Container — Rules

Overview

Container is an economy game for 3–5 players. You build factories that produce containers, sell them to the other players, buy their containers for your warehouses, and ship cargo by sea to the island — where every container is auctioned. At the end of the game, the containers you have amassed on the island are scored according to your secret value card, and the player with the most money wins.

There are five container colors: orange, brown, white, tan and black (the black containers are rendered in dark slate and called "dark green" in the game log).

Setup

The game is set up automatically. Each player starts with:

  • $20 in cash
  • 1 ship, in the open sea (ships hold at most 5 containers)
  • 1 warehouse
  • 1 factory of a unique color (no two players share a starting color), which has already produced 1 container of its color, for sale in your factory store at $2
  • 1 secret container value card (see End-game scoring)

The supply holds 4 containers per player of each color (12/16/20 for 3/4/5 players), 5 factories of each color, 5 warehouses per player, and 2 loans per player.

Your turn

At the start of your turn you pay $1 interest per outstanding loan (automatic — see Loans if you cannot pay). You then take 2 actions from the list below, in any order. Sailing to the island always ends your turn immediately, even if it was your first action.

Buy a factory

Pay the bank and add a factory of a color you don't already own. Each new factory costs $3 more than the previous one ($6, $9, $12 for your 2nd, 3rd, 4th). You may own at most 4 factories, never two of the same color.

Buy a warehouse

Pay the bank and add a warehouse. Each new warehouse costs $1 more than the previous one ($4, $5, $6, $7 for your 2nd through 5th). You may own at most 5 warehouses; each warehouse stores one container in your warehouse store.

Produce containers

Once per turn. Pay $1 to the player on your right, then produce one container per factory, in each factory's color, up to your factory store limit of 2 containers per factory. If producing everything would exceed the limit, choose which factories stay idle; a factory whose color is exhausted in the supply produces nothing.

Place each new container on a space of your factory store — the space's number ($1–$4) is the price at which other players may buy it. As part of the same action you may also reprice any containers already in your factory store by moving them to other spaces.

  • Repricing is only possible together with production: to reprice you must produce, even if that means taking a loan to pay the $1.
  • Exception: if production is impossible (your factory store is full, or the supply for your colors is exhausted), you may still take this action just to reprice — and then you don't pay the $1.

Buy containers for your warehouse store

Buy containers from one other player's factory store (never your own — the seller may not refuse) and move them to your warehouse store. You may buy any number of containers in the one action, up to your storage limit of 1 per warehouse, paying the seller their listed price for each.

Price your new containers on the spaces of your warehouse store ($2–$6) — this is the price at which other players may buy them from you, and it may be lower than what you paid. As part of the same action you may also reprice any containers already in your warehouse store, and you may take this action just to reprice without buying anything.

Sail to a player's harbor and buy containers

Move your ship from the open sea to another player's harbor (each harbor berths one ship), then buy any number of containers from that player's warehouse store (never your own), paying their listed prices, as long as your ship has room (maximum 5). This is all one action.

If your ship starts its turn in a player's harbor, you may buy more containers from that player's warehouse store without sailing out first — this takes an action, and you may not sail away as part of the same action.

Sail to the open sea

Move your ship from a player's harbor or the island back to the open sea.

Sail to the island (auction)

Move your ship from the open sea to the island and auction its whole cargo (see below). You may not auction an empty ship. Your turn ends immediately when the auction resolves.

Domestic sale

Return one container from your factory store to the supply (or from your warehouse store if your factory store is empty) and collect $2 from the bank. Not available on your first turn of the game, and at most once per turn.

Pass

End your turn without (further) actions. Rarely useful.

The island auction

All other players bid secretly and simultaneously on the entire cargo; the seller does not bid.

  1. Ties: the tied players each make a second secret bid of how much extra they are willing to pay (this may be $0). If a tie remains, the seller chooses the winner among them.
  2. The seller sees the winning bid and chooses to accept or reject it.
  3. Accept: the winner pays the bid to the seller, the bank matches it (the seller receives double), and the cargo goes to the winner's island.
  4. Reject: the seller pays an amount equal to the highest bid to the bank, and keeps the cargo on their own island. If everyone bid $0, the seller must take the cargo for free.

Only containers on the island score at the end of the game — but they score for whoever owns them there, according to their secret card.

Loans

You may take a loan at any time (even during an auction — it doesn't count as an action): receive $10 from the bank. You may have at most 2 loans. Repaying a loan ($10) is also free, but only during your own turn.

  • Interest: $1 per loan, paid automatically at the start of each of your turns.
  • If you can't pay the interest, the bank seizes goods for each loan in default, in this order: 1 container from your island; if you have none there, 2 containers from your warehouse store; any container it can't seize there is taken from your factory store instead. (If you have exactly one container in play, the bank seizes only that one.)
  • If you have no containers at all, the bank seizes a warehouse or a factory (your 2 starting pieces can never be seized) — that asset pays off the loan, which is returned.
  • Seized containers are removed from the game; everything is seized at random.

End of the game

The game ends when the supply of a second container color runs out. The current player finishes their turn, then everyone scores.

End-game scoring

Your secret value card lists a value for each of the five colors: $10, $5/$10, $6, $4 and $2 (the colors differ from card to card). The $5/$10 color scores $10 per container if you have at least one container of every color on the island, and only $5 otherwise.

  1. Total the value of your island containers according to your card.
  2. Discard all containers of the color you have the most of on the island — they score nothing. On a tie involving your $5/$10 color, that color must go; otherwise the cheapest color goes.
  3. Add $2 per container left in your warehouse store and $3 per container on your ship. Containers in your factory store are worthless.
  4. Subtract $11 per outstanding loan.

The player with the most money (cash plus this net worth) wins.