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How to win Monopoly in the shortest possible time

85 points by mikestew 7y ago

Zenst 7y ago
Article title is: How to win Monopoly in the shortest possible time As for being bad, perhaps a reference to "The site boardgamegeek.com, a database which aggregates reviews from players, lists Monopoly at 18,583 out of 18,591 rated games. The game has an average rating of 4.36 out of 10 from over 25,000 reviews. The lowest ranked game, if you are curious, is Tic-Tac-Toe." Along with the game rule that the bank can not run out of money. Though I'm not sure that rule is bad, and if they could run out of money, they would have to add a rule that if it does, all players must give the bank money. Which would make it a bit too real in many ways for it to be fun.
- ujjain 7y ago
  All players having to give the bank money and all spoils going to the top player, doesn't sound like a fair game at all.
  - nexuist 7y ago
    Nonsense. Just need to use your imagination. Throughout the game the player can purchase pieces that go on a Risk board. If the bank goes broke, all players switch to the Risk board, and fight each other until the winner becomes the new banker and forcibly takes money from the losers. Kind of like real life.
    - tasogare 7y ago
      I once mixed Settlers of Catane with Risk soldiers, to improve the former’s game military aspect. The result was surprisingly fun and balanced. Edit: photo of board here http://unixorn.azurewebsites.net/img/catane_krieg.jpg http://unixorn.azurewebsites.net/img/catane_krieg.jpg
      - qznc 7y ago
        Sounds like Junta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junta_(game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junta_(game) Essentially, everybody has a role in a banana republic government. President hands out money which everyone tries to get into their swiss bank account. If the players are not pleased they can start a revolution and it turns into a Risk game. After a revolution the roles can be switched. Great fun with the right people.
        distances 7y ago
        You easily notice it's 40 years old though, the game is horribly unbalanced by modern standards.
        Zenst 7y ago
        interesting and had me thinking on a tangent if banks are more balanced today than 40 years ago and my gut feeling is that they are less balanced today than 40 years ago. Though can't nail exactly why I feel that is the case.
      - Zenst 7y ago
        How did the turn order effect the game? I know with risk and reinforcement cards it had a huge impact, more so if you use increasing over fixed.
    - crawfordcomeaux 7y ago
      I love this idea of bringing realism into board games like this. I want to design a hippie anarchist postcapitalism gift economy game to transition into from choosing to stop playing Monopoly. Set the whole game up as usual, but add Jubilee (holiday of forgiving all debt and redistributing wealth) to top of community chest & General Strike (everyone stops working and paying bills) to chance below the top card (to give Monopoly a second chance to redeem itself? :P ), and then start playing the gift economy game.
      - Zenst 7y ago
        Oh you could just use Monopoly and change the community and chance cards by making your own. For example a chance card that can turn the spot you are on into a nature reserve - whoever owns that location. Then anybody landing on that would have to forfeit one of their locations to also be a nature reserve. Then change the definition of winning by whoever has the least money left after the whole board is a nature reserve. So can modify existing games by changing the rules and adding a few homemade cards of your own making. Not sure what the market for mod kits for existing board games is like or even if one exists, but if you come up with something that your friends enjoy, maybe a kickstart opportunity and worst case, you will have some fun.
        crawfordcomeaux 7y ago
        I'd rather design it so it's something anyone can play without having access to money for it. I love the idea of getting people to give up land, though I'd probably make it voluntary. Are you familiar with nomics?
- neilwilson 7y ago
  Monopoly is there to mirror real life. In real life banks operating in their own denomination cannot run out of money either - not since 1971 when the dollar came off gold.
sixstringtheory 7y ago
I recently picked up Monopoly Deal and while I do have a soft spot in my heart for regular old Monopoly, Deal blows it out of the water. More opportunities for hostile actions. Much faster pace making it just more fun.
- exhilaration 7y ago
  I was looking for this comment and I totally agree. My 7 and 8 year olds love Monopoly Deal as well, highly recommended if you want to introduce kids to board/card games. Another bonus is that games only last for 20-30 minutes.
- rudiv 7y ago
