Monopoly City Streets

[NewIdentity]

Yeah, I am scratching my head wondering what happened the first day.

The guy in first place has $2,210,803,000 and owns 777 streets?

[QuikSand]

I pulled a bulldozer card, and am waiting...anyone hit with a hazard?

[QuikSand]

...guess you can't do that, only on your own roads, it seems.

[Galaxy]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

Given the reset just a day or two ago, I don't understand how some people have monstrous empires already. Either they are IP spoofers and cheating, or else they are insiders getting an unfair advantage. To the extent this is a contest (which it doesn't really feel like) that really makes it feel pretty empty.

I was wondering the same thing.

[Ben E Lou]

The reset was not a full reset. There was definitely leftover data from the game's last state before the reset. Some streets kept their last value before the reset, for example. I had built up the Columbus-Manchester Expressway in Columbus, GA from $1M to being a $16M road. And sure enough, it costs over $16M to buy in the "reset" version of the game. If some streets retained data from before the reset, it's not hard to believe that some players retained data from before the reset.

(And of course it's fully possible that it could be simply cheating or untoward "help"...)

[Ben E Lou]

Dola:

But to be clear, this didn't happen to every street. It looks to me like 3 of my 8 streets from my pre-reset gaming kept something close to their final values, while the other 5 appear to have reverted to their original purchase prices. *shurg*

[GoldenEagle]

I bought a smaller street, not thinking, and plopped some houses down so the ROI will not be as good.

But I got two chance cards where I got an extra 1mil to build with.

[QuikSand]

So now my main income-earning street is surrounded by owned streets, including at least one of these megabucks owners who already has a gazillion points and monstrous earning potential. Not sure what i can do if one of these JFs decide to attack me (I haven't had the good fortune to get one of the protection buildings yet, so all my income producing property is totally unguarded).

I'm intrigued by the game overall, but not sure what to think about this "head start" business in what seems to have the potential to devolve into combat.

[GoldenEagle]

Is it possible to sell streets? I could see some douche creating multiple accounts and selling himself all of streets on the cheap.

[NewIdentity]

Originally Posted by NewIdentity

Yeah, I am scratching my head wondering what happened the first day.

The guy in first place has $2,210,803,000 and owns 777 streets?

I still don't understand how the player with 777 streets made money last turn? Shouldn't the tax rate have killed him with that many streets.

I know he cheated to get the $2 Billion in net worth, but how did he show a profit with 777 streets?

Tax
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 777 streets work into this equation? It does not say anything about a maximum rate so shouldn;t this player have actually lost money and ended up with a Negative number in his account?

[QuikSand]

Do we think this game is being botted? There are some nonsensical "players" around me geographically - making me wonder if maybe that's what's going on.

[JonInMiddleGA]

If anyone gets a hazard card they don't have a use for, feel free to stick it to "DesertSnake" who dropped one on me rather randomly.

[Galaxy]

Did they hire EA Sports to develop and manage this?

[Galaxy]

What time is does the game advance?

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

The reset was not a full reset. There was definitely leftover data from the game's last state before the reset. Some streets kept their last value before the reset, for example. I had built up the Columbus-Manchester Expressway in Columbus, GA from $1M to being a $16M road. And sure enough, it costs over $16M to buy in the "reset" version of the game. If some streets retained data from before the reset, it's not hard to believe that some players retained data from before the reset.

(And of course it's fully possible that it could be simply cheating or untoward "help"...)

So...has anyone else seen this at work, or is it just me?

[QuikSand]

Ben, I don't really understand what you're suggesting (I didn't play pre-reset). Do you think the now $16m road was still furnished with all the buildings that had been on it, when someone purchased it?

I'm pretty baffled by the massive discrepancies in the game post-reset. Not sure why, it's not like any of this really has much effect on me, I don't think. I don't expect any of these kajillionaire fucksnorts might give a rat's ass about me and my interest in snapping up scattered modest roadways that have some empty connection to my own life and travels. But it still pisses me off that I've done nearly everything I could to rack up 6 million points, and some other JFS has something like $2 billion already. Meh.

