Container Rules Summary

Based on a document written by Benjamin Maggi at BoardGameGeek and comments from the game's publisher.

Set-Up
▪ Place the Auction Island Board in the centre of the table. Place each player's board such that
the Sea side of the board faces the Island (and not the player). The rest of the table is the Open
Sea.
▪ Sort the containers by colour, and make a supply of each. For each colour, the number of
containers in the supply equals 4 times the number of players. Make a supply of warehouses and
of factories.
▪ Place the money and loan cards on the table. Since both the $10 loan cards and the $10 cash
cards are purple, it is a good idea to place them on opposite sides of the Auction Island Board to
reduce the risk of grabbing a loan card by mistake when making change.
▪ Each player receives $20, 1 ship, 1 warehouse, and 1 unique coloured factory - no two
players share a starting factory colour. The factory immediately produces one container, which is
the same colour as the factory. This container is placed in his Factory Store on his playing board
at the $2 value. The ship starts in the Open Sea.
▪ Finally deal 1 secret Container Value Card to each player.

Ending the Game

▪ The game ends when the second container colour is exhausted. The ending player finishes
his turn.
▪ Each player first determines whether he has at least one container of every colour on the
Island Warehouse. If so, his 10/5 colour – as specified on his secret Container Value Card – will
score as $10; if not as $5. Each player then discards all the containers of whatever colour he has
the most of on the Island Warehouse. If there is a tie involving his 10/5 colour, the 10/5 must go.
Otherwise he discards the cheapest. Only discard containers from the Island Warehouse (i.e. not
those of the discarded colour on ships nor in the Harbour Store).

Scoring
The person with the most money wins. Calculate your net worth as follows:
▪ Add the value for your Island goods, priced according to your Container Value Card.
▪ Add $2 for each container in the Harbour Store, and $3 for each on your Ship. Factory
Store Containers are worthless.
▪ Subtract $11 for each outstanding loan.
It is possible to win the game with your cash-in-hand alone, ignoring the Island Store altogether.

Loans
A player may take out a loan at any time. A player can only repay a loan during his own turn.
Taking out a loan, repaying it, and paying interest on it do not count as actions in a game sense.
When you take out a loan you receive a $10 loan card, and a matching $10 from the bank. You
may have a maximum of 2 loans outstanding at any one time.

Game Play
The first thing that a player must always do in his turn is to pay any interest on loans.
Interest is 10%, so $1 for each $10 loan card. Only after paying the interest may the player repay
any outstanding loan(s) to the bank. The errata from the publisher, included as a yellow page in
this document, outlines what happens when a player cannot pay the interest on his loan(s). It's an
utter catastrophe for the defaulting player. Don't let this happen to you.
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In each turn a player performs any 2 actions from the following list, in any order, with the
following 2 caveats: you may only produce new containers once per turn and the auction action
always ends your turn, even if it is the first action taken.

(1) Buy a Factory or a Warehouse

▪ Pay the bank the next amount listed on your playing board.
▪ You may not own two Factories of the same colour.

(2) Produce Containers and set and/or adjust the Prices of your Manufactured Goods
▪ Pay $1 to the Union Boss – the player on your right
▪ You may only choose this action once per turn.
▪ You must produce 1 container per factory, in its matching colour, up to the Factory
Storage limit of 2 times the number of factories you have. If you would produce over your limit,
you decide which factories to leave idle. If the container supply for a particular factory is
exhausted, that factory produces nothing this round.
▪ Place your new containers in any Factory Store space. The number on the Factory
Store space chosen indicates the price at which you are willing to sell the goods to other players.
▪ Repricing - After production, you may also move all the containers in your factory
storage around, repricing them. If you want to reprice, you must produce, even if this means
taking out a loan to pay the $1 to the Union Boss because you have no money. If you already
have 2 loans, and no money, you may not reprice. However, if it is impossible to produce, either
because the container supply for the colour of your (single) factory is exhausted, or because your
Factory Storage is full, you may still reprice your goods using this action. In this case you do not
pay the $1 to the player on your right.
▪ You may not burn your goods, toss them into the sea, or otherwise get rid of them.

(3) Buy containers for your Harbour Store and set and/or adjust their prices
▪ You may only purchase from another player's Factory Store, never from your own.
▪ You may only purchase from one player per action. He may not refuse to sell to you.
▪ You may purchase any number or types of containers, up to your storage limit which is
one container per Warehouse.
▪ You pay the player his listed price per container price for the goods in his Factory Store.
When you move them to your Harbour Store you may price them at any value you choose,
including less than what you paid for it. The number on the Harbour Store section indicates the
price at which you are willing to sell these goods to other players.
▪ Repricing. Each time you perform this action you may also reorganize all the containers
in your Harbour Store, thus repricing them. You may use this action to reprice without
purchasing anything.
▪ You may not burn your goods, toss them into the sea, or otherwise get rid of them.