  Monopoly Deal is great. Back in school we used to play it so much we ended up extending the rules to make it last longer. I think our record was 8 shuffles of the deck. If you want to extend your game, you can tweak the number of sets required to win. E.g. make it 2 sets of 2 and 3 sets of 3 or 4 - that should last at least 30 minutes.
- IshKebab 7y ago
  Yeah Monopoly Deal is still a terrible game by modern standards but it's far better than monopoly and I've had fun playing it. You should really try some good board games though. Carcassonne, Catan and Ticket to Ride are the classic good modern board games. I'd also suggest Love Letter (great short card game for 3/4 players), Colt Express, Camel Up (light fun for 4-6 players), Cash 'n Guns (good for parties), or if you want to get a bit more cerebral, Azul and Sagrada are great. For two players the best ones IMO are 7 Wonders Duel, Patchwork (this is the lightest one), and Battle Line (a traditional card game but you can't play with a 52 card deck, and way better than any other 2 player card game I've tried). All of those are 10x better than Monopoly Deal, and about 1000x better than Monopoly.
  - bmsleight_ 7y ago
    Machi Koro is good for kids of monopoly age. It take 30-40 mins and makes for a great finish. You build different types of properties About 10,000x better than Monopoly. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/143884/machi-koro https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/143884/machi-koro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z20szhLeDSE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z20szhLeDSE Agree with Carcassonne, Catan, Ticket to Ride and Patchwork. I will look at Love Letter.
WalterBright 7y ago
Monopoly is boring because the fate of the players is decided by the first few rolls of the dice, the rest is just the math inevitably playing out. The ability to influence the result with strategy is about nil.
- newfeatureok 7y ago
  Isn’t that the point the game is trying to make?
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    It'd be nice if it made its point quickly and didn't stretch it out for hours…
    - WalterBright 7y ago
      It's point is "Capitalism - bad". I just saved you many, many hours :-)
  - WalterBright 7y ago
    Economics games always rig the rules to achieve the outcome favored by the politics of its creator. Their value as a model of reality is about nil. Much the same applies to Hollywood movies that dabble in politics and economics. When you're the script writer, it's too easy to get the "correct" result.
    - newfeatureok 7y ago
      I disagree - the hand you’re given, parents, status, genetics, etc pretty much decide the outcomes in reality. Similarly as you’ve pointed out the early rolls decide most of the outcome as well.
      - WalterBright 7y ago
        How does your theory explain The Beatles, Steve Jobs, Bruno Mars, Thomas Edison, Barack Obama, etc.? Did you know that the overwhelming majority of immigrants came to America with nothing but a suitcase? I know a modern immigrant who came with a suitcase and recently retired with his fu money. It's never been easier for someone to get a free college-level education, start an internet business, reach a global network of suppliers, and a global marketplace, for FREE. Blaming your parents might be fun, but is totally unproductive.
dangus 7y ago
This is a really tired subject on the Internet by now.
- distances 7y ago
  For you sure, but for ten thousand others this is the first time around. https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/
malkia 7y ago
Love Monopoly still!
JackFr 7y ago
So the way to make it fun is to do lots of trading, but let your creativity go wild. "You want the third property for a monopoly, yeah I'll give it to you for 50% of its rent, and 20% of the other two's rent." "You don't have the $500 without selling houses and mortgaging? Pay me over time. Let's say $1000 within your next 8 turns." Admittedly, when I try things like that half the time I get bitten because I've poorly estimated values -- but it is more fun.
- qznc 7y ago
  If you want a trading game, why not play one that is designed for that? Catan, Bohnanza, ... https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamemechanic/2008/trading/linkeditems/boardgamemechanic?pageid=1&mechanicfilter=2008&sort=rank https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamemechanic/2008/trading/lin...
  - sdenton4 7y ago
    Yeah, but Catan lacks a mechanism for futures markets...
    - rckoepke 7y ago
      I've often played Catan by dealing in futures contracts. "I will give you two sheep for one wood now, and also the next three brick you receive from any source". That practice is quickly banished in every house I've played in. No one thinks it's "unfair" per se but everyone, including myself, believe that it horribly breaks the game.
      - kortilla 7y ago
        Not trying to be too nit-picky, but that’s not a futures contract (nor a forward). Neither futures nor forwards require payment up front for the exchange in the future. Futures and forwards are for locking in the price for the future trade, not partially completing the trade in the present and finishing it in the future. What you’re describing is just boring old debt.