[Young Drachma]

Sounds like guys aren't having nearly the fun with this the 2nd time around. I haven't even re-registered, but I found it kinda annoying the first time too...until I managed to get a few streets I wanted and then that was all I did and I dunno.

Seems a bit intense.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

The reset was not a full reset. There was definitely leftover data from the game's last state before the reset. Some streets kept their last value before the reset, for example. I had built up the Columbus-Manchester Expressway in Columbus, GA from $1M to being a $16M road. And sure enough, it costs over $16M to buy in the "reset" version of the game. If some streets retained data from before the reset, it's not hard to believe that some players retained data from before the reset.

(And of course it's fully possible that it could be simply cheating or untoward "help"...)

That makes sense. I guess not surprising, but disappointing.

[JonInMiddleGA]

The taxation for anything over 5 streets largely killed any hardcore interest for me, there had to be a better way to handle that. Combined with the bizarro high scores situation, this looks like it took a big step backwards with the restart.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

Ben, I don't really understand what you're suggesting (I didn't play pre-reset). Do you think the now $16m road was still furnished with all the buildings that had been on it, when someone purchased it?

No. No one had purchased it. It was sitting there costing either very nearly or (probably) exactly what it would have cost to purchase it from me when I had a bunch of buildings on it.

I'm using the past tense in the above paragraph because I just checked it again, and as of now the Columbus-Manchester Expressway is down to $7,029,000 to purchase, still unbought. Very weird stuff. I wonder if it will continue to go down in cost.

[JonInMiddleGA]

The game is pretty much toast after looking at the blog. The devs have issued a mild warning about cheating but let's face it, when a player has over $2 billion dollars after a couple of days, they couldn't find their asses with both hands, a bloodhound, and several fancy maps. I'm starting to think they should have called this Maxmium Mnooplyp.

Awfully nice idea, horrendous implementation.

[Galaxy]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

The taxation for anything over 5 streets largely killed any hardcore interest for me, there had to be a better way to handle that. Combined with the bizarro high scores situation, this looks like it took a big step backwards with the restart.

I agree, but I'll still play it. How you do a tax system?

One the problems is you could just buy any street and load it up with green houses (no incentive to build up bigger properties).

I wonder how you would fix the cheating.

[Toddzilla]

Seems its pretty simple, using a single competitive account, to

create a dummy account
buy $3M worth of streets
Accept an offer from your competitive account for $1.00
rinse and repeat

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

If anyone gets a hazard card they don't have a use for, feel free to stick it to "DesertSnake" who dropped one on me rather randomly.

I gave him a couple.

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by BillyNYC

Been sabotaged. Feel free to use any unneeded hazards on TOLARN.

Hmmm...the leaderboard is odd. When I logged in, I was only person on local board. Figured "cool...no one will bother me". An hour later, 5 people are on the board (all with enough streets/houses to have definitely played yesterday). I guess maybe it only registers when people log in?

Also, the total value on the leaderboard, even though it says it updates daily, seems to have my value AFTER my day 2 "turns" rather than it reset. All the more reason to do your "turns" late in the game day, not early. Am at top of local leaderboard and likely will be a target the rest of today. Granted, not too many people in Pocatello, Idaho anyway, but already been sabotaged.

Bonuses seem rare. Bought a road and put 41 buildings on it. No bonus.

Looks like TOLARN put up a stadium, which protects the street from hazards. So I demolished it.

[BillyNYC]

Looks like lots of competition in Pocatello, Idaho. As long as I'm near the top of the local leaderboard, people will come for me I guess.

Furyus1 (who is just below me on leaderboard) tore down my park.

Got rent for my non-sabotaged property. Bulldozed my hazard. Still have $3M left. Will take those "turns" closer to the end of the day. If someone sabotages me, I want to have $3M to buy houses to get chance cards to tear it down (or to get revenge).

Looks like defense is important, especially in a smaller marker where local leaderboard is competitive and those below try to tear you down (literally and figuratively). Not buying a 3rd street until I can "fortify" my first 2 with bonuses.

Also, notably the #1 guy on the local board now is shown as having just one very small street and no money. Possible (likely?) he sold to a friend/multi for really cheap.

