Overview
Corporate Traders Help File

OBJECTIVE

The Objective of Corporate Traders is to build more wealth than other players by starting companies and through buying and selling shares of the companies.

RULES and PROCEDURES

This game is for 2-4 human players.

The colored pieces represent Corporations and the gray pyramids represent Satellite  companies who have not yet incorporated.

The computer will generate up to eight grid locations.  These locations represent the current players' possible moves for placing a piece on the board.  The buttons above the grid will indicate the column and row for each possible move, and the possible grid locations will be highlighted.

The current player is indicated by the red arrow beside the players' names.

Selecting your move can be accomplished by double left-clicking on one of the highlighted locations, through using the tab key to move to the button that indicates the move you wish to make, by pressing 1 through 8 on the keyboard, or by clicking on the appropriate button.

When two or more gray pyramid pieces are placed adjacent (left, right, above, or below) to each other a company will be formed.  The pyramid-shaped pieces that are adjacent will change into colored pieces representing the new company.

If more than two pyramid-shaped pieces are adjacent when forming a new company, then the player placing the piece will get 25 shares of stock in this new company.  If there are only two adjacent pieces then that player will get 10 shares of stock in the new company.

There can be up to 6 companies on the board at one time.  If there are 6 companies on the board, adjacent pyramid-shaped pieces will not become companies until a takeover has occured and a player adds a piece adjacent to the pyramid-shaped pieces.

As pieces are added to the companies their share values increase by $5 per piece.  Every 50 pieces added to a company will cause the company's stock to split 2 for 1, and the company's share value will be halved.

If one company should come into contact with another company, the larger company will takeover the smaller.  If they are equal in size, as indicated by the number of pieces that make up each company, the outcome will be randomly determined.

Players who hold stock in the company or companies that are taken over will receive shares in the takeover company. The number of shares received will equal the number of shares in the old company(s), times the current share value (plus a 5% bonus), divided by the share price (at time of takeover) of the takeover company.

EXAMPLE:

Player 1 holds 10 shares of Company A at $10 per share.

Player 1 also holds 10 shares of Company C at $15 per share.

Company B takes over Company A and C.

Company B's share price at the time of takeover was $50.

Player 1 will get $250 + $12.50(bonus) worth of Company B's stock,

or 5 shares.

As you can see, even with a 5% bonus it does not pay to have a company you own be taken over.  In some cases you will not even get one share of the new company.  This is because in this game you can only own whole shares of stock.

As the game progresses and you find only one company remaining and there are not any more places left to start new companies, you may want to quit the game as the outcome of the game will not change; whoever is ahead will stay ahead.

If you find yourself losing the game and are playing with more than two players you may wish to form alliances with other players in order to make moves that will help your team but not the other players.

The strategy of the game is fairly straightforward: Make moves that most help you and/or least help your opponents.  However, buying the right stocks and selling at the right time is not so easy.

Although the computer will not stop players from selling or buying stocks at any time, you may wish to restrict such activities to before or after a player makes a move, and only during that player's turn.

The scoreboard below the grid shows the total number of shares each player has.  If a

player has one million or more shares of stock in one company, the figure displayed will

be divided by 1,000 and a 'K' will follow the total shares.

Buying and Selling Stocks

Changing Names

About the Game


Buying and Selling Stocks

To buy and sell stocks:

Select the player who is buying and selling in the listbox at the top of the dialog box.  When the diaolg box is displayed the current player will be selected.

Place a check in the checkbox next to the company that you wish to sell shares

of.  Uncheck the box if you want to buy shares.

Use the spin buttons or the edit controls to enter the number of shares you want to buy and sell.  When using the spin buttons, if you press the down button when the edit control reads 0, you will see the maximum number of shares of that company you can buy or sell.

Click on the Transmit Order button to process your order.

If you wish, click on the player list box at the top to reset your totals.

Press Esc or the Done button to exit the Dialog Box.

NOTES:

The maximum number of shares allowed to be traded in one company at one time is 30,000.  You may place multiple orders.  This limit is to keep players from trying to manipulate the price of a company's stock.

When buying or selling shares of more than one company at a time, be sure to click the checkbox next to the company you are selling or buying stock in before entering the number of shares.  This action sets the upper limit of the spin buttons which sets the maximum value you may enter into the edit control.  This will also keep your cash from showing a negative balance.

The Cash, NetWorth and Shares totals will reflect changes made as you enter the number of shares to be bought or sold.

The Transaction Total will show the total value of shares bought and sold, and the Transaction Fee is 2% of the Transaction Total.


Changing Names

To change the default names of the companies and the players:

Select the name you wish to change in the listbox.

Type the new name in the edit control below.

Press the button beside the edit to change the name in the listbox.


About the Game

This game is based upon a game presented in the July, 1977 issue of Interface Age.  That game featured a character-based grid of 9 by 12 dimensions and players had to enter grid coordinates such as B-1 to make moves.  But, it was still fun to play, of course, then we didn't have super-high resolution, 16- or 256- color games such as Origin's Ultima 7, Interplay's Out of This World, or  Sierra's King's Quest V.  Enjoy!