dredmorbius 7y ago
I'd strongly recommend a deeper history of the game at The Landlord's Game: https://landlordsgame.info/ https://landlordsgame.info/ ...Most Americans who play Monopoly think it was invented by an unemployed Pennsylvania man who sold his game to Parker Brothers in 1935 and lived happily ever after on royalties. That story, however, is not exactly true. Ralph Anspach, an economist and refugee of Hitler’s Danzig, unearthed the real story and it traces back to Abraham Lincoln, the Quakers, and to a forgotten feminist named Lizzie Magie. The Monopolists is in part Anspach’s David-versus-Goliath tale of his 1970s battle against Parker Brothers, one of the most beloved companies of all time. Anspach was a professor fighting to sell his Anti-Monopoly board game, which hailed those who busted up trusts and monopolies instead of those who took control of all the properties. While he and his lawyers researched previous Parker Brothers lawsuits, he accidentally discovered the true history of the game, which began with Magie’s Landlord’s Game. That game was invented more than thirty years before Parker Brothers sold their version of Monopoly and she waged her own war with Parker Brothers to be credited as the real originator of the game. Ironically, the Landlord’s Game, like Anti-Monopoly, was underpinned by morals that were the exact opposite of what Monopoly represents today. It isn't surprising that Magie's game was embraced by a constellation of left-wingers from the Progressive Era through the Great Depression, including members of Franklin Roosevelt’s famed Brain Trust....
- true_religion 7y ago
  This sort of confuses me. How can a game with the opposite principles of Monopoly be the true originator? It seems totally debatable which is why they had to go through a law suit twice over this.
  - Crestwave 7y ago
    See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_(game); https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_(game); according to the article, she created two sets of rules for the game: the classic monopoly game to show how unfair monopolies are, and another one to demonstrate how she thought it should be fairly done.
jedberg 7y ago
If your game takes more than about 45 minutes, you're playing it wrong. Free parking doesn't give you a bonus. Every property must be sold when it is landed on, either to the player who landed on it or in auction. The supply of houses and hotels is limited. If you have a situation where no one has a monopoly and all the properties are owned, you have to make trades. If everyone refuses to trade, then you might as well stop because the game will never end, but you should still reach this point within 45 minutes. The entire game was designed to be bad -- it's trying to show that owning land is evil and that who is rich in life is mostly based on luck. The winner is supposed to be the person who rolls the luckiest.
- kovek 7y ago
  Wait, are you saying that in monopoly, the one who rolls the luckiest wins? I think that’s true. I would like to point out that in real life, that is also the case. The ones who roll the luckiest also win. Think of your birth situation. You didn’t chose it. Now, is Monopoly teaching anything remarkably useful about real life that could put you ahead? I don’t think so. It’s a game! Since the strategy is limited, takes a long time, I don’t think it’s a great one.
  - tines 7y ago
    I think it's teaching you something about how society should or shouldn't be designed. Whether this could be said to "put you ahead" might be the wrong way to think about it.
  - kyuudou 7y ago
    Why do so many, like many immigrants, start from nothing and end up very successful if it was just a dice roll? I mean, there's always that factor but it's certainly not everything.
    - jakelazaroff 7y ago
      This seems like selection bias. I would bet that far more people end up successful because they started out successful.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
crawfordcomeaux 7y ago
I want to design a game where the setup involves starting off playing Monopoly and then everyone choosing to switch into playing a game for practicing living in a gift economy. Anyone want to help with the concept?
cryptica 7y ago
When I played it (4 people game), I would win relatively often initially (before other players started copying my strategy). My strategy was just to buy everything I landed on except utilities and rail stations - I would only buy a utility/station if I wanted to stop someone else from getting all of them (which typically happens much later in the game and often doesn't happen at all) but mostly I would use it as a bargaining chip to trade it for a normal property to complete my set and start building houses (utilities and stations are just bait; you let others complete their own utility/station sets and in the process, you get to complete your own regular sets in the process and build houses). I never understood people who said that utilities and stations were the best things to buy... You can't build houses on them and they earn peanuts unless you get all of them, but even if you do, they still don't yield much compared to lands that have some houses. Also, through trading, it's difficult to get all the utilities/stations without giving up something even more valuable. It's foolish to accept a utility company or station in exchange for one of your regular properties because it will allow someone else to get a complete set and they can start building houses - Once they do that it's game over for you and every other player.
