Game: Cartel

Thread: Re: New Edition?

SteveK2 — 2008-09-25T07:05:36+00:00

Henry Rhombus wrote:
As of September 24, this revised edition of Cartel is now on hold indefinitely.

Eric
Editor, http://www.BoardgameNews.com

As of September 25, I feel

(but thanks for passing on the info)

Thread: Re: New Edition?

Henry Rhombus — 2008-09-25T04:25:01+00:00

As of September 24, this revised edition of Cartel is now on hold indefinitely.

Eric
Editor, http://www.BoardgameNews.com

Thread: Re: I need Rule

herman_the_german — 2008-07-30T18:38:22+00:00

I've posted a translation from the Portuguese. It is not perfect, since I used translating software, but as far as I can tell it is pretty well understandable.
Let me know if you see major (or minor) mistakes.

Thread: Re: How many Dallas Event Cards should there be?

minionhunter — 2008-07-11T06:35:51+00:00

The cards I have are 23/24

State senate slaps anti-trust suit
Defensive merger
Insurance
Good Ol' Boys Come through
Insurance
Windfall taxes reduced
Wildcat walk out
Fluctuating oil prices
Equipment Failure
Oil Strike!
Domestic Oil Soars
T.E.C. Restricts Rival
Research and Development
Polish Corporate Image
Oil Prices Plunge
Federal Reserve squeezes money supply
Senate Raises State Taxes
Goodwill Ambassador
Walk-out Averted
Federal Reserve Increases Money supply
T.E.C. Grants variance
Technology Breakthrough!
Lawsuit

Thread: Re: New Edition?

SteveK2 — 2008-06-08T14:49:11+00:00

Reported in January at boardgamenews.

Thread: Re: New Edition?

Drew1365 — 2008-06-08T14:45:10+00:00

dumpty wrote:
Is there a new edition of this being released this year? I saw Cartel on a geeklist of upcoming games for 2008. Anyone have any info on which publisher or when? Will it be called Cartel?

An update to Cartel, called Priceless was published a dozen years ago by Winning Moves. If anyone publishes it again, I would assume it would be them, seein' as how Philip Orbanes is involved with Winning Moves, and is credited as the designer.

Thread: New Edition?

dumpty — 2008-06-08T14:35:38+00:00

Is there a new edition of this being released this year? I saw Cartel on a geeklist of upcoming games for 2008. Anyone have any info on which publisher or when? Will it be called Cartel?

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race9 — 2008-04-14T06:44:48+00:00

Both sides of a completed score card.

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race9 — 2008-04-14T06:44:10+00:00

Cartel Money

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race9 — 2008-04-14T06:43:36+00:00

Companies

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race9 — 2008-04-14T06:25:06+00:00

Bonds

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race9 — 2008-04-14T06:24:20+00:00

Stock Certificates

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race9 — 2008-04-14T06:23:30+00:00

Markers

Thread: Re: Can you borrow less than 1/2 the price of the company?

jdbvol — 2008-02-24T06:34:38+00:00

cbrua wrote:
Also, the rules to Dallas do not say it, but I assume each player starts with three company cards in their hands?
You assume correctly. Early copies of the Dallas rulebook omitted the part in the Preliminaries section about each player getting a three-card hand. After dealing one $10M company card to each player for a starting company, the remaining $10M and $20M cards should be shuffled together, then three dealt to each player as a hand. Then three more of those are placed face up on the board to start a pool, and the rest reshuffled into the deck.

This oversight was pointed out in the January 1986 issue of GAMES Magazine in the review of Dallas written by none other than Sid Sackson.

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lclaudius — 2007-11-19T16:26:40+00:00

Components of the Brazilian edition

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lclaudius — 2007-11-19T16:25:32+00:00

Cover of the Brazilian edition

Thread: two questions

keel — 2007-05-21T07:56:21+00:00

1. Should the 'start player' be rotated each round? Our group feels that the last player has an advantage.
2. If we go thru the event cards, should they be reshuffled and gone thru again or is once the limit?

Thread: Re: Can you borrow less than 1/2 the price of the company?

Larry Levy — 2007-05-11T17:30:07+00:00

I only have Cartel, but in that game, you MUST take the bond exactly equal to half the printed value and you start with three cards.

Thread: Re: Can you borrow less than 1/2 the price of the company?

zefquaavius — 2007-05-11T12:09:42+00:00

Chris, aren't the Dallas rules poor? I'll check both Dallas and Cartel when I get a chance. Priceless doesn't have that feature, so my ready familiarity with that game doesn't help in that situation.

Thread: Can you borrow less than 1/2 the price of the company?

cbrua — 2007-05-11T03:38:15+00:00

The Dallas rules are little unclear. When you take a bond to buy a company, do you have to take a bond equal to half the printed value of the company, or can you take a smaller bond than that?

