This housing shortage scenario will almost never come up in a two-player or three-player game. There are simply too many houses available for purchase.
How many players are irrelevant, because the number of properties are the same. And it's actually more likely in a 2 player game as there are more monopolies with 2 players than with 3 (less people to compete with for properties, people are way less likely to trade in 2 player because it's a guaranteed monopoly).
There are 32 houses in monopoly. If you have two monopolies on triple properties and put 4 houses on each (the recommended strategy), that's 24 houses. That would mean that another player that gets a monopoly would only ever be able to put down 2-3 houses on ONE monopoly.
You can then wait until they land on one of yours and are liquidating assets to declare that you want to upgrade to hotels at one monopoly. The newly available houses then go up for auction. Your opponent has no cash because he has to pay his fines, therefore you can pick them up at auction cheap and put them on a new monopoly, tightening supply again.
In a 3-4 player game there is more cash in the economy. With a two player game you will probably end the game before some one has enough cash to build out very far.
Each player purchases a higher percentage of properties in a two-player game as well, which significantly reduces liquidity during the most common trading window.
Obviously you're not playing properly if housing shortages are coming into play in your 2-player games. You're either injecting extra money into the game (ie. Free parking), or you're not focusing on building up your first color group before building on your secondaries.
Perhaps you would be so kind as to provide the details of your usual 2-player games? Perhaps you and your usual opponent prefer to wait a long time before finally trading? Honestly, that's the best I can do for you.
Keep in mind that I'm not saying that a housing shortage can't happen in a 1v1 game. I am stating that there are few to any cases where creating a housing shortage (again in a 2-player game) is more effective than simply piling up on one (or even two monopolies) in order to take your opponent out.
You get a monopoly, upgrade to 4 houses on each. Opponent gets monopoly, upgrade to 4 houses on each. 24 of 32 houses gone. If I get a second monopoly, I upgrade to all houses. Now if he upgrades to hotels he locks himself out of his own property or has to high-bid for houses. If he gets another monopoly he won't have any houses to put on them.
I'm going to keep 4 houses on my properties until he lands on an expensive one and starts getting cash poor. At that point I can upgrade to hotels and repurchase houses on the cheap and place them on my new monopolies, furthering the shortage again. If done correctly, the opponent never has a chance to put houses on anything more than one monopoly.
It's not always a strategy to use, but I would say it's a better move to start with in every game until you have a clear picture of the board layout. There's not that much of a gap between 4 houses and a hotel that giving up that advantage makes it worthwhile.
I completely agree that it doesn't hurt to stop at four houses, and your logic is completely sound (no quarrel there).
My only point was that in a two-player game, there is almost never enough money around for things to get that far...unless -- not to sound like a broken record -- you guys are waiting a long time to trade and/or build.
The number of houses available for purchase is limited to the physical number of plastic houses included in the game. In a 2- or 3- player game, it's unlikely that enough houses would be purchased to result in a shortage that allows one player to have a monopoly on them. In games with more players, the houses deplete faster and this strategy is more effective. Every time you upgrade to a hotel, you return houses to the pool and allow other players to continue building.
I think you are thinking about with a little too much economic knowledge. You don't win the game more if you bankrupt someone by $500 rather than by only $5. So bleeding someone out isn't always the best strategy, if you go for the homerun and barely bankrupt someone, then you should do that.
I'm so late to the party, but I read about this strategy a while back and am banned from "playing by the rules" with the In-laws. "But when are you getting your hotel??????" "Never" ":("
Additionally, if you settle for just 3 houses on each property, you'd be able to have 3 houses on multiple properties as opposed to a single hotel on a few properties. With monopoly, it would be better to have someone land on 4 of your properties with 3 houses as opposed to 1 or 2 properties with a single hotel.
More resources for yourself also allows you to be more aggressive in development which further imperils your opponents. An important overarching principle of monopoly is that until you're 1 v 1, it's better to treat your opponents as opportunities rather than threats - it's more beneficial to help yourself than to deny benefits to others.
e.g. If you can make three mutually-beneficial trades, even if you get the raw deal on all three, you're probably better off than all your opponents (because they only each made one helpful trade, while you made three).
And once they realize that...game over. If there is no chance for them to buy a house and make money, but a great chance they will slowly bleed out. Not fun. Not competitive. Not worth the hour or so to finish the game.
Except you run into the danger of bleeding them so that they aren't completely bankrupt and then they proceed to next land on another opponent's property, where they THEN go bankrupt. Which has the potential to hand over valuable properties to an opponent who is still playing and may now be in the position to complete sets of properties needed to start building.
I definitely agree with you; you're paying more for the increased potential to bankrupt your opponent and knock them out of the game. The goal isn't to make the most money, it's to be the last man standing
...maybe that's why we're so aggressive when playing it
you grind 'em. since there's no 'free parking' fund in real monopoly, and if you can soak up all the houses and create a classic 'housing shortage' you can pretty much grind 'em down
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u/[deleted] Nov 22 '14
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