ankit219 7y ago
Playing Monopoly as an adult was a totally different experience. The game can finish fast if we all played aggressively and willing to trade, but we did not as we wanted to kill time during a lockdown. The key is to be enterprising in the trades you offer. Get the two brown ones first anyhow and with any kind of trade, and then for anything, if you are feeling stuck, offer to slash the rent, or even rent free. Then comes the installments or things like giving rent for next three rounds and stuff like that. As a kid, never thought about those, but now, with these new rules, it became more interesting and exciting to play. I tipped this to my nine year old nephew yesterday, and I guess I will get a call from his mom in a few days about ruining the game for them.
- jimmyvalmer 7y ago
  Brown ones? Installments? No one has any idea what you're talking about.
  - SyrupThinker 7y ago
    You should not speak for others, parent obviously talks about the lowest value properties (colored brown) and upgrades such as houses and hotels.
    - jimmyvalmer 7y ago
      Fair, but ftr, parent meant "installment" to mean financing not "improvement", and my 1980s edition has the lowest value properties colored purple. And if anyone can parse "Get the two brown ones first anyhow and with any kind of trade, and then for anything, if you are feeling stuck, offer to slash the rent," then color me a buffoon indeed.
  - ankit219 7y ago
    The brown ones are the cheapest properties just next to the go square. Installments in the sense that if you cant pay x amount in 1 go, you can pay after 3-4 rounds, or take it out of rent. Just some offline modification we made to play the game.
xivzgrev 7y ago
Idk how Catan can be mentioned as a counter-example. Everytime I play it's exciting for the first half, then a winner becomes clear and it's no longer fun. The article mentions negative feedback loops but...they're not really there. Sure you can refuse to trade, or place the robber but if someone has a bigger "engine" than you, then every turn they're getting more and more ahead.
- someguyorother 7y ago
  Maybe something like YINSH (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YINSH https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YINSH) would be a better counter-example. To pull off the win, you have to deliberately weaken yourself in the endgame, at which point others can catch up to you.
- philwelch 7y ago
  I've played multiple games of Catan that seemed like there would be a clear winner early on but had a surprise twist ending. Or maybe I just choked :)
jonp 7y ago
Here's a collection of the shortest finish in many games: https://www2.stetson.edu/~efriedma/mathmagic/1112.html https://www2.stetson.edu/~efriedma/mathmagic/1112.html
dr_dshiv 7y ago
May I point out that "fortnite monopoly" is actually a delight to play -- it's not just a surface redesign, but actually a far better game than monopoly.
RickJWagner 7y ago
Monopoly is fast, compared to RISK.
jmiskovic 7y ago
There's well written write-up [0] about passive-aggressive winning strategy, which also pinpoints all the design issues with Monopoly. [0] https://imgur.com/gallery/vX3zm https://imgur.com/gallery/vX3zm
sandymcmurray 7y ago
Mega Monopoly is the best official variant I've ever played. There's an extra dice with a symbol on two faces that forces you to move to the next unowned property after you complete your first turn. When all properties are owned, the same roll sends you to the next space where you have to pay rent after you complete your turn. This speeds up the property distribution and the end game considerably. Mega Monopoly has other fun changes, including one more property on each colour group, an extra level of building above hotels (skyscrapers), "depots" on railroads that double the rent, and "bus tickets" that permit you to move forward to any space on your side of the board instead of rolling the dice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly:_The_Mega_Edition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly:_The_Mega_Edition
andreig2191 7y ago
“People overestimate the probability of things happening,” says Myers. “In social psychology literature it is fairly well established that people are poor at assessing risk." Please tell me who are these people who believe there is a good chance of buying Park and Boardwalk on the first loop?