Also, the rules to Dallas do not say it, but I assume each player starts with three company cards in their hands?

Thread: Cartel: Remembering Cartel and the Gamut of Games Line

Larry Levy — 2007-05-03T03:25:38+00:00

[This review originally appeared in The Game Report]

Their games featured innovative component and graphic design, years before such emphasis was common. Their game designers included a Hawaiian Prince. And despite a brief lifetime, several of their creations still exist today. I'm speaking of a company called Gamut of Games, a shooting star in the drab night sky that was the American gaming industry in the early 1970's.

Those were dark days indeed for gamers whose tastes did not run to wargames. The adult game field had been invigorated (some would say it was practically invented) ten years earlier by the introduction of the marvelous 3M Bookshelf games. But by 1973, the supply of game ideas from the Minnesota magnate had nearly run dry, and there was nothing to take its place.

But suddenly, a new set of products appeared on the shelves of game stores. They didn't look like the other available games, or, for that matter, like any commercial game that had ever been produced. They were remarkably inexpensive. And the games were good. It didn't take much to be considered a good game in 1973, but the best of their creations still hold up today, twenty-five years later.

The games came from a variety of different fields, but their appearance was quite similar. And the driving factor behind the games' unique look was to reduce the price. Instead of a large rectangular or bookcase style box made of heavy cardboard, the Gamut of Games products were housed in slender, squarish (they measured about 10" x 10" x 1") boxes made of flexible cardstock. The boxes only opened at the top and the game components were slid out. Most of the boxes had a front flap; inside the flap were the rules or an illustrated game aid. In order to fit inside these small enclosures, the gameboards consisted of four separate pieces which fit together in interlocking jigsaw fashion. No doubt this flimsy packaging cost them some sales, but it did have its desired effect: the games retailed for about $7.00, which even in 1973 was a remarkably low price for an adult game.

Six games were introduced all at once, and they did indeed cover the gamut of game fields. Realm was a set of five games of abstract strategy that used common equipment. My Word! was a two player deductive word game that was a first cousin of Jotto. Infinity was a counter placing game; I owned it and all I can remember about it was that it was weird.

Without question the most renowned of the six games was Bridgette, a two player bridge game invented by Prince Joli Kansil, the aforementioned member of Hawaiian royalty. It is universally considered to be the best two-handed bridge variant ever created. In 1986, it became the 15th game to be inducted into Games Magazine's Hall of Fame. It is still available, in a stylish package produced by Mayfair Games.

One of my personal favorites among the GoG games was Montage, a partnership crossword puzzle game for four players, also created by Kansil. The key innovation here was that instead of letters, words were formed by chips of five different colors. Each color could represent one of five or six different letters. On your turn, you pointed to a partially filled line of the puzzle and gave a short clue. If your partner could guess the word before both of your opponents, your side could fill in the chips to that word, turned to your side. Otherwise, your opponents got the word. The board was divided into nine areas, three on a side, and you captured an area by winning a majority of its chips. The object was to be the first to capture three areas in a row, a la Tic Tac Toe! While the whole game was excellent, my favorite part was coming up with clever or appropriate clues. You'd try to use your knowledge of the players to come up with clues that your partner would understand more readily than your opponents. A unique game, and, I fear, long forgotten.

Finally there was Cartel, the game that will not die. A financial game created by Philip Orbanes, it was the only member of the GoG brood that today would be classified as a gamer's game. In fact, I feel it can hold its own against the best games being produced today, a remarkable achievement for a game introduced so many years ago.

Cartel's game board consists of 52 companies arranged in an 8 by 7 rectangle, with the four corners removed. The companies range in value from $10 million to $250 million. Each company also has a yearly profit, which tends to be about ten percent of its value. Companies which are orthogonally adjacent on the game board have a bonus profit shown between them. A player who owns two adjacent companies also gets to add the bonus profit to his total yearly profit. Finally, each set of four companies which form a square on the board has a special profit shown in the center of the square, which is given to any player who owns all four of the companies.

Each player begins the game with $10 million dollars, 11 markers of his color, and nine blocks of stock. They each also begin with one randomly chosen $10 million dollar company, which they identify as their own by pushing one of their markers into the hole in the board next to the company space. Finally, each player is dealt three of the less expensive companies face down to form their beginning hand, and three more of these companies are exposed and placed on their squares on the board.

The game is played over ten one-year rounds. During a player's turn, he can perform only one of the following three actions:

1. He can buy a company from his hand. He plays the company card, pays the bank its value, and then draws a new company into his hand.

2. He can put an exposed company up for auction. All the players write down secret bids and the high bidder buys the company from the bank. All bids greater than zero must be at least equal to the value of the company. The player whose turn it was draws a company and then discards a company onto the game board, so that it will be available to be auctioned off on future turns.

