Monopoly Secrets

Some users are reporting that their rent earnings are dropping for no apparent reason.

Are the developers changing the rules, unannounced?

Have you noticed a change?

UPDATE: It’s confirmed. Rent values to have dropped across the board for all properties. The change seems to be tied to a change in the upper limit of one of the values that determines building rent.

There’s an interesting discussion brewing of cheating on Monopoly City Streets. If you create multiple accounts, for any reason, should that be considered cheating?

A small number of people have made an art out of creating multiple user accounts. Just take a look at the Global Leader Boards. They must have spent the last few days doing nothing but creating new accounts and transferring the startup money to their main user. (Sounds incredibly boring to me.)

But what about creating another account or two as a back up plan? Or to help out in rough times? Should this still be considered cheating?

I think so. If the game was designed for you to have 2 or more characters, it would have given them to you with one login.

What about alliances? These groups of players are working together and actively sharing resources for a variety of purposes. Some are just trying to help each other out, while others are actively attacking “any bad players.” (Some are just out to steal, kill and destroy. Shame on you.)

I think alliances are great, as long as it’s for noble purposes. They can bring a whole new dimension to the game.

Are you part of an alliance? Which one? How big is it?

Something has to be done about the cheaters in Monopoly City Streets.

After only a couple days of live gameplay, the leader boards are filled with people that have cheated to amass enormous unrealistic fortunes.

Hasbro and the programmers behind this game need to find ways to crack down on these guys, and quick. If they don’t, they risk loosing the ability to have real competition in the game. Not to mention, all the serious players are getting annoyed.

How do you think the cheaters are getting away with this?

The addition of taxes throws a pretty big wrench into every Monopoly City Streets strategy. Here are the details we’ve been given on the official blog:

There is only one certainty in MONOPOLY City Streets. Tax. Just like in real life, tax now plays an integral part of the game. The first 5 streets that you own are tax-free. The current tax rate is 3% per street. For example, if you own 15 streets your tax will be 30% of your total rent collected every day. If you own 25 streets your tax will be 60%, etc.

How does this affect your gameplay?

You Must Make Your First Five Streets Count
With your “first five streets” (presumably the first five streets you buy) tax-free, that means they have to count. Get the biggest, longest, most expensive streets you can, and build as many high-value buildings as possible on them.

For long-term success, this will make the biggest difference for you. I still stand by my previous advice to maximize your return on day 1 and get off to a good start. However, after that, it’s time to build big.

More to come as we learn more details from the MCS staff.

How has taxes changed your strategy? Discussion in the comments below.

The new game is now live!

I’ve only noticed a couple changes so far that weren’t announced in the official blog.

Property prices aren’t as well rounded as used to be (instead of $1 mil they’re $1.039 mil, $1.216 mil, etc.). And more properties are all the way up in the $2 million range and beyond.

What changes do you see?

Turns out there are several directories that will give you sneak previews of the pending re-release. Nothing too exciting, but worth a look for those who can’t handle the wait.

http://assets.monopolycitystreets.com/img/buildings
http://assets.monopolycitystreets.com/img/facebook
http://assets.monopolycitystreets.com/img
http://assets.monopolycitystreets.com/swf

One of the directories is called “Facebook”… Is there a Facebook app in our future?

Not much else that is noteworthy except for the leak already posted here.

Thanks for the lead Edward!

This just in!

A leaked new chance card reveals that players will be able to go to jail in the new version of the game:

See it for yourself here:
http://assets.monopolycitystreets.com/swf/chance.1245868747.swf

That’s an interesting twist. This could have a significant effect on gameplay if players are taken out of the game for any amount of time. No news yet on how long you would stay in jail or how you could get out.

What do you think the Monopoly City Streets jail might look like?

As soon as the game is restarted, millions of players will be rushing to get off to a solid start.

What will the experts be focused on? What’s the best thing to do right from the start? Here are some tips for the first day:

1. Purchase the longest $1 million property you can find. The more expensive the property, the more rent income you will earn for the property and each building you build (and $1 million is probably the most expensive one you’ll find). The longer the property, the more buildings you can fit on it.
2. Build as many 100% return buildings as possible on your first property. The Green  House and City Centre Cottage both pay rent equal to their price tag on $1 million properties. Build as many of them as you can to maximize your first day’s rent.
3. Build every Bonus building you can on your property. The plus side of building many small buildings is that you have a greater chance of receiving chance cards. (This can also be risky if those chance cards aren’t in your favor.) Ideally, you want at least 2 Bonus buildings protecting each of your streets.
4. Discard every Hazard chance card that comes up. Why make enemies when you don’t have to? It’s best to take the safe route in the beginning until you have built your mini empire.

What would your tips be for the first day?

Last week, Monopoly City Street launched with a bit more publicity than expected.

More than 1.7 million players crowded in, completely overwhelming servers and brining the first day of gameplay to slower than a crawl.

Fortunately, the game creators made the right call and announced that everything will be reset tomorrow, Thursday September 17, at 15:00 GMT. For those of you who don’t live in Greenwich, that’s:

• 11am Eastern
• 10am Central
• 9am Mountain
• 8am Pacific
• 5pm Central European Time
• 1am Australian Eastern Time (Friday, September 18)

So what happens to all that hard work you’ve put in so far, buying property, building buildings, and putting as many hazards on your enemy’s properties? It’s gone. All gone.

Fortunately, we all got some practice before the real launch that will take us to the game’s end in January.

So what are the best strategies? Stick around and see. It’s all coming to this blog and to this blog only.

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Update: The times mentioned above are for when the take will be taken offline to prepare for the restart. No official word on the exact time of the restart, but it will be somewhere within 12-24 hours…