85 points by mikestew 7y ago

Article title is: How to win Monopoly in the shortest possible time As for being bad, perhaps a reference to "The site boardgamegeek.com, a database which aggregates reviews from players, lists Monopoly at 18,583 out of 18,591 rated games. The game has an average rating of 4.36 out of 10 from over 25,000 reviews. The lowest ranked game, if you are curious, is Tic-Tac-Toe." Along with the game rule that the bank can not run out of money. Though I'm not sure that rule is bad, and if they could run out of money, they would have to add a rule that if it does, all players must give the bank money. Which would make it a bit too real in many ways for it to be fun.

ujjain 7y ago
All players having to give the bank money and all spoils going to the top player, doesn't sound like a fair game at all.
- nexuist 7y ago
  Nonsense. Just need to use your imagination. Throughout the game the player can purchase pieces that go on a Risk board. If the bank goes broke, all players switch to the Risk board, and fight each other until the winner becomes the new banker and forcibly takes money from the losers. Kind of like real life.
  - tasogare 7y ago
    I once mixed Settlers of Catane with Risk soldiers, to improve the former’s game military aspect. The result was surprisingly fun and balanced. Edit: photo of board here http://unixorn.azurewebsites.net/img/catane_krieg.jpg http://unixorn.azurewebsites.net/img/catane_krieg.jpg
    - qznc 7y ago
      Sounds like Junta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junta_(game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junta_(game) Essentially, everybody has a role in a banana republic government. President hands out money which everyone tries to get into their swiss bank account. If the players are not pleased they can start a revolution and it turns into a Risk game. After a revolution the roles can be switched. Great fun with the right people.
      - distances 7y ago
        You easily notice it's 40 years old though, the game is horribly unbalanced by modern standards.
        Zenst 7y ago
        interesting and had me thinking on a tangent if banks are more balanced today than 40 years ago and my gut feeling is that they are less balanced today than 40 years ago. Though can't nail exactly why I feel that is the case.
    - Zenst 7y ago
      How did the turn order effect the game? I know with risk and reinforcement cards it had a huge impact, more so if you use increasing over fixed.
  - crawfordcomeaux 7y ago
    I love this idea of bringing realism into board games like this. I want to design a hippie anarchist postcapitalism gift economy game to transition into from choosing to stop playing Monopoly. Set the whole game up as usual, but add Jubilee (holiday of forgiving all debt and redistributing wealth) to top of community chest & General Strike (everyone stops working and paying bills) to chance below the top card (to give Monopoly a second chance to redeem itself? :P ), and then start playing the gift economy game.
    - Zenst 7y ago
      Oh you could just use Monopoly and change the community and chance cards by making your own. For example a chance card that can turn the spot you are on into a nature reserve - whoever owns that location. Then anybody landing on that would have to forfeit one of their locations to also be a nature reserve. Then change the definition of winning by whoever has the least money left after the whole board is a nature reserve. So can modify existing games by changing the rules and adding a few homemade cards of your own making. Not sure what the market for mod kits for existing board games is like or even if one exists, but if you come up with something that your friends enjoy, maybe a kickstart opportunity and worst case, you will have some fun.
      - crawfordcomeaux 7y ago
        I'd rather design it so it's something anyone can play without having access to money for it. I love the idea of getting people to give up land, though I'd probably make it voluntary. Are you familiar with nomics?
neilwilson 7y ago
Monopoly is there to mirror real life. In real life banks operating in their own denomination cannot run out of money either - not since 1971 when the dollar came off gold.

sixstringtheory 7y ago

I recently picked up Monopoly Deal and while I do have a soft spot in my heart for regular old Monopoly, Deal blows it out of the water. More opportunities for hostile actions. Much faster pace making it just more fun.