3. He can pass by drawing two companies into his hand and then discarding two companies onto the board.

The game's principal innovation is the way in which companies are paid for. There are three methods available and any combination of the three can be used. First, there's good old fashioned cash, but there's never enough available to buy everything you need to. Second, a player can float a bond. Bonds come in denominations equal to exactly half the printed value of the companies. If you decide to use a bond to help with the purchase of a company you take a bond of the appropriate value. For example, if you bid $120 million for a company with a base value of $100 million, you can take a $50 million bond to help pay for it. You now only need to come up with $70 million. But there are two drawbacks to bonds. First, and most important, the player only receives half of that company's profit each year. (Bonus and Special profits are unaffected.) Second, bonds must be paid back at the end of the game, at a price 20 to 50 percent higher than the bond price.

The third way to pay for a company is to cash in one or more blocks of stock. Stock blocks have a variable worth which, logically enough, is tied to a player's total yearly profits. At the beginning of the game, they're only worth $10 million apiece; by game's end, they can be worth as much as $250 million. The big issue with stock is, once you sell a block, you can never buy it back.

Much of the game's strategy comes in how you use these three methods of purchasing. Obviously, you want to use your available cash whenever possible. This can dictate how much you bid for a company; if you go as high as $60 million, for example, you might be able to finance the purchase with a bond and a single stock block, but a $61 million bid might mean you'll have to sell two blocks of stock. Of course, your opponents are aware of this as well. The choice of bonds vs. stocks is an agonizing one. Using bonds for purchases means that your profits are reduced; not only does that mean you receive less money each turn, it also lessens the value of your stock. But stock is always worth more as the game goes on, so you want to delay cashing it in for as long as possible.

After a player buys a company, he adds the new profits from the purchase to his running yearly profit total. After every player has taken their turn in a round, each player receives their yearly profits in cash. They also adjust their stock price if their profits have gone up sufficiently. Then the next round begins.

After ten rounds, the players add together their cash on hand, the printed value of their companies, and the worth of their unsold stock (based upon their final yearly profit total). They subtract off the repayment price for all their bonds to get their Net Worth. Whoever has the greatest Net Worth wins the game.

There's a couple of reasons why I and quite a few other gamers are so impressed with Cartel. First, at the time of its release, an American money game meant only one thing: a Monopoly clone. Period, end of sentence. That Cartel was so completely different than its peers is quite surprising. Second, look at all the elements of modern game design it has. A set game length (most of the popular games at the time were open-ended). Players choosing between a limited number of restricted choices. A greatly reduced luck factor. The tension provided by trying to accomplish two conflicting aims (in this case, bonds vs. stocks). An innovative subsystem (the purchasing methods). A game board which uses its layout to display a great deal of information. No player eliminations. And all this from a game created more than a generation ago! To say that Cartel was ahead of its time is practically damning it with faint praise.

Another element Cartel shares with current games is its striking use of graphic design. One of GoG's stated goals was to produce games with a distinctive appearance and they certainly achieved it with Cartel. The game board avoids sharp corners by having lines flow into each other for a very avant garde look. Each of the companies has its own logo, all of them attractive and many of them clever and amusing. For example, the "O. H." of "Occidental Hotels" are arranged to form a room key, while the "B" of "Beef Las Pampas" is distorted to resemble the head of a bull. All the player displays are clearly laid out in each corner of the board, a very efficient use of board space. The fonts used on the money, stocks, and bonds are all stylish and unusual. Even the ownership markers are cute little dollar signs. All in all, quite a stunning design and absolutely mind blowing for the early seventies. Of course, because of cost cutting the stocks and bonds are mere slips of paper (and originally come on a pad) but they are still perfectly functional and hold up well over repeated game play. Besides, waddya want for $7.00?

The game plays very well with both 3 and 4 players (the game for 2 being pretty much a loser). Every auction usually brings important decisions: how much do I bid; do I try to block my opponent's master plan or tend to my own knitting; do I use a stock block or a bond to finance the bid; do I try to grab companies in different areas of the board or hope that lucky picks will allow me to own one glorious connected whole; and if the latter materializes, will I be able to afford it? You can only buy 11 companies in 10 turns, so each choice of what to buy is crucial. It's absolutely essential to plan several turns ahead. For example, if I bid so much for Company X, I can buy it with cash and a stock block and still have enough left so that next turn I can buy this $100 million company in my hand for cash and a bond. I can bid higher for Company X and finance it with a bond, but that will reduce my profit and means I'll have to use stock next turn. Judy over there doesn't have enough money to block the lower bid without using two stock blocks; I doubt she'll do that. Fred's got the bucks to top the low bid, but not the high bid; can I sneak the lower bid by him?

