They don't say what the strategy is in the comments (duh) but I seem to remember a similar study from years ago saying the optimal strategy was to always buy if you can.
Meta, but one rule I was surprised to learn: if someone doesn't buy a property when they land on it, it is immediately auctioned off by the bank.
Many people play without the auction rule (hence, they don't even know it exists).
> I seem to remember a similar study from years ago saying the optimal strategy was to always buy if you can.
The optimal rule is a little different: don't sit on cash until a housing crisis.
Just like in a real-life business, sitting on cash that could be working for you is a bad idea.
Another interesting strategy was to not upgrade to hotels in order to create a housing crisis by using up all the houses
i recall always playing with a house rule where you can pay some large amount to immediately build hotels, but cant recall if this made the game more or less "problematic".
Monopoly Junior works like this already - you MUST buy a property you land on, if you can't buy it for any reason the game ends.
It really works when playing with kids, but I noticed that the consequence of it in most games is that the player who goes first usually wins.
> the player who goes first usually wins
That is the point the game is meant to teach. Literally.
The original game developed by Lizzie Magie is a didactical game to illustrate the problems of monopolies accumulating ever more wealth.
It is crazy that we seemingly forgot the message and keep playing this game. Even on a purely “is this fun” level there are so much better games.
I got that message loud and clear when playing this the first time.