In this variation of Monopoly, whenever anyone lands on an unowned property, a secret ballot is held and all players bid on it. Whoever bids highest must buy the property for that amount of money.

In the case of a tie for highest bid, if the tie involves the person who landed on the property, then that player must buy the property. If the tie is between two other players, then the lander directs which one of them must buy it.

That's it. That's the only difference; once all the properties are bought then it's a regular game of Monopoly thereafter.

It would be interesting to see what the real values are that people would be willing to pay for each property, especially as the game evolves and players come closer to completing full sets.
-- phundug, Oct 06 2008

Auctions http://en.wikipedia...on#Types_of_auction
Interesting bit on different types of auction. [zen_tom, Oct 06 2008]

How do you keep one of the fundamentals of monopoly strategy: one side being much more expensive than the other?
-- Voice, Oct 06 2008


i think this would be governed by rents, i am assuming that rents are not changed?

the thing is, if rents stay the same, then there would only be different offering prices during the first round, while buying off the bank. After that (and I think as the idea suggests) it reverts to normal.

why not let people negotiate their rents as well? kind of like a new, free market monopoly, rather than the current, centralised one?
-- williamsmatt, Oct 06 2008


I love this (+). I always considered the flaw in the game the fact that random die rolls in the beginning decide the whole game. I wish I'd thought of this years ago, when I still played.
-- MisterQED, Oct 06 2008


Excellent idea. Sealed bids would probably work best, but the traditional kind of 'open' auction might work too.
-- hippo, Oct 06 2008


My brothers and I used to play a variant of this because the initial values are rather expensive for the more miserly monopolistas. Upon landing, the rules state that if a person doesn't wish to purchase un unowned property - it goes up for auction (I don't think the rules specify what type of auction) for all the players to bid on (including the initial lander) - allowing for rather interesting discounts to be had - landing on Park Lane when all your competitors have tiny bank balances can mean snapping it up for a fraction of the ticket price.

Having the auction run blindly does add a little more flavour - what other types of auction are there by the way? It might be interesting to build a game based around various auctioning techniques.
-- zen_tom, Oct 06 2008


Monopol-Ebay?
-- normzone, Oct 06 2008


[williamsmatt] - Yes, the rents, price to build houses, cost of landing on the property when it has houses, all remain the same, and will certainly affect the perceived value of the properties.

But no longer will the beginning of the game be a contest to see who luckily lands on the most properties; skillful bidding will take priority. (There will still be the luck of drawing money cards, Advance to Go, etc.)
-- phundug, Oct 06 2008


"Monopol-Ebay" would be when you're halfway through buying something at auction at a vastly inflated price and which will turn out to be not quite what was advertised when someone steals your auction account and starts five separate auctions for "Mayfiar!!! BARGAIN!!!"
-- hippo, Oct 06 2008


Here's a nugget of practical psychology that's well worth trying out if you're playing Monopoly where you're allowed to freely make deals with other players: invite the other players to bid for your most attractive property - but the twist is that as well as the highest-bidder paying you for the property as per usual, the person who made the *second-highest* bid also has to pay you that amount.

As long as you can get at least one or two bids to start things off, the price is likely to shoot up well above the fair value, with whoever has just been outbid having every motivation to bid again, rather than fork out his/her cash for nothing. (In a psychology experiment where people were invited to bid in this way for a dollar bill, the average closing bid was $3.40!)
-- imaginality, Oct 07 2008



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