At the beginning of the game, you have next to nothing, but each purchase raises both your yearly income and your stock price, allowing you to buy more expensive companies each turn. Ideally, by game's end, you can finance those $250 million beauties that can really send your stock sky high. It's a piggyback operation, but delicate timing is often required. Its implementation is influenced by the companies you pick, whether you succeed in buying the companies you desire, how much your opponents interfere, and whether you have to interfere with your opponents, whose master plan might be working out better than yours.

The only real reservation a serious gamer would have with Cartel is how it can be influenced by luck. A player who is drawing companies next to those he already owns or which are in his hand figures to have an easier job than a player who keeps picking companies in different areas of the board. I've played in games where one player's picks were so good that it was almost impossible to stop him and others where a player's draws were so bad that he was never a factor. But those extremes are quite rare. Usually, the breaks even out over the course of a game. And of course, a player who hits a good streak will attract more than his share of attention from his opponents. I would say that skill plays far more of a role than luck does in this game.

I said earlier that Cartel is the game that will not die. Well, to be more accurate, it's the game that keeps getting resurrected. The original disappeared from game stores, along with the rest of the GoG line, a couple of years after it was released. In the early eighties, however, it resurfaced under the name of Dallas. The company names and logos had been changed to better reflect the television show, and an event deck, which was best ignored, had been added, but under the paint job it was still Cartel. Ironically, many current gamers, particularly those from Europe, know Dallas better than the original. (Keep in mind that several different games called "Dallas" have been released--it was a popular show.) I seem to remember that another disguised version of Cartel came out sometime during the eighties, but I wouldn't swear to it.

Finally, in 1996, Winning Moves released a game called Priceless. I remember when I first saw this in the stores, I was outraged--another Cartel rip-off! But when I saw that Philip Orbanes was one of the designers (along with Tom Kremer), my anger turned to excitement. An updated version of Cartel, by the original designer! I bought it as a gift for a friend who is a particularly rabid Cartel fan and looked forward to our first game.

Alas, Priceless! I know Cartel, I have played Cartel, and you are no Cartel. First of all, the stock blocks remain (they are called checks here, which given their changing values, seems less logical), but the bonds do not, removing one of the principal dynamics of the original. The game board is different: the 48 companies (which in Priceless are collectable items) are arranged in twelve groups of four similar items. There are no explicit adjacency bonuses. Player's holdings are increased by acquiring items in long orthogonal "chains" and particularly by acquiring all four items of a group. There are two problems with this. First, the marvelous structure of the original board, which contained all the data needed to determine player profits, is lost. Second, because the emphasis is on long chains and on specific squares on the board, as opposed to any adjacent companies or any square of four companies, the luck of the draw plays a much bigger role in Priceless.

The relationship between buying an item from your hand or at an auction is changed as well--in fact, it's practically reversed. In Cartel, buying from your hand was always preferable, because it was at the minimum price. While this did add to the game's luck factor, it also permitted planning and rewarded strategic play. The idea was to buy some innocuous looking companies at auction and then to plunk down a few companies from your hand in later turns that turned your scattered purchases into a powerhouse. In Priceless, however, the cost of buying an item from your hand depends upon how many other items of its group have been purchased. The fourth item in a group is particularly expensive. Moreover, there is no minimum bid for an auctioned item. Thus, the object now is to buy the first few items in a group from your hand and then buy the rest at auction, preferably for less than the base price, certainly for less than if you bought it from your hand. There are two problems with this new dynamic. First, the risky option has to be left for last. Thus, you may have spent the time and expense to purchase three items from a group, only to have it all count for nothing when you lose the auction for the fourth. Second, it makes defensive buying much more difficult. If an opponent with three items in a group puts the fourth up for auction, it is worth so much more to him than to you (because of the bonus for completing a group) that you have to take a tremendous loss in order to stop him from buying it. Thus, another crucial aspect of the game is lost.

There are a few other minor differences between the games. Priceless uses open bidding in its auctions, as opposed to Cartel's secret bids. Open bidding tends to be fairer, but it always takes longer, which is a problem in a game with this many auctions. Besides, the secret bidding in Cartel works so very well; there is so much information available about what your opponents might want to do that there is tremendous scope for outthinking them and anticipating their bids. And speaking of information, another difference is that Priceless explicitly states that players' cash and check holdings are kept secret. Although Cartel's rules don't address this, our group has always kept both pieces of information public and, as my previous comment indicates, it definitely enhances the game. Of course, this is an easy rule to change, but its inclusion is still annoying. Finally, Priceless allows players to trade items and cash, while in Cartel this is only an optional rule (one which my group never plays with). In this aspect, Priceless might have an advantage, since trading encourages player interaction. However, discussing trades reveals information about your hand, which makes trading more difficult and more hazardous than you might think. In Cartel, there is such sufficient scope for using whatever hand you're dealt that trading wouldn't really add that much. It would also make grabbing an early lead almost suicidal, since your opponents would trade among themselves and freeze you out.

