Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017)

Re:Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capital... by andrepd on Wednesday February 26, 2020 @12:31PM (#22425144)

That house rule (which is far from universally applied) is a small detail. The game is boring (luck-based, little if any strategy) and unenjoyable in other ways: it takes too long to finish, players who go bust early are left watching the game continue for maybe hours, front-runners are almost certainly going to win yet it takes an excruciatingly drawn-out process to finish the process, etc.

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Re:Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capital... by TimPC on Wednesday February 26, 2020 @01:38PM (#22425829)

I have a better house rule. Properties don't have prices and when anyone lands on an unowned property it goes up for auction. Reflects more of a realistic property market and makes the game far more strategic. We also find the property prices in monopoly are too low by at least 2x.

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Re:Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capital... by pessimizer on Wednesday February 26, 2020 @01:16PM (#22425622)

There's a lot of strategy in Monopoly. People who don't think there's strategy in Monopoly in my experience are people who don't understand the value of trading, and have largely played games of it where little to no trading was done.

If you can't imagine trading with another player in a way that would give that player a Monopoly, you haven't exhausted the strategy space of Monopoly, a seminal game in the history of board games that all 3M/German/Euro-style strategy games of today owe a debt to.

I'm going to stop because I feel like I'm falling into a bizarre habit of only commenting on HN when Monopoly is brought up negatively:)

edit: if there's an obvious, unstoppable winner at any point in any game, you are allowed to stop playing.

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Re:Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capital... by andrepd on Thursday February 27, 2020 @08:59AM (#22433247)

>If you can't imagine trading with another player in a way that would give that player a Monopoly

No, I wouldn't, except if it gives a (more valuable) monopoly to me.

You talk a lot about strategy, but what strategy is that? Afaict any strategy in Monopoly is "static", i.e. prefer orange properties, then the second set in each street, etc. That is, the boring sort x)

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Re:Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capital... by Mountain_Skies on Wednesday February 26, 2020 @12:42PM (#22425265)

The game rarely goes on for hours without free parking.

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Re:Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capital... by behringer on Wednesday February 26, 2020 @01:47PM (#22425892)

The game should run between. 30-60 minutes at the most with normal rules and if everyone knows what's up. Once the first player falls an auction begins or one player gets all the assets and the game is quickly over after that. Most games go on forever because there's money on free parking or you don't do auctions, or you have unlimited houses.

Play by the rules and the game is very fun with a lot of strategies.

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Re:Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capital... by jedberg on Wednesday February 26, 2020 @01:17PM (#22425627)

If you follow the actual rules, the game rarely lasts more than an hour. The main rule that no one follows that speeds up the game is auctioning a property when there person doesn't want to buy it.

It forces every property on the board to be owned with just a few times around the board.

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Re:Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capital... by andrepd on Thursday February 27, 2020 @08:55AM (#22433217)

Everytime I played, people always bought properties if able, since it's so obviously worth it, so auctions (which where in the rules) happened very seldom anyways.

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Re:Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capital... by JoeAltmaier on Thursday February 27, 2020 @08:58AM (#22433233)

They are so not all worth it. A couple efficient properties (yellow and orange) are worth any number of the others. Own a monopoly on yellow or orange, and you will likely win the game. I auction everything else, which depletes my competitors and raises my chances.

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