exhilaration 7y ago
I was looking for this comment and I totally agree. My 7 and 8 year olds love Monopoly Deal as well, highly recommended if you want to introduce kids to board/card games. Another bonus is that games only last for 20-30 minutes.
rudiv 7y ago
Monopoly Deal is great. Back in school we used to play it so much we ended up extending the rules to make it last longer. I think our record was 8 shuffles of the deck. If you want to extend your game, you can tweak the number of sets required to win. E.g. make it 2 sets of 2 and 3 sets of 3 or 4 - that should last at least 30 minutes.
IshKebab 7y ago
Yeah Monopoly Deal is still a terrible game by modern standards but it's far better than monopoly and I've had fun playing it. You should really try some good board games though. Carcassonne, Catan and Ticket to Ride are the classic good modern board games. I'd also suggest Love Letter (great short card game for 3/4 players), Colt Express, Camel Up (light fun for 4-6 players), Cash 'n Guns (good for parties), or if you want to get a bit more cerebral, Azul and Sagrada are great. For two players the best ones IMO are 7 Wonders Duel, Patchwork (this is the lightest one), and Battle Line (a traditional card game but you can't play with a 52 card deck, and way better than any other 2 player card game I've tried). All of those are 10x better than Monopoly Deal, and about 1000x better than Monopoly.
- bmsleight_ 7y ago
  Machi Koro is good for kids of monopoly age. It take 30-40 mins and makes for a great finish. You build different types of properties About 10,000x better than Monopoly. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/143884/machi-koro https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/143884/machi-koro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z20szhLeDSE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z20szhLeDSE Agree with Carcassonne, Catan, Ticket to Ride and Patchwork. I will look at Love Letter.

WalterBright 7y ago

Monopoly is boring because the fate of the players is decided by the first few rolls of the dice, the rest is just the math inevitably playing out. The ability to influence the result with strategy is about nil.

newfeatureok 7y ago
Isn’t that the point the game is trying to make?
- saagarjha 7y ago
  It'd be nice if it made its point quickly and didn't stretch it out for hours…
  - WalterBright 7y ago
    It's point is "Capitalism - bad". I just saved you many, many hours :-)
- WalterBright 7y ago
  Economics games always rig the rules to achieve the outcome favored by the politics of its creator. Their value as a model of reality is about nil. Much the same applies to Hollywood movies that dabble in politics and economics. When you're the script writer, it's too easy to get the "correct" result.
  - newfeatureok 7y ago
    I disagree - the hand you’re given, parents, status, genetics, etc pretty much decide the outcomes in reality. Similarly as you’ve pointed out the early rolls decide most of the outcome as well.
    - WalterBright 7y ago
      How does your theory explain The Beatles, Steve Jobs, Bruno Mars, Thomas Edison, Barack Obama, etc.? Did you know that the overwhelming majority of immigrants came to America with nothing but a suitcase? I know a modern immigrant who came with a suitcase and recently retired with his fu money. It's never been easier for someone to get a free college-level education, start an internet business, reach a global network of suppliers, and a global marketplace, for FREE. Blaming your parents might be fun, but is totally unproductive.

dangus 7y ago

This is a really tired subject on the Internet by now.

distances 7y ago
For you sure, but for ten thousand others this is the first time around. https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/

malkia 7y ago

Love Monopoly still!

JackFr 7y ago

So the way to make it fun is to do lots of trading, but let your creativity go wild. "You want the third property for a monopoly, yeah I'll give it to you for 50% of its rent, and 20% of the other two's rent." "You don't have the $500 without selling houses and mortgaging? Pay me over time. Let's say $1000 within your next 8 turns." Admittedly, when I try things like that half the time I get bitten because I've poorly estimated values -- but it is more fun.

qznc 7y ago
If you want a trading game, why not play one that is designed for that? Catan, Bohnanza, ... https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamemechanic/2008/trading/linkeditems/boardgamemechanic?pageid=1&mechanicfilter=2008&sort=rank https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamemechanic/2008/trading/lin...
- sdenton4 7y ago
  Yeah, but Catan lacks a mechanism for futures markets...
  - rckoepke 7y ago
    I've often played Catan by dealing in futures contracts. "I will give you two sheep for one wood now, and also the next three brick you receive from any source". That practice is quickly banished in every house I've played in. No one thinks it's "unfair" per se but everyone, including myself, believe that it horribly breaks the game.
    - kortilla 7y ago
      Not trying to be too nit-picky, but that’s not a futures contract (nor a forward). Neither futures nor forwards require payment up front for the exchange in the future. Futures and forwards are for locking in the price for the future trade, not partially completing the trade in the present and finishing it in the future. What you’re describing is just boring old debt.