To the serious gamer, the most distasteful part of Priceless has to be the Action Cards scattered through the Item deck. These are overly powerful and completely unbalance the game, making the luck factor that much greater. Without question, the worst of these cards is The Appraiser. When played, this card has a chance of rendering a just purchased item worthless. Imagine the joy felt by a player who has just spent the equivalent of the Gross National Product of Japan to buy the fourth item of a group from his hand, only to find that the card is now worth bupkis. Imagine as well the reaction of a player who saves an Appraiser card for just such a critical moment, only to find that it has no effect because of an unlucky die roll. Yuck. I repeat, yuck.

In conclusion, the differences between Priceless and Cartel are many and, in my opinion, crippling. My friend and her family still play it, so there must be something there, but to me it's a great disappointment. However, I can take solace in the fact that I still possess the original. In today's market, I would think there are plenty of better financial games than Priceless available for the money. But if by chance you stumble across a copy of Cartel or Dallas at a yard sale, break into the nearest piggy bank and complete the sale forthwith. The seventies are coming back and to those of us that lived through them, that's hardly good news. But even the worst of decades can produce some real winners and Cartel tops my list. Barely beating out my pet rock.

Thread: Re: Minimum bid in auctions

Yuglooc — 2007-04-04T17:37:33+00:00

The "house rule" that my group normally uses is to allow a player, when passing, to take a bond (and the appropriate amount of cash) equal to or less than his/her current stock value. That player then takes the top two cards from the draw pile, and places two cards on the board face up in their appropriate location. All cards placed in that way are available to be auctioned (face value is the minimum bid).

Thus in the first round (for instance), a player could pass and take a 10 bond along with $10 cash. No one could take a higher value bond, as the value of their shares at that point is only $10 each.

This would still allow one to throw down that undesirable 250/16 company without worrying about someone buying it for a pittance later that same round.

Thread: Minimum bid in auctions

Schroinger — 2007-03-08T19:40:58+00:00

I don't know if it's a matter of the edition I own from a brazilian company called Grow, but in the rules that I have there are no restrictions about minimum bid in auctions. Nevertheless, it seems like it does exists in other editions, according to other related threads.

Without the restriction, at the beggining, you can pass, lay down some of the expensive companies on the board and then be able to buy them at a small price next round and even in the same one, if someone else call them for auction and you are able to get them.

This way, laying down companies to the board opens the opportunity to buy them at a smaller price comparing with the price you'd pay if you buy them from your hand, cause there are no explicit restrictions on bidding.

Or even better, you buy first from your hand some of the surrounding cheap companies, and then pass and lay on the board the expensive ones for a later purchase at a minimum price.

Nevertheless, you have to be wise, cause if you lay down a company to the board anyone can call it for auction. That's why you have to calculate when to lay it down, so no one steals that from you.

For those who think that the game is too luck dependant, specially related with people having expensive companies in their hands, I'd suggest that they try having no minimum bid in auctions. This way, players would be able to get rid of the expensive tiles and then have a chance of buying at a very low price.

At the same time, people have to take care on having money available to have a chance of winning auctions pulled by other players. Buying from their hands becomes expensive and it's no longer decisive whatever you draw.

In my case, that rule is not even a variant, is the way the instructions actually are.

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moxtaveto — 2006-09-23T15:02:23+00:00

self made board (frame colours changed to correspond to the value of the squares)

Image

moxtaveto — 2006-09-23T14:53:45+00:00

self made box

Thread: Re: I need Rule

Superfage — 2006-04-18T13:06:11+00:00

I'm in the same position for Cartel game.
Can anyone pls add rules to BGG files?
Thanks for every aid!

Thread: Re: How many Dallas Event Cards should there be?

zefquaavius — 2006-02-16T15:06:43+00:00

My copy is missing four of the cards. Is there anyone willing to give me the info from the missing four, if I give her/him a list of the cards I have?

Thank you!

Thread: Re: How many Dallas Event Cards should there be?

zefquaavius — 2006-02-09T01:53:05+00:00

Psauberer wrote:
My copy has 24 event cards.

Great! Thank you!

Thread: Re: How many Dallas Event Cards should there be?

Psauberer — 2006-02-09T01:29:10+00:00

My copy has 24 event cards.

Thread: How many Dallas Event Cards should there be?

zefquaavius — 2006-02-08T23:01:14+00:00

The Dallas instructions say there should be 24 Event Cards, but the lightly-used copy I just got only has 20. Can anyone with the Dallas incarnation of Cartel confirm that there are 24 Event Cards?
[o]I didn't plan to use those cards at first anyway, but I want to know if I was shorted a few cards.[/o]

Thread: I need Rule

adamly — 2005-05-03T21:17:57+00:00

I got this game on ebay but didn't got the rule,
so i need Rule for Dallas.>_<
Have anyone will help me?please...

