Over-analysing Monopoly.

Ah, Monopoly. A staple boardgame of the stereotypical white middle-class household. We all know roughly how to play it, but how many people stop and actually think about how it works?

In a typical game of Monopoly, the average property will not pay out as much as it cost to buy, unless you collect its respective set and develop it to the point of having at least two or three houses, in which case recuperating your entire investment still relies on other players landing on it several times, but is actually possible.

Which means that from a purely business standpoint, buying any of the coloured properties on the Monopoly board is a terrible investment. Albeit still a necessary one. I'll get to that in a bit.

Actually, I made a few estimates and concluded that collecting both utilities (electric company/water works) probably offers the most favourable house-less cost/effort:profit ratio over the course of a game. Once you have both, you make ten times the current die roll from whoever lands on it, and seeing as the set costs 300 total you should recuperate that pretty quickly, assuming people roll at least 5 before landing on it (especially since both properties are on the more traversed side of the infamous "Go to Jail" spot).

We could argue that the station set is better than the utilities- it's certainly the more sought after one- but while it's lucrative, you still need to invest 600 (three stations) before you'll really start seeing returns on it.

This is not counting trading for properties with other players, which skews prices a lot. In my limited experience though this only inflates the price.

The really interesting thing about Monopoly though is that making investments that look terrible on the surface is actually an essential move. Have you ever tried playing Monopoly without ever buying anything? Me neither. Because you'll inevitably lose money. As other players scoop up these poor investments quickly you'll be left with no recurring income of your own beyond the "Passing Go" money, and while you could theoretically out-last some players as they liquidate each other, you'll slowly bleed money until eventually that last opponent will pile out hotels onto half the board and we know what happens next.

So, the only viable strategy is to buy properties that will more than likely not pay out until you collect the full set, which smart opponents will also try to stop you from doing. 

Obviously then, the real strategy in the game- because where you land isn't possible to control- comes from how you choose your properties and how you bargain with other players. Do you want to only collect one or two specific sets and save your money otherwise? I don't like this strategy, because if someone else gets that last piece of your chosen set then they have a lot of leverage over your game. They can ruin you entirely. When it works though, you get to spend a lot of money on upgrading your properties and (hopefully) making your money back.

Personally, I like to buy every unowned property I land on. It's a risky strategy that leaves me with very little spare change. I like my utilities and stations, but beyond those I'll usually have pieces of quite a few sets, ready to trade and barter with other players and capitalise on the ones nobody else is bothering with. I'm still not sure if this is a good idea yet, but it does help me to be flexible and I collect a lot of small rent payments early on.

Beyond this decision, it's important to look at how much you can make back per house you buy on your sets-  typically you won't start seeing substantial amounts of your initial costs back unless you can get about three houses per property, and even then you have to build up evenly so I'm not sure.

A lot of the time, the game isn't so much about gaining the most money as it is losing the least. Eventually there'll only be one player who isn't bankrupt and they'll usually wind up owning most of everything.

Which brings us right around to the name of the game, the reason it was created and the increasingly relevant message it bears.

All in all I like how Monopoly is set up and I can't help but wonder how much of this complexity- from the set bonuses to the rent prices- was deliberate design made with full knowledge of how much strategic thinking a player can actually put into it. Monopoly is a remarkably complex game considering how many people who don't consider themselves "nerds" still own it and know how to play it and to an extent the lessons it can teach are as useful in real life as in the game.

Not bad for a game that was originally published the best part of a century ago. The folks responsible for all of this were nothing short of brilliant.

Damn, now I feel like playing Monopoly. Anyone up for it?