dredmorbius 7y ago

I'd strongly recommend a deeper history of the game at The Landlord's Game: https://landlordsgame.info/ https://landlordsgame.info/ ...Most Americans who play Monopoly think it was invented by an unemployed Pennsylvania man who sold his game to Parker Brothers in 1935 and lived happily ever after on royalties. That story, however, is not exactly true. Ralph Anspach, an economist and refugee of Hitler’s Danzig, unearthed the real story and it traces back to Abraham Lincoln, the Quakers, and to a forgotten feminist named Lizzie Magie. The Monopolists is in part Anspach’s David-versus-Goliath tale of his 1970s battle against Parker Brothers, one of the most beloved companies of all time. Anspach was a professor fighting to sell his Anti-Monopoly board game, which hailed those who busted up trusts and monopolies instead of those who took control of all the properties. While he and his lawyers researched previous Parker Brothers lawsuits, he accidentally discovered the true history of the game, which began with Magie’s Landlord’s Game. That game was invented more than thirty years before Parker Brothers sold their version of Monopoly and she waged her own war with Parker Brothers to be credited as the real originator of the game. Ironically, the Landlord’s Game, like Anti-Monopoly, was underpinned by morals that were the exact opposite of what Monopoly represents today. It isn't surprising that Magie's game was embraced by a constellation of left-wingers from the Progressive Era through the Great Depression, including members of Franklin Roosevelt’s famed Brain Trust....

true_religion 7y ago
This sort of confuses me. How can a game with the opposite principles of Monopoly be the true originator? It seems totally debatable which is why they had to go through a law suit twice over this.
- Crestwave 7y ago
  See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_(game); https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_(game); according to the article, she created two sets of rules for the game: the classic monopoly game to show how unfair monopolies are, and another one to demonstrate how she thought it should be fairly done.

jedberg 7y ago

If your game takes more than about 45 minutes, you're playing it wrong. Free parking doesn't give you a bonus. Every property must be sold when it is landed on, either to the player who landed on it or in auction. The supply of houses and hotels is limited. If you have a situation where no one has a monopoly and all the properties are owned, you have to make trades. If everyone refuses to trade, then you might as well stop because the game will never end, but you should still reach this point within 45 minutes. The entire game was designed to be bad -- it's trying to show that owning land is evil and that who is rich in life is mostly based on luck. The winner is supposed to be the person who rolls the luckiest.

kovek 7y ago
Wait, are you saying that in monopoly, the one who rolls the luckiest wins? I think that’s true. I would like to point out that in real life, that is also the case. The ones who roll the luckiest also win. Think of your birth situation. You didn’t chose it. Now, is Monopoly teaching anything remarkably useful about real life that could put you ahead? I don’t think so. It’s a game! Since the strategy is limited, takes a long time, I don’t think it’s a great one.
- tines 7y ago
  I think it's teaching you something about how society should or shouldn't be designed. Whether this could be said to "put you ahead" might be the wrong way to think about it.
- kyuudou 7y ago
  Why do so many, like many immigrants, start from nothing and end up very successful if it was just a dice roll? I mean, there's always that factor but it's certainly not everything.
  - jakelazaroff 7y ago
    This seems like selection bias. I would bet that far more people end up successful because they started out successful.

deleted 7y ago

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crawfordcomeaux 7y ago

I want to design a game where the setup involves starting off playing Monopoly and then everyone choosing to switch into playing a game for practicing living in a gift economy. Anyone want to help with the concept?