Thread: User Review

terence tan — 2005-03-03T08:17:33+00:00

Cartel is a great game which was way ahead of its time. It is a business game based on the theory of conglomerates which tried to be good at everything. The board shows a checkboard style patchwork of companies - their names and their annual profits. Between any 2 companies, another number would appear - this was the additional profit (synergy?) made when one person owned both companies. At the corners of every 4 companies was another number - additional profit made if 1 person owned all 4 companies touching that corner.

Players start the game with a bit of cash and some stock in their holding company. They take turns buying over companies on the board (which will be subsidiaries). This is done by either using the limited cash or by issuing bonds. Bonds must be repaid at the end of the game and also carry a stiff annual penalty - the profit from the company bought are halfed (interest expense is the reason). A player can issue stock to raise cash. However, at the end of the game, the value of the unissued stock is added to a player's wealth so issuing stock too early when your company's share price is too low means you are giving up a valuable asset too cheaply.

Each player's company share price is dependent on the total profit of the companies acquired on the board.

A good game but very luck dependant - buying opportunities depend greatly on the cards drawn. If you draw the wrong cards eg expensive companies at the start of the game when you cannot afford to buy them, you will just sit and stare.
Sometimes, companies will come up for auction where players make written bids for them.

Thread: Re:For use as a BGG Summary--the intro from the game

Linnaeus — 2004-10-08T23:54:14+00:00

MisterCranky (#58639),

Why not just submit this using the Submit Corrections link at the top of the game page?

Thread: For use as a BGG Summary--the intro from the game

MisterCranky — 2004-10-08T14:07:36+00:00

This is taken verbatim from the 1973 Gamut of Games version (the date of 1974 in the entry is therefore a bit suspect.)

A "Cartel," as used in this game, is an international collection of companies whose collective value is greater than the individual companies making up the combination. Beginning with a single company valued at 10 million dollars, you can build a Cartel whose final value may approach or surpass one billion dollars within ten years (ten rounds of play). You can acquire one or more new companies each year, increasing your profits and the value of your unsold stock, making it possible to buy bigger and bigger companies as the game proceeds. Special bonus profits are gained whenever you buy companies situated adjacent to one another on the board, further increasing your rate of growth. By skillfully buying the right companies (using your cash, selling stock, and borrowing money with bonds), you win by having the Cartel of greatest value at the end of the game.

Thread: Session Report

BoardGameGeek — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

This was another old-school disappointment. I was fortunate enough to pick up this rare game for $10 on e-Bay not too long ago. I hadn't had the chance to play it yet, and I was glad to finally have the opportunity. I'd love to give a Schloesserian account of the mechanics of this game, but my fingers are getting tired. Suffice to say, the game is about buying up companies that are worth more as a group (Cartel) than they are individually. Each player maintains a hand of three companies. On their turn, they can purchase one of these companies outright, put a company on the board up for bid, or pass and trade in cards. There are three ways to pay for companies: paying cash, selling blocks of stock, or using bonds. We all thought that if you didn't get the right cards, it was rather difficult to build up your cartel. Kelly, for instance, kept drawing cards for extremely expensive companies -- these were companies that obviously wouldn't be affordable until near the end of the game. Kelan, on the other hand, drew companies that he could afford to buy and profit from early in the game. Hence he had a big head start into building his cartel. Unfortunately, there weren't enough options in place that enabled one to catch the leader. The rich get richer to the nth degree.

Another big problem I see is with the sell-stock option. You only have 9 blocks of stock in the entire game. It's almost impossible to buy anything in the early game without selling stock, but if you sell too much stock, you have extremely few blocks left (if any) at the end of the game when you stock is at it's most valuable. Maybe that's not a game problem, but it turned out to be a very difficult juggling act -- except for Josh, who had two blocks of very valuable stock at the end of the game. But remember, he didn't need to spend his stock early in the game because he drew affordable companies.

Like Cosmic Encounter, this was probably a brilliant game in its day, but we didn't find much about it to like. Kelly said this was the least fun game he's played since he joined the group.

Thread: User Review

BoardGameGeek — 2000-07-09T18:09:36+00:00

Cartel is one of the best financial games ever created and one of the few introduced a generation ago that can still stand up to the great games of today. In addition to its fine game play, it features striking graphical design virtually unheard of at the time of its introduction. It is truly a great game.

Cartel's game board consists of 52 companies arranged in an 8 by 7 rectangle, with the four corners removed. The companies range in value from $10 million to $250 million. Each company also has a yearly profit, which tends to be about ten percent of its value. Companies which are orthogonally adjacent on the game board have a bonus profit shown between them. A player who owns two adjacent companies also gets to add the bonus profit to his total yearly profit. Finally, each set of four companies which form a square on the board has a special profit shown in the center of the square, which is given to any player who owns all four of the companies.

