Ever since I overcame my detestment of the complexity of the rules of Monopoly at the tender age of 6 I have been most affectionate of the beloved classic. I was first introduced to the game when my grandmother got me the 50th Anniversary Edition for Christmas in 1986 I believe. I hated the game at first and complained how I didn't understand. But once I did, I was in love. All growing up I would always nag family members and friends to play with me and even resorted to playing by myself when none would humor me, making up my own rules to make it more fun solo.

Well, I don't nag people to play anymore the way I used to but I recently rediscovered my love for the game after not playing for perhaps over a year (gasp!) which inspired me to research monopoly strategies and see if there were other people who are interested in changing things around in Monopoly to up improve it or to make it more interesting. There are plenty of pages on statistics and strategies for playing Monopoly but few really interested in trying to make the game more balanced or change the rules to enable those winning the chance to truly dominate before their opponents have all been bankrupted (for example).

I have always tried to come up with better rent scenarios for the properties. My latest idea is to have the weakest monopolies where the Oranges and Reds are since they get landed on the most and the stronger Monopolies on either side of GO which get landed on less. But this sort of alteration has always proved a bit too daunting a task for me. Monopoly really is very well balanced and it's very hard to improve upon it. But there are things that nag me. The Oranges being significantly better than the same priced purples for example or the reds with only a slight increase in rents over the oranges but a 50% increase in housing purchase price. But there is still something that feels like it could be better. Maybe it's that there is too much luck? A boardgame aficionado once said Monopoly was only an averagely good board game and that there are many superior ones, because Monopoly has too much of an element of luck. And of course everyone knows it is a game largely about luck. What fun is it when someone dominates the railroads early on or luckily snags all three colors of a group before half the properties have been purchased? Is there a way to reduce the amount of luck in Monopoly? This element of luck is what makes it exciting and fun, but what if we could just reduce it a little?

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