CAPITALIUM

Start Small. Build Your Business

CAPITALIUM is a turn-based economic simulation set during the Industrial Revolution. Start with limited funds and assets, and build your company across six cities, each with its own opportunities and challenges. Buy raw materials, open factories, find customers, and expand into new industries and markets.

You’re not the only one looking for an opportunity. Your competitors are expanding production, securing supplies, and bidding for assets too. Focus on manufacturing and trade, form business partnerships, or grow through investment and acquisitions. From factory operations and business negotiations to policy debates in parliament, your decisions shape how your company develops.

Rivals Can Become Partners

The factory you want to buy may attract other bidders. A competitor may be chasing the same supplies you need. Other business owners run their own companies, adjusting prices, investing in new ventures, and making acquisition offers as their circumstances change.

Competition doesn’t rule out cooperation. Shares, supplies, and business partnerships can all become part of a deal. You can also negotiate with members of parliament, labor representatives, and the royal family, offering concessions or support in exchange for their help.

Each person has their own interests, relationships, and goals. They may accept your proposal, turn it down, or come back with terms of their own. Previous deals, old disputes, and promises you have yet to keep all influence future negotiations. An agreement today can lay the groundwork for your next partnership.

Find Opportunities Across Six Cities

Goods sitting unsold in one city may be in short supply in another. Spotting a price difference is only the beginning. Will there still be a profit once you’ve paid to move the goods?

Each of the six cities has its own population, consumer demand, industrial base, and transport infrastructure. Production and inventories shape supply, residents drive demand, and economic cycles and policy changes keep shifting market conditions.

Buy where prices are low and sell to customers in other cities, or invest in local production to meet an unfilled need. As factories expand, demand changes, and competitors enter the market, yesterday’s profitable business may lose its edge. Adapt your plans, find new customers, and decide where to invest next.

Build a Complete Supply Chain

Buy raw materials, sign supply contracts, and choose your factories’ power sources and production methods. Then arrange storage and transport to deliver your products to other businesses or city shops. You’re managing more than a factory: you’re connecting every step from raw materials to the final sale.

Should your next investment increase production or improve transport capacity? A reliable supply contract or a better transport route can sometimes do more for your business than another factory. Material shortages, excess inventory, and cash flow will also shape your investment decisions.

As your company grows, invest in housing, shops, local services, and transport links. Connect production, distribution, and sales to build an industrial network spanning multiple cities.

Expand Through Investment and Acquisitions

Entering a new industry doesn’t have to mean starting from scratch. Invest in an existing company, or acquire a business that’s already up and running.

Borrow to expand production, buy shares to participate in other companies’ profits, or trade on the futures market. Keep investing in your own operations, or put your money into businesses and markets you believe have room to grow.

The faster you expand, the more carefully you’ll need to manage your finances. Loans must be repaid with interest, futures positions bring price risk and margin requirements, and outside shareholders have expectations of their own. Pursue new opportunities without leaving your day-to-day operations short of cash.

Take Your Business into Politics

A tax change, a new safety requirement, or a public works project can alter your costs and create new opportunities for growth.

Get involved in elections and parliamentary affairs, support candidates, push for legislation, and seek royal backing. You don’t just have to adapt to existing policies. You can work to change them in your company’s favor.

But different groups want different things. Businesses want to control costs, workers care about wages and safety, and politicians have competing demands to balance. Better pay and safer workplaces require ongoing investment. Cutting costs too aggressively or evading regulation can lead to labor disputes, damage your reputation, and create political problems. How you run your company affects your standing in business and politics alike.

Build a New Town on the Frontier

Later in the game, seek a royal charter to extend the railway into the frontier and establish a new town—with a name of your choosing.

Here, investment means more than expanding your company. Build housing, develop industries, and provide transport and public facilities. Residents need somewhere to live, jobs to earn a living, and access to everyday essentials.

Housing, wages, employment, safety, and living conditions influence whether people move in or leave. Industry creates jobs, trade and transport keep goods flowing, and public services support daily life. Bring these elements together and develop the town you founded into a place where people choose to stay.