two scheduled flight tickets in the display.You use these tickets in one of two ways: Fly your plane to the destination city regardless of where it starts. You must use this ticket type to move your plane from home to the game board. Each ticket shows 1 to 3 blocks or "stops." To use stops, move your plane to adjacent cities on the map counting each city as a stop. For example, it takes a two-stop ticket to fly from New York to Cairo. Notice. According to a note that I have seen from Wolfgang Kramer, when you use stops, you must use the full movement. For example, if the ticket has three stops, you must move exactly three spaces. Nothing was said about retracing steps. This rule has some odd effects. The online version does not do it this way. It assumes you may move less than the full movement. For example, you could move 1, 2, or 3 steps with a 3-step ticket. I will fix this when I get a chance.

Online Tycoon will automatically move your plane and discard your ticket. If you used a scheduled flight ticket and have a choice of destinations, the online game will open a dialog to ask you where you want to go. If you fly to a city with no open runway, it will put your plane near the runways, but it will not let you press a command button.

Loans

• To borrow money, you must be at home. (Many players use their first turn to borrow.) If you are in a city, simply move your plane home for free.
• You may not buy tickets on any turn that you borrow money.
• You may take out only one loan each turn.
• You may choose either a small loan ($10 million) or a large loan ($16 million).
• Loans come due on each payday after you get your income. The repay amount is $12 million for small loans and $20 million for big loans.
• You are not required to repay loans when they first come due. You may extend them to the next payday when they must be repaid. The extended loan repay amount is $16 million for a small loan and $30 for a big loan.
• Tycoon Online will automatically pay off your extended loans. Otherwise it will open a window and ask you to choose which loans you want to repay and which you want to extend.

Payday

Each player receives from three sources:

• You are paid for the number of cities in which you have at least one hotel. If all of your hotels in a city need renovation, that city does not count. A payoff table for occupied cities is printed on the gameboard. In Tycoon Online, press the small "D" button at the bottom of the control panel to see the table.
• Each city pays off for first and second in most hotels on its hotel. The payoff amounts are printed on the next empty hotel space. In the example below, New York pays off $16 million for most hotels and $8 million for second most. If only one player has hotels in a city, then second place is ignored. If two players tie, then the player with the first hotel on the track wins.

  In the example below, yellow and green take 1st ($12) and 2nd ($6) in Monaco. Green takes 1st in New York because his hotel is placed first. In Hong Kong, yellow's two hotels need renovations, so they do not count. Red gets 2nd. In Cape Town, only green gets paid for 1st place. track.

• Each factory by default pays off the 2nd place money for hotels. However, the city that has the longest advancement on the hotel track pays off 1st place hotel money for each factory. If there is a tie, all tied cities pay 1st place money.

  In the example below, Hong Kong has the longest advancement with nine used hotel lots. (Obsolete hotel lots count in this case.) Blue and red would each get $14 million for their factories there. Red's factories in Rio only pay $5 million each because the hotel chain is not long enough.