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Comment by d_burfoot | Hacker News Reader

• When playing Monopoly, spend all you have to buy, barter, or trade for the Orange properties. Don’t bother with Utilities.

Here's some better advice: don't play Monopoly! There are many, many new board games in the world that are incomparably better. One of the most grievous flaws of Monopoly is that it depends on the terrible mechanic of player elimination - the winner is the last player who hasn't been eliminated. That means if you have a game night with four people, then two people have to sit around bored, after they've been eliminated, while the remaining players fight it out.

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Monopoly is not that bad.

If you play by the rules, with experienced players, a whole game takes about an hour to complete. And when players starts getting eliminated, the end is close. The most common house rules usually drag the game down and are probably the source of a lot of hatred for this game.

So if you play Monopoly, do yourself a favor and read the damn rules. In my booklet, there is even a quick variant that is suggested: the main difference is that you start with some property and the winner is the wealthiest player when one player is bankrupt.

And yes, there are better games, every board game geek knows that, but sometimes it is the only one available.

Also, Orange properties may be the best, but you usually don't have much of a choice. What you really want is a monopoly, any monopoly, as soon as possible, and build aggressively.

> but sometimes it is the only one available

I vaguely suspect that there are better games you can play with 2 dice, which come included in the Monopoly box. Pig is simple enough that a child can understand it, but also has a reasonable sense of tension built in as long as no one in the group has run the numbers on what perfect play is.

And if you can find a deck of cards or even just 3 more dice, options open up even further. Or if you've got an even number of people and one of them has a phone, there are multiple websites online that will generate charades or pictionary challenges for you.

I just don't think Monopoly has that much to recommend it compared to almost anything else, even when the game is at its best. And especially if I'm in a group setting, given the choice between fighting about the 'proper' way to play Monopoly or just playing a game that's at least nominally fun regardless of anyone's experience level... some things just aren't worth the effort.

> And when players starts getting eliminated, the end is close.

Yes, but you know well in advance of being eliminated whether you can win or not. The process of getting eliminated is pretty long as a percentage of game time.

Monopoly is literally the antithesis of what makes board games fun. I vaguely recall a hilarious and accurate essay on this topic, comparing Monopoly to Settlers of Catan and highlighting the degree to which they are nearly perfect polar opposites.

If I’m following your logic, in that Monopoly is the opposite of fun, and Catan is the opposite of Monopoly, then you’re saying Catan is the definition of fun.

Catan is definitely fun, compared to Monopoly, but there are many games I’d much rather play than Catan (coming from someone that had to talk his wife into playing it a few days ago after about 5+ years of not playing it, due to the previous — and only — time we played it taking 3 hours over two days). I’ve played it with others, and on Switch, though.

My biggest gripe about Catan is it’s heavy reliance on luck.

Of course, that’s my subjective opinion.

Some of my recent favorites (in no particular order) that all rely quite a bit less on luck:

- Terraforming Mars

- Brass Birmingham

- Hansa Teutonica

- Kanban EV

- Pax Pamir

- Castles of Burgundy

- Scythe

- On Mars

Sorry, just geeking out a bit, since the subject came up.

Those are all great games and great suggestions, but they are also very heavy and and long games. Even with skilled players, you won't be able to complete a session of Terraforming Mars in less than two hours.

While Catan is not a perfect game, it's a perfect beginners game: a bit of luck, but a bit of strategy, lots of player interaction, and not too long. At the same time, it also shows its age, in that there are newer games that are beginner friendly and eliminate some of Catan's shortcomings.

Your main point, however, is still often forgotten: the oars games have come a long way since 1935 and even 1997.

If anyone wants to learn more about this, there are excellent and very friendly communities at boardgamegeek.com and reddit.com/r/boardgames

Yeah, these can definitely be a bit longer. Catan can also take a bit, though, particularly if you’re unlucky or playing with people that don’t trade (which can be frustrating).

For more beginner friendly + shorter games, though, I’d still recommend several over Catan:

- Carcassonne - Ticket to Ride - Splendor - 7 Wonders - Pandemic - Codenames - Azul

Those are all excellent beginner friendly recommendations. In general, the Spiel des Jahres are quite good suggestions, offering enough depth for long-term play, yet being easy enough to learn.

Those are good games too, but Codenames (one of my all-time faves) is radically simpler, quieter and less social than Catan; IME it's great fun for the spymasters but can be less engaging for other players at times. (shrug)

Monopoly is the Waterfall Model or the Liars Poker of the board game world. It was meant in a spirit of sarcasm/derision and people took it seriously.

Monopoly with six is even worse this way, because you can have the situation of one person sitting around with nothing to do happen multiple times. If everyone plays, the first loser sits around. #2 tries to start something new with #1, and then #3 or #4 finds themselves having missed out on whatever the other people started.

If not everybody plays, then #2 may get everyone else to start something long. Now #4 and #5 are stuck playing something again with the winner, after that person has already monopolized their time for the entire evening.

Because face it, the player who wins or comes in second usually is the same motherfucker to suggest Monopoly in the first place.

I think I read recently that Monopoly was (derived from) a board game that was designed to make a political/economic statement about Georgism and not to be fun.

True.

https://landlordsgame.info/

Suggestion for a fun group based game where no-one is left out for the entirety of the rounds: Avalon.

My friends and I have had so much fun playing this, especially with all of the tiny game modifiers you can introduce to spice it up when things get too easy.

I don't care for Monopoly because there is little room for strategy. It's the roll of the dice, and in fact, the original point of the game was to illustrate that wealth is a roll of the dice.

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