cryptica 7y ago

When I played it (4 people game), I would win relatively often initially (before other players started copying my strategy). My strategy was just to buy everything I landed on except utilities and rail stations - I would only buy a utility/station if I wanted to stop someone else from getting all of them (which typically happens much later in the game and often doesn't happen at all) but mostly I would use it as a bargaining chip to trade it for a normal property to complete my set and start building houses (utilities and stations are just bait; you let others complete their own utility/station sets and in the process, you get to complete your own regular sets in the process and build houses). I never understood people who said that utilities and stations were the best things to buy... You can't build houses on them and they earn peanuts unless you get all of them, but even if you do, they still don't yield much compared to lands that have some houses. Also, through trading, it's difficult to get all the utilities/stations without giving up something even more valuable. It's foolish to accept a utility company or station in exchange for one of your regular properties because it will allow someone else to get a complete set and they can start building houses - Once they do that it's game over for you and every other player.

ankit219 7y ago

Playing Monopoly as an adult was a totally different experience. The game can finish fast if we all played aggressively and willing to trade, but we did not as we wanted to kill time during a lockdown. The key is to be enterprising in the trades you offer. Get the two brown ones first anyhow and with any kind of trade, and then for anything, if you are feeling stuck, offer to slash the rent, or even rent free. Then comes the installments or things like giving rent for next three rounds and stuff like that. As a kid, never thought about those, but now, with these new rules, it became more interesting and exciting to play. I tipped this to my nine year old nephew yesterday, and I guess I will get a call from his mom in a few days about ruining the game for them.

jimmyvalmer 7y ago
Brown ones? Installments? No one has any idea what you're talking about.
- SyrupThinker 7y ago
  You should not speak for others, parent obviously talks about the lowest value properties (colored brown) and upgrades such as houses and hotels.
  - jimmyvalmer 7y ago
    Fair, but ftr, parent meant "installment" to mean financing not "improvement", and my 1980s edition has the lowest value properties colored purple. And if anyone can parse "Get the two brown ones first anyhow and with any kind of trade, and then for anything, if you are feeling stuck, offer to slash the rent," then color me a buffoon indeed.
- ankit219 7y ago
  The brown ones are the cheapest properties just next to the go square. Installments in the sense that if you cant pay x amount in 1 go, you can pay after 3-4 rounds, or take it out of rent. Just some offline modification we made to play the game.

xivzgrev 7y ago

Idk how Catan can be mentioned as a counter-example. Everytime I play it's exciting for the first half, then a winner becomes clear and it's no longer fun. The article mentions negative feedback loops but...they're not really there. Sure you can refuse to trade, or place the robber but if someone has a bigger "engine" than you, then every turn they're getting more and more ahead.

someguyorother 7y ago
Maybe something like YINSH (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YINSH https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YINSH) would be a better counter-example. To pull off the win, you have to deliberately weaken yourself in the endgame, at which point others can catch up to you.
philwelch 7y ago
I've played multiple games of Catan that seemed like there would be a clear winner early on but had a surprise twist ending. Or maybe I just choked :)

jonp 7y ago

Here's a collection of the shortest finish in many games: https://www2.stetson.edu/~efriedma/mathmagic/1112.html https://www2.stetson.edu/~efriedma/mathmagic/1112.html

dr_dshiv 7y ago

May I point out that "fortnite monopoly" is actually a delight to play -- it's not just a surface redesign, but actually a far better game than monopoly.

RickJWagner 7y ago

Monopoly is fast, compared to RISK.

jmiskovic 7y ago

There's well written write-up [0] about passive-aggressive winning strategy, which also pinpoints all the design issues with Monopoly. [0] https://imgur.com/gallery/vX3zm https://imgur.com/gallery/vX3zm

sandymcmurray 7y ago

Mega Monopoly is the best official variant I've ever played. There's an extra dice with a symbol on two faces that forces you to move to the next unowned property after you complete your first turn. When all properties are owned, the same roll sends you to the next space where you have to pay rent after you complete your turn. This speeds up the property distribution and the end game considerably. Mega Monopoly has other fun changes, including one more property on each colour group, an extra level of building above hotels (skyscrapers), "depots" on railroads that double the rent, and "bus tickets" that permit you to move forward to any space on your side of the board instead of rolling the dice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly:_The_Mega_Edition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly:_The_Mega_Edition

andreig2191 7y ago

“People overestimate the probability of things happening,” says Myers. “In social psychology literature it is fairly well established that people are poor at assessing risk." Please tell me who are these people who believe there is a good chance of buying Park and Boardwalk on the first loop?