Monopoly

chickendude · Post by **chickendude** » Wed 12 Jul, 2006 12:34 pm

@liazon
Yes, and yes. I'm going to look around for various monopoly strategies and try to incorporate them into my AI routines.

@tr1p1ea
That's what I had originally planned to do, but each one of those styles has major drawbacks. The types that go for everything typically aren't able to get a monopoly, because they're so spread out and run out of money quickly. The types that are shy save up their money, but don't get on the board soon enough and are left with very little. The types that focus on houses/hotels are usually dedicated to one or two colors, and therefore must rely on players landing on just a few properties. I need to develop an AI that analyzes based on the current situation and not play based on prepared isntructions.

Also, what about the rules of monopoly? I mean, I can read up on the official rules, but certainly there are other "unofficial" rules that you all play by (everyone has different views on what happens when you land on the free parking space, for example)?

I'd like to start making a compilation of all the unofficial rules you play by that I could add to the game to make it more like the game you play at home. (Agh, I'd like to start a new thread for this!) But if you've got any suggestions, here's the place!

Post by **benryves** » Wed 12 Jul, 2006 12:40 pm

Which board layout(s) do you intend to use? The US one only? The London edition is pretty common to the Commonwealth.

I believe the orange area is the one most people land on, probably due to the proximity to the gaol.

chickendude · Post by **chickendude** » Wed 12 Jul, 2006 12:40 pm

These are the rules I will be going by:
http://richard_wilding.tripod.com/monorules.htm

But I'd also like you to be able to customize it. So I'm interested to see the variations you play by. If you want, I can credit you either in the game or in a readme for your contributions.

Post by **benryves** » Wed 12 Jul, 2006 12:44 pm

One common house rule is free parking; all taxes and fines go onto the space, and whoever lands on it gets the money.

The best bet would be to make this sort of rule an option.

chickendude · Post by **chickendude** » Wed 12 Jul, 2006 12:45 pm

@benryves
I didn't know there were two versions! I can release two separate files, one for the US and one for the UK. It looks like everything is the same except for the properties are retitled, so all it is is redrawing a couple of the tiles and recompiling.

What do you think of that? Just two separate files, one for the US/Canada and one for everywhere else?

Post by **benryves** » Wed 12 Jul, 2006 1:26 pm

There are hundreds of different versions now (see Star Wars Monopoly, and some largish towns have their own edition). The US and UK editions seem to be the most common, but naturally I would say that being English

Sounds like a good plan, though. Shame the TIOS doesn't have a Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â£ or € character, only $

leofox · Post by **leofox** » Wed 12 Jul, 2006 1:27 pm

There are tons of different versions of monopoly. We have a different version here in Holland too, and Belgium has one, France etc. Not to mention all the special types, like Star Wars or Europe monopoly.

Post by **kv83** » Wed 12 Jul, 2006 1:34 pm

Almost every land has it's own version with streets known in that land. Also note that every land has it's own "multiplier value". A street which is in the US version $50 could be 200 euro because of a multplier value of 4. The houserule ben describes is indeed a common known house rule.

Others are:
- You can only build houses if all streets are selled (not only if you have 3 of one color)
- The last streets will be given for free to random players
- Landing exactly on the "Go" field gives you double the money (i thought that was an official rule btw)
- If you are in jail, you will not earn any rents.

As ben said, it would be cool to have those as options

Liazon · Post by **Liazon** » Wed 12 Jul, 2006 1:36 pm

Are there cards that force you to go to a certain property in all versions, including the non US ones?

Perhaps you should have the AI strive to get those if they land on them.

Post by **tr1p1ea** » Wed 12 Jul, 2006 1:37 pm

Although there is an Australian version, the UK version is the one which i have played the most. Though, once you have one version down, you could probably change things to suit other versions (even your own) fairly easily.

chickendude · Post by **chickendude** » Wed 12 Jul, 2006 1:45 pm

Yea. I have the "tilemap" in a separate file. If people want, they can redraw the tiles (so long as the properties are still in the same place) for whatever different places they want.

And as for the Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â£ and ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚Â¬ symbols, the board can use those symbols. I can leave the rest fairly ambiguous, like when you buy a property merely state that "such and such costs 300, are you sure you want to buy it?"
Or place a handrawn sprite there, that could be changed to whatever symbol someone needed if they remade a different version of it.

I'm no good with computer application programming, but maybe someone could make a map editor? Hah I'm getting ahead of myself here.

EDIT: That sounds really confusing. By board, I mean the tilemap. By everything else, I mean the text.

CompWiz · Post by **CompWiz** » Wed 12 Jul, 2006 2:41 pm

chickendude wrote:Yea, I just need to come up with some values to keep track of for each player profile, like which properties they buy most often. And I'm sure the analysis would take hardly any time at all, maybe a split second. I could probably just run that right before the computer's turn.

What exactly do you have in mind for this "background analysis"? What will the program analyze?

I was thinking it could be doing the neural network thing with the AI that tries to imitate the player. It would be continually trying out various AI's against the one that imitates the player while waiting for input. Playing a second game of Monopoly in the background, with no graphics, naturally. If if finds that an AI with different behavioral numbers can beat the AI imitating the player more often than the one that it is currently using for the real games, it would switch to the better AI, either in-game, or for the next game. The calculator would be continually learning as you played it more and it had more information to model your playing style with, and more time to try out different AI's against it.

chickendude · Post by **chickendude** » Wed 12 Jul, 2006 3:00 pm

That might be a little too advanced for me, but I will try to implement a "smart" AI. I'll try to record some of the player's stats and base the AI's decisions off of that. Like, if there is a certain section of the board a player continually gravitates towards, the AI will pick up and try to buy a property there that it can auction off back to the player for a highly inflated price.

Maybe if you, myself, and a few other people got together on aim or something and discussed it we could implement something like what you're talking about. I think that would be incredible to have on a calculator game, and if I could possibly do it I'd like to! I'm just not sure that I'm intelligent enough, haha.

chickendude · Post by **chickendude** » Wed 12 Jul, 2006 4:30 pm

"Always buy an unowned property if...

No other player owns a property in its color group.
It gives you a second or third property of its group.
It blocks an opponent from controlling a color group.
It is an orange property (always block this group if you can).
There are, of course, some exceptions. Don't feel you must block a group if two other players each have a property of the group and also have more valuable groups split between them.

Example: Players A and B own all the Reds and Oranges between them. They each own a Light Purple. You land on the unowned Light Purple. You do not need to buy it.

Counter-Example: Players A and B own all the Oranges and Light Purples between them. They each own a Red. You land on the unowned Red. You should buy it. Otherwise you increase the chances these players will trade and develop the most powerful color group among the three groups - the Reds.)"

That's definitely something to base my AI on. I'll keep looking.

Oh, and more suggestions for house rules! (thanks kv!)

the_unknown_one · Post by **the_unknown_one** » Wed 12 Jul, 2006 4:32 pm

I still remember you chickendude. Good times. Nice project