Each player begins the game with $10 million dollars, 11 markers of his color, and nine blocks of stock. They each also begin with one randomly chosen $10 million dollar company, which they identify as their own by pushing one of their markers into the hole in the board next to the company space. Finally, each player is dealt three of the less expensive companies face down to form their beginning hand, and three more of these companies are exposed and placed on their squares on the board.

The game is played over ten one-year rounds. During a player's turn, he can perform only one of the following three actions:

1. He can buy a company from his hand. He plays the company card, pays the bank its value, and then draws a new company into his hand.

2. He can put an exposed company up for auction. All the players write down secret bids and the high bidder buys the company from the bank. All bids greater than zero must be at least equal to the value of the company. The player whose turn it was draws a company and then discards a company onto the game board, so that it will be available to be auctioned off on future turns.

3. He can pass by drawing two companies into his hand and then discarding two companies onto the board.

The game's principal innovation is the way in which companies are paid for. There are three methods available and any combination of the three can be used. First, there's good old fashioned cash, but there's never enough available to buy everything you need to. Second, a player can float a bond. Bonds come in denominations equal to exactly half the printed value of the companies. If you decide to use a bond to help with the purchase of a company you take a bond of the appropriate value. For example, if you bid $120 million for a company with a base value of $100 million, you can take a $50 million bond to help pay for it. You now only need to come up with $70 million. But there are two drawbacks to bonds. First, and most important, the player only receives half of that company's profit each year. (Bonus and Special profits are unaffected.) Second, bonds must be paid back at the end of the game, at a price 20 to 50 percent higher than the bond price.

The third way to pay for a company is to cash in one or more blocks of stock. Stock blocks have a variable worth which, logically enough, is tied to a player's total yearly profits. At the beginning of the game, they're only worth $10 million apiece; by game's end, they can be worth as much as $250 million. The big issue with stock is, once you sell a block, you can never buy it back.

Much of the game's strategy comes in how you use these three methods of purchasing. Obviously, you want to use your available cash whenever possible. This can dictate how much you bid for a company; if you go as high as $60 million, for example, you might be able to finance the purchase with a bond and a single stock block, but a $61 million bid might mean you'll have to sell two blocks of stock. Of course, your opponents are aware of this as well. The choice of bonds vs. stocks is an agonizing one. Using bonds for purchases means that your profits are reduced; not only does that mean you receive less money each turn, it also lessens the value of your stock. But stock is always worth more as the game goes on, so you want to delay cashing it in for as long as possible.

After a player buys a company, he adds the new profits from the purchase to his running yearly profit total. After every player has taken their turn in a round, each player receives their yearly profits in cash. They also adjust their stock price if their profits have gone up sufficiently. Then the next round begins.

After ten rounds, the players add together their cash on hand, the printed value of their companies, and the worth of their unsold stock (based upon their final yearly profit total). They subtract off the repayment price for all their bonds to get their Net Worth. Whoever has the greatest Net Worth wins the game.

There's a couple of reasons why I and quite a few other gamers are so impressed with Cartel. First, at the time of its release, an American money game meant only one thing: a Monopoly clone. Period, end of sentence. That Cartel was so completely different than its peers is quite surprising. Second, look at all the elements of modern game design it has. A set game length (most of the popular games at the time were open-ended). Players choosing between a limited number of restricted choices. A greatly reduced luck factor. The tension provided by trying to accomplish two conflicting aims (in this case, bonds vs. stocks). An innovative subsystem (the purchasing methods). A game board which uses its layout to display a great deal of information. No player eliminations. And all this from a game created more than a generation ago! To say that Cartel was ahead of its time is practically damning it with faint praise.

Another element Cartel shares with current games is its striking use of graphic design. One of Gamut of Game's stated goals was to produce games with a distinctive appearance and they certainly achieved it with Cartel. The game board avoids sharp corners by having lines flow into each other for a very avant garde look. Each of the companies has its own logo, all of them attractive and many of them clever and amusing. For example, the "O. H." of "Occidental Hotels" are arranged to form a room key, while the "B" of "Beef Las Pampas" is distorted to resemble the head of a bull. All the player displays are clearly laid out in each corner of the board, a very efficient use of board space. The fonts used on the money, stocks, and bonds are all stylish and unusual. Even the ownership markers are cute little dollar signs. All in all, quite a stunning design and absolutely mind blowing for the early seventies. Of course, because of cost cutting the stocks and bonds are mere slips of paper (and originally come on a pad) but they are still perfectly functional and hold up well over repeated game play.

