Clippers

Clippers is Alan R. Moon’s economic network game about the growth of nineteenth-century shipping routes across the Pacific. Players invest colored markers in islands, then extend one of several shared clipper lines with route pieces and ships. A new connection can increase the value of every holding at its destination, including those owned by opponents, so profitable construction is rarely private. Option cards provide extra ships or flexibility, but buying them competes with the money needed for future island investment. The board gradually becomes a dense web of overlapping routes, turning every extension into a calculation of immediate reach, company limits, and who benefits most. There is no stock market to hide behind: each player’s position is visible, and the central skill is directing common infrastructure toward one’s own portfolio while making rival participation just expensive enough.