The Aim

The winner is the first player to have improved and irrigated all their five pastures and to be fully stocked. Irrigated pastures each carry 6 pens of sheep and a fully stocked irrigated station carries 30 pens of sheep. (Each sheep token represents a pen of 200 sheep)

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Blue spaces represent irrigated pasture. Irrigated pasture is pasture artificially watered to supplement rainfall.

Playing The Game: The Strategy

The ways to earn money in Squatter are to sell wool and sell sheep.

When a player lands on or passes the “Wool Sale” square he/she is paid for the wool.

For example, in the picture, Mt Mitchell Station is carrying 13 pens of sheep and has 2 stud rams.

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Stud rams improve the quality and fleece weight of the wool in the flock.

The “Wool Sale Chart” indicates for 2 stud rams the price per pen is $300. Move down the column to find the price for 13 pens is $3,900.

Natural pasture. The pasture you have at the start of the game is unimproved and is represented by the five orange spaces. Each of the five spaces can “carry” 3 sheep tokens. This is a total of 15 sheep tokens over the five spaces.

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Orange spaces represent natural, unimproved pasture. Natural pasture consists of native grasses and herbage.

Natural pasture represented by orange spaces.

Improved pasture. The object of the game is to improve the pastures and later to irrigate them. Each improved pasture costs $500. Pasture can only be improved just before throwing the dice during your turn.

It is a good idea to improve some pasture early in the game, but don’t over do it and not have enough cash to cover unexpected expenses!

Note you can’t improve pasture during a drought.

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Improved pasture is pasture which has been sown down with grasses of higher nutritive value than native grasses, and clovers or other medics which improve soil fertility. (Medics are herbs of the genus Medicago in the pea family. Several species are important for fodder and green manure.)

Improved pasture represented by green spaces

After improving a pasture the sheep tokens must be moved off the corresponding natural pasture (orange space). The improved pasture has an increased carrying capacity. You can now carry up to five sheep tokens on each improved (green) pasture.

At no time in the game may a player have sheep on any more than five spaces. These could be all five orange spaces, or all five green spaces or a combination of orange and green.

Move sheep tokens onto improved pastures

Irrigated pasture. After all the five pastures have been improved it is then time to commence irrigating them. It costs $1,500 to irrigate each pasture. Pasture can only be irrigated just before throwing the dice during your turn.

After irrigating a pasture the sheep tokens must be moved off the corresponding improved pasture.

Irrigated pasture has a carrying capacity of 6 sheep tokens for each pasture.

It is not permitted to have sheep tokens on orange and green and blue spaces at the same time because all orange spaces must be replaced with green before blue can be purchased.

Once again, be cautious, don’t over spend.

Note you can’t improve or irrigate pasture during a drought.

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Blue spaces represent irrigated pasture. Irrigated pasture is pasture artificially watered to supplement rainfall.

Irrigated pasture represented by blue spaces

Landing on a stock sale square, lets the player decide to buy or sell sheep. The player can choose to pass.

Stock can’t be bought if a station is fully stocked.

First decide the number of pens to be bought or sold then look at the “Stock Sale” card to find the price

Buying prices range from $400 per pen up to $700 per pen.

However, most buying prices are below $600

Purchasing. Decide how many pens (each sheep token represents one pen of sheep) will be bought, then look at the top Stock Sale card to see the purchase price. The buyer price is the first price shown on the card.

Note: Sheep can only bought from the bank.

Selling. There are always two selling prices listed. The first selling price is for stock sold from natural pasture (orange spaces).

The second price is for stock sold from either improved or irrigated pastures (green or blue spaces).

Improved pastures and irrigated pastures enable better quality sheep to be grown. This is reflected in the higher stock sale price.

To sell 7 pens, 6 from irrigated and 1 from improved.

Seller price is $830 for improved and irrigated.

Open the ready reckoner to the $800’s. Locate $830 go down to find the price for 7 pens…

$5810