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RE: Announcing my next game, and auditioning for players.
Interesting concept and I am trying to decide whether to participate and trying to understand the economics. Just wanting clarification, at the end of the game, or if one decides to leave early, they leave with their cash only, and get no value for their properties and houses/hotels? I'm just trying to get my head around it, because from memory, at the end of the game, one is generally very asset rich but can be lacking in cash.
Also, do you have any thoughts on policing player collusion? I could see a "Coles/Woolies"-style duopoly do quite well making favourable deals among themselves.
That's right, you leave with cash only, which will no doubt affect purchasing decisions toward the end of the game. The final two might end up selling properties to each other at a discount.
Naturally if I bought everybody out at the end, the game would be a losing proposition for me, as the bank.
To be honest, the fact that I don't know what will happen is a big driver for doing it. We're in beta after all, so let's do some testing :)
I've done some rough estimates in Excel, and I think it is better to be the banker. You (the banker) start out with over $11,000 of assets (properties and houses/hotels; valuing these at an average of $125 each). Your players have to stump up their own starting stack to pay for these properties and buildings.
As the game progresses, it costs you roughly $41 per player roll (based on averages of players drawing Chance and Community chest cards and passing Go). It would take more than 270 player rolls before you start losing out, and this is where it gets to the limits of my estimates, because I didn't take into account the street repairs and property repairs cards in the above estimate. These would be more valuable to the banker towards the latter parts of the game as the board is more developed.
My estimates are quite rough, but I just wanted to get a general idea of where the odds lie.
Turns our that it's a bit like real life: I think I'd rather own bank shares than property :)
I just realised I didn't take into account the tax squares either, which would reduce the per player roll cost to the banker. Rough estimates for these brings the cost per roll back to around $33.50 and pushes breakeven point for the banker out to 333 rolls (still not accounting for the repair costs players incur).
Get out of jail costs are hard to estimate because you can roll your way out or use a card. At $50 a pop, I think it is small enough to ignore in my estimates.
Despite know that the odds are against me, I am kind of still keen to join.
I'm not precious about the role of banker. Its yours if you want it.
Frees me up to be a player :)
That's fantastic brendio. I never even thought of crunching the numbers like that.
I guess what scares me a little about being the banker is that almost all transactions are decided by others. If half of the six players just want to lap the board without buying then leave when it starts becoming expensive, I could well pay out more for passing go than what I get for properties.
It's risky because I can't choose. I can't choose to leave and I can't choose not to pay for passing go, or making bank errors in their favour.
I'm thinking of taking the stakes down a factor. $10 = 1 steem instead of $1 = 1 steem.
Means 150 minimum to play instead of 1500, which is probably a bit too rich, at least for the first try.
The SBD from the chessmatch is almost finished its 3.5 days conversion to steem, so I'll pay out for that then revisit monopoly.
I'd be in for those stakes.
Collusion is very difficult to avoid, but I'm willing to take the chance/risk, for the sake of the experiment.
I'm well in front after our chessmatch, so even if we don't see many upvotes and I lose some or all of that, at least I've done something cool and helped to grow the platform :)
If C, D and E all believe A and B are colluding, there's nothing stopping them from doing the same. A bit like Survivor, its all part of the game.