This is awesome. I recently joined the Monopoly club at my school and I love it. Been looking up statistics and strategy and whatnot. If you dig deep there's a lot to it.

Underneath it all though, if you have bad luck, you really can't win.

Respect? Where?

Well, that applies for any game- you can be as talented as Ghostmaster or Polar Bear, but if you draw Italy or al yor neighbors swarm you from the start, no amount of strategy will save you- it's just bad luck...

And Monopoly has more of a skill level than most of those games anyway...

Ghostmaster... lol
fusion or metagaming?! :D

like djbabak or MadJacob...

Obiwan Italy is just as good as any another country it depends on your skill if you can play it right. I hate Russia ( too many fronts). It's more personnal opinion than luck in Diplomacy

I rather go to a Rise and Decline of the 3rd Reich Tourney

Chess tournaments have and always will be the most competitive and fair tournaments.

He is. of course, referring to the Master of Ghosts! Not to be confused with the fusion of TMG and TGM This is TMOG!

obiwan, it's not just bad luck if all your neighbours decide to gang up on you.

Chirsp of course it diplomacy that causes it.. unless its gunboat which should not be called diplomacy anyway

Fu-sion- HA!!

Gotenks?

What strategy is there in Monopoly, other than to buy or not?

none

Which monopolies to buy, how much to build on them, whether or not the railroads and utilities are worth it?

Idunno, I just know that when I play monopoly, I refuse to buy the red, yellow, or green monopolies, and the orange and light blue are my favorites:]

@vam C'mon man, Dark blue & brown are the way to go!! I have the whole corner. High price stuff plus the slums!!

Make that purple not brown. sorry

I like the orange monopoly. Statistically easier to land on than the other supposedly. Sure worked for me last night, it was the only one I had.

The best places to get are the groups on the 2nd side, putting 3 houses on each of them.

@denis:

I know that Italy can be played well- I in fact like to play it! I'm a naval person, so England and Italy are my choices, and if not those then I opt for Germany... I just seem to fit well with it. Russia's hit-and-hiss but a lot of the latter, not too much experience as France and not good ones at that, and I prefer not to think about Turkey or, particularly, Austria- I like my navies and, if Germany, armies to create a bit of a shield and command them like fleets, which means a tad slower going but a bit of breathing space- can't stand that clastrophobic Austrian atmosphere...

But it is still a bit of luck- again, you can be the best Germany player ever, but if England, France, Austria, Italy, and Russia all decided for some reason from move one you're toast- you are toast. Just happens, a bit of bad luck.

And honestly, a bit of luck is good in a game. Games need luck- after all, life's not all skill- apart from that it takes, to quote a rather famous musical:

"Faith, 'ope- and a little bit of luck!"

(And you can make the argument there's no luck, you "make" your luck... still luck, still if five countries decide to stab at once from the start it's a bit out of your control, eh?)

Ghost - is that a statistical fact that those monopolies with 3 houses give the best return for the investment as well as the greatest likelihood of people landing on them, or do you just like that combination?

They get very fast break even rates:

http://www.amnesta.net/other/monopoly/map_1.gif

But are also pretty good in terms of cost:

http://www.amnesta.net/other/monopoly/map_2.gif

The places around there are best.

Don't go for utilities or anything less than all the railway stations.

I've always preferred the Yellows and Greens: together they control the corner and are the most dangerous of the three street monopolies. In addition they've got Go to Jail in the middle which, while practically insignificant when the streets get expensive, gives a nice psych bonus.

The secret to playing a good monopoly game is the deal with other players. Getting a good bargain, sufficiently crippling the other person, timing it correctly. I like to trade away sets but take all the persons money so they can't build anything. They almost always never recover.

I can pretty consistently win a monopoly game, but thats because I play with people who aren't as good as me. Once you get to a certain level, its like Euchre, if everyone does everything perfectly then it becomes just luck.