(4) Move from the Open Sea to another player's Harbour and purchase containers
▪ You may only purchase from another player's Harbour Store, never your own.
▪ You may purchase any number or types of containers, as long as there is room for them
on your ship, which can hold a maximum of 5. The other player may not refuse to sell to you.
▪ If you begin your turn in another player's Harbour, and you wish to ship additional
goods from that player's Warehouse(s), perhaps because the player has just purchased them, then
you may do so without first going out to Sea. Play this as if you began your action in the Open
Sea. Your action ends when the additional goods are loaded – you may not load and immediately
go to Sea with one action.
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(5) Move from another player's Harbour to the Open Sea

(6) Move your Ship from the Open Sea to Auction Island and hold an Auction
▪ You may not bid on your own cargo.
▪ You may not land an empty ship on the Island and auction a non-existent cargo.
▪ Each player (except for yourself) secretly bids for the entire ship's cargo.
▪ If nobody wants the shipment (all players bid $0) then the Seller (you) must buy the
shipment for $0 and place it on your Island Store. Otherwise, the winner of the auction is the
person with the highest bid. In case of a tie: Each player that tied makes a second secret bid, of
how much extra they are willing to pay to purchase the cargo. This extra can be $0. If the tie
persists after the second bid, the Seller chooses the winner.
▪ The Seller then decides to either accept or reject the winner's bid.
▪ Accept: collect that amount from the winner and a matching amount from the bank, and
deposit all of the goods in the winner's Island Store.
▪: Reject: pay the highest bid to the bank, and deposit the all the goods on your own Island
Store.

Your turn ends immediately when you receive the money from the successful bidder, or purchase
your own cargo. Thus, after the auction concludes, you may not repay any loans or move your
Ship from the Island Harbour to the Open Sea. To take your usual 'two actions per turn' you need
to perform your other action before taking the action of holding an auction; if your first action is
to hold an auction, you forfeit your second action.

(7) Pass – always possible, though it is very rare to want to do so.

Variants (House Rules)

▪ The Official Beginner's Variant – from the instruction booklet. Also recommended for the 5
person game at all times by the Publisher, Valley Games.

Add the following additional action: (8) Domestic Sale

A player may take one container from their Factory Store and return it to the Container supply.
If the player does not have any containers in their Factory Store, they may instead take one
container from their Harbour Store. The player then collects $2 from the bank for the return. This
action may not be used on the player's first turn of the game.

▪ Replace the blind bidding by a Progressive Auction, where each person around the table,
beginning with the player on the seller's left must either pass or increase the bid. This was the way
the game was originally written. It was changed before release because it was felt that it took too
much time, though some people report that it takes less time than blind bidding in their groups.

▪ Open Money – Keep your money visible at all times. Some people even use poker chips as cash.
The people doing this report that it makes a great game even better and makes the game play faster
as people waste time are trying to keep track of who has how much cash. Some people are playing
both with Open Money and the Progressive Auction.

▪ Shorter Game – play with fewer containers. Opinion is divided as to whether the number of
containers needs to be a multiple of the number of players, or not.
Errata from the Publisher(Valley Games)
This is an official change to section 4.1 - "Pay Interest". The rulebook, as printed, has this
information stated in a somewhat clouded manner. The following is how the section should read,
starting from the second paragraph. -- Kevin Nesbitt, one of the game's designers, on BGG.

4.1 Pay Interest

…
If a player cannot pay his interest, the bank seizes one (or more) of the delinquent player's
Containers for each loan in default in the following manner, repeating this procedure for each
loan in default:

The bank seizes 1 Container from the delinquent player's area on the Foreign Island Board.
If the delinquent player has no Containers on the Foreign Island Board, the bank seizes 2
Containers from the player's Harbour Store. If the delinquent player does not possess enough
Containers in his Harbour Store the bank seizes 1 Container from the Factory Store for each
Container not successfully seized from the Harbour store. It is possible that a player will have no
Containers in his Harbour Store to be seized, and so the bank will seize both the Containers from
the Factory Store. In the event that a player only has one Container in play in either his Factory
Store or Harbour Store (a total of one, not one in each area), the bank seizes only one Container
for the defaulted loan for this turn only.

For example, if a player has one defaulted loan, 1 Container in his Harbour Store and 4
Containers in his Factory Store, the bank will seize the 1 Container from the Harbour Store, and
additionally seize 1 Container from the Factory store, leaving the player with just 3 Containers
in his Factory Store and no Containers in his Harbour Store. Additional defaulted loans could
further reduce this total.

If the delinquent player has no Containers in play at all, the bank seizes either a Warehouse or a
Machine. If a Warehouse or Machine is seized, the player may return one loan document to the
bank, as it has been paid off by the asset itself. The delinquent player must exhaust all other
measures (above) before allowing the seizure of a Warehouse or Machine, and may not willingly
lose a Warehouse or Machine unless it is the player's last option. The "-" and $6 Machine and the
"-" and $4 Warehouse are always safe and cannot be seized by the bank.

In the event that the player has nothing that can be legally seized by the bank, the player may
avoid paying the remaining interest for the current turn only.

In all cases, selection of the seized Containers, Factories or Warehouses by the bank is done by
the player to the delinquent player's right. Selection is NOT done by the delinquent player
himself, with the exception that if they player is to lose a Warehouse or Machine, the player may
select which of the two types of assets they will lose. In the case of a Machine, the player to the
right will still select which colour to be seized.

Any Containers seized by the bank are placed back in the box, and out of the game. Any Machine
or Warehouse seized is simply placed back into the supply.