How to Win at Monopoly on IPod Nano

I typically alter the game rules when playing because I like to spice it up more and add in max houses/hotels to the game. I also like having on $750 when you land on Free Parking and double money when you land on Go. For the most part, these strategies should work with any settings you go with. The only major differences I've noticed when playing different difficulties is the ease on which you can trade with the computer. I've have also seen the computer roll ridiculously lucky passes when playing on hard, but that is only a theory of mine that the computer is avoiding my monopolies on purpose to get ahead. Another note on my strategies is that I always play with 3 opponents, so that these should work even better with less opponents.

Easy Opponents Trading Strategy

For the most part, you probably don't need a strategy when playing easy opponents. For the most part, they will always trade with you if you give them a reasonable deal. You can even pay directly for most properties making it easy to acquire your monopolies. I've found that if they have a single property of a monopoly (and you don't have any) you can pay the asking price for the property. If you or them have one or more, be prepared to add $10, $20, $30 on the regular asking price for the buy. Don't ever trade your properties to easy opponents. My strategy is to buy their properties, even if I have to mortgage my own properties to get them. In this mode, you will have no problem getting the monopolies you want.

Medium and Hard Opponents Trading Strategy

I haven't found too much of a difference when trading with medium and hard opponents, they are about the same but sometimes the hard opponents are more stubborn when it comes to deals. Sometimes they will even resist the biggest of deals. I once offered an opponent all of my money ($15.4 K) for a single property and had them reject me. A sure fire way to trade with medium opponents is to offer them a really good monetary deal (like adding $200 onto the regular value of the property) or at least throw in a property you don't real care about. Hard opponents will also almost always trade if you throw in a property. Also, for trading you can throw in "get out of jail free" cards to up the ante.

Commanding The Board

There is always dumb luck and the opponents will continuously dodge your monopolies. If you can learn to trade with the computers, you can put yourself in position to command the board. This is the single most important rule on winning. My number one strategy is to diversify my properties and try and get one piece of every monopoly on the board as early in the game as possible. As soon as the computers start getting monopolies you are in trouble. The best strategy is to prevent this from happening. It's even very bad when a monopoly is spread out over several opponents because they will break a deal with each other and form a monopoly before you know it. When I'm playing, I try to use the railroads and utilities as my trade-off properties since they can never bring a high revenue even if you have them all.

Pick A Spot And Make It Deadly

When I first start trying to build my monopolies after I diversify the board. I pick a side of the board and work for it. If you own one side (or multiple sides) of the board you can make a near unavoidable pay-out each time the players go around. I personally like the second side of the board (St. Charles through New York) since the houses are cheaper to buy and it immediately follows jail. Players exiting jail will immediately be subject to your monopolies which is good for knocking off lower players who missed Go when going to jail. Then high end of the board is good but costs a great deal to get early in the game. Boardwalk/Parkplace is great if you can get it with hotels but you also have to keep in mind that it is only two properties which means it's easy for opponents to avoid. Go with the medium properties first and work your way up.

Recovering From Loss

If some properties managed to slip through and the opponents have the upper hand, you have to find a way to make them pay out and keep them from getting too big. Once they get too big, you are done for. If you have a monopoly with no houses and bunch of random properties. I mortgage all my random properties to build up the monopoly. After the monopoly starts paying out, you can un-mortgage the other properties and at the same time keep your opponents from growing bigger. I have completely turned a game around by doing this strategy. I hit an opponents Parkplace $1500 four times in a row and still came back to win by following this strategy.

Strike While The Iron Is Hot

If you are having a bad run and your opponents have some big monopolies and you are low on funds, save your money till you by-pass their heavy properties. After by-passing their properties, make sure you build up your properties before the opponents pass over them. I learned this trick from watching the computer and it works really well. This saves you from losing income from having to buy and then immediately sell your houses when you hit a rough patch. If you buy and then resell properties you loss money in the exchange.

Last Resort Strategy

So when you hit dire straights and you think you are totally done for, you actually maybe able to save yourself. If you don't have enough money to pay say $2000 when landing on boardwalk, you might be able to save face by selling properties to opponents. Single properties won't net you much, but if you try to complete an opponents monopoly or sell off one of your monopolies they will pay top dollar. Remember though, if you sell off too much stuff you won't have enough property to recover and win. Try to just sell enough to make it out of bankruptcy.

A Quick Summary

So with all those strategies, you should be able to win most of the time unless your opponents have some crazy luck avoiding your properties. The main ideas of the strategy is diversify properties, never give up properties unless your are going bankrupt, and pick a spot and invest in it. Good luck!