The game plays very well with both 3 and 4 players (the game for 2 being pretty much a loser). Every auction usually brings important decisions: how much do I bid; do I try to block my opponent's master plan or tend to my own knitting; do I use a stock block or a bond to finance the bid; do I try to grab companies in different areas of the board or hope that lucky picks will allow me to own one glorious connected whole; and if the latter materializes, will I be able to afford it? You can only buy 11 companies in 10 turns, so each choice of what to buy is crucial. It's absolutely essential to plan several turns ahead. For example, if I bid so much for Company X, I can buy it with cash and a stock block and still have enough left so that next turn I can buy this $100 million company in my hand for cash and a bond. I can bid higher for Company X and finance it with a bond, but that will reduce my profit and means I'll have to use stock next turn. Judy over there doesn't have enough money to block the lower bid without using two stock blocks; I doubt she'll do that. Fred's got the bucks to top the low bid, but not the high bid; can I sneak the lower bid by him?

At the beginning of the game, you have next to nothing, but each purchase raises both your yearly income and your stock price, allowing you to buy more expensive companies each turn. Ideally, by game's end, you can finance those $250 million beauties that can really send your stock sky high. It's a piggyback operation, but delicate timing is often required. Its implementation is influenced by the companies you pick, whether you succeed in buying the companies you desire, how much your opponents interfere, and whether you have to interfere with your opponents, whose master plan might be working out better than yours.

The only real reservation a serious gamer would have with Cartel is how it can be influenced by luck. A player who is drawing companies next to those he already owns or which are in his hand figures to have an easier job than a player who keeps picking companies in different areas of the board. I've played in games where one player's picks were so good that it was almost impossible to stop him and others where a player's draws were so bad that he was never a factor. But those extremes are quite rare. Usually, the breaks even out over the course of a game. And of course, a player who hits a good streak will attract more than his share of attention from his opponents. I would say that skill plays far more of a role than luck does in this game.

Cartel was republished in the 1980's as "Dallas", with the properties now representing oil wells, as befitted the television show's theme. Other than the inclusion of an event deck (which is best ignored), it's the same game as Cartel. Cartel's designer also released a similar looking game in the late nineties called "Priceless". This has considerably different rules than the original game and is in my view quite inferior. Buy Priceless own its own merits if you wish, but be forewarned that it is NOT Cartel.

Thread: User Review

BoardGameGeek — 2000-07-09T18:09:35+00:00

The game board is a large grid that is basically 7x8 squares with the four corners removed. (The companies are pre-printed on the board.) Each company has a printed purchase price of either $10, $20, $50, $100 or $250 (you know, this is in millions). Each player represents a cartel (the game is for 2-4 players). To start the game, you are dealt one of the $10 companies. You also have $10 in cash and 9 shares of your own stock. The game lasts 10 turns.

On your turn you may do one of 3 actions; Buy a company from your hand at face value (you start with a hand of 3), put up a face-up company for public auction (the game starts with 3 dealt out face-up-the face value is the starting bid), or you may pass by drawing 2 cards from the company deck into your hand and then selecting 2 of the cards in your hand to place face-up on the board.

When you buy a company, you have several options for payment; you can pay cash, pay with stock, use a bond in combination with cash and/or stock. You can pay with just stock (yes multiple stocks) or combine with cash. The bonds have the limit that you can only use one bond on the purchase and it can only be for half the printed price. So, even if you paid $100 for a company, say in an auction, if the printed price on it is $50, then you may only use a $25 bond. Bonds have a premium on them (for example, a $25 bond is repaid at $35) which is asessed at the end of the game.

When you buy a company, you place one of your markers on its space on the board. You only have 11 markers, so if you manage to use them all up before the end of the game (which is rare), then you just collect profits until the end.

Oh, yes, profits. Each company has a profit number printed on it. the numbers range from 1 to 40 and are generally proportional to the price. When you buy a company, you record the profit on your record sheet (you only get half if you used a bond). The profits are cumulative and are paid out at the end of the turn. What makes the game a little more interesting is that printed between each company on the board is a number which represents "cross-profits". Cross-profits are collected when you purchase a company next to another you already own (either left, right, above or below). That number is also added to your profits (and isn't halved by bonds). If you purchase the fourth company which makes up a square, there is also a cross-profit collected at the corner connecting all four companies. All cross-profits are cumulative and can really add up.

The value of your stock is also tied to your profits. At the end of the turn, you would adjust your stock price indicator to its new value as indicated on the stock price track. You have to balance selling stock with trying to retain stock as its value goes up along with your profits.

After the 10th turn, you are paid your last profit and then add up all of your cash, remaining stock and the face values of all of the companies you bought. Then subtract all of the binds you have at their repayment value. The player with the highest net total wins. A typical game can last 1-2 hours. Your mileage may vary.