[Subby]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

If anyone gets a hazard card they don't have a use for, feel free to stick it to "DesertSnake" who dropped one on me rather randomly.

done

[Subby]

Originally Posted by BillyNYC

Furyus1 (who is just below me on leaderboard) tore down my park.

Demolished one of his Photat bldgs.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Thanks to those who hazarded the arsehole who hazarded me earlier.

Question about hazards & bonus buildings though. If there's an existing hazard placed on your street & you subsequently place a bonus building on the same street without bulldozing the hazard, does the bonus bldg wipe out the rent loss? I thought the answer was no but if the info my deeds showed after doing that was correct then answer is actually yes.

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Thanks to those who hazarded the arsehole who hazarded me earlier.

Question about hazards & bonus buildings though. If there's an existing hazard placed on your street & you subsequently place a bonus building on the same street without bulldozing the hazard, does the bonus bldg wipe out the rent loss? I thought the answer was no but if the info my deeds showed after doing that was correct then answer is actually yes.

I think the answer is yes also -- TOLARN built a stadium after the hazards, and the two hazards were still there, and the street was collecting rent. Then when I demolished his stadium, it stopped collecting rent again.

[Ben E Lou]

I'm not getting how even multi accounts can bring in that much money. There is a minimum that you can purchase a street from someone else for, and it appears to be right around the value of the street, plus the buildings. It seems like you'd have to create several hundred accounts to get the kind of money these guys are seeing, unless I'm really missing something.

[NewIdentity]

Looks like they fixed the cheating. After 2 days the guy in 1st place has 15 Billion followed closely by the guy in second at $14 Billion.


There is no value in real life streets? Yesterday, I followed the advice here and picked up a long county road in the middle of nowhere, and now it is my best property. Before I was buying what I thought was valueable property, Downtown or near a private country club.

I think if I just continue to buy these county roads in the middle of nowhere it should limit my chances for sabotage. But, how fun is this knowing that no matter what I do I will never get on the leader board.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

No. No one had purchased it. It was sitting there costing either very nearly or (probably) exactly what it would have cost to purchase it from me when I had a bunch of buildings on it.

I'm using the past tense in the above paragraph because I just checked it again, and as of now the Columbus-Manchester Expressway is down to $7,029,000 to purchase, still unbought. Very weird stuff. I wonder if it will continue to go down in cost.

...and this morning, the Expressway is still unpurchased, but back up to $16.438M to buy.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

I'm not getting how even multi accounts can bring in that much money. There is a minimum that you can purchase a street from someone else for, and it appears to be right around the value of the street, plus the buildings. It seems like you'd have to create several hundred accounts to get the kind of money these guys are seeing, unless I'm really missing something.

The blog had an example someone found of what was pretty obviously a bot (Name01, Name02, up to some silly number I forget) creating accounts, buying streets, even placing hazards. Get several of those working, then one more to handle the trades & it seems like you could almost hands-free manage an absurd number of accounts.

[NewIdentity]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

...and this morning, the Expressway is still unpurchased, but back up to $16.438M to buy.

Hmm..,. So, if you would have bought that property yesterday for $7mil yesterday, could you have sold it today for $16mil?

[GoldenEagle]

LOW B HOI put a factory on one of my streets, if anyone wants to make him pay.

[GoldenEagle]

Does anyone know how I use demolish card on one of my own properties? Can't seem to figure it out.

[PineTar]

Just dropped a sewage plant on one of LOW B HOI's streets.

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Awfully nice idea, horrendous implementation.

From the looks of it, I agree with both statements.

Is there a way to develop a web-based game (of this nature) that is secure (using whatever definition you want)?

[Coffee Warlord]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

From the looks of it, I agree with both statements.

Is there a way to develop a web-based game (of this nature) that is secure (using whatever definition you want)?

Like anything computer related, there's no such thing as completely secure. You can make it Really Hard to cheat/hack/whatever (which it looks like these guys didn't even cover the basics), but that's about it.

[Denial Of Freedom]

The rent on high dollar streets is insane. I just bought an $11M road and a $75K house gets me $820K in rent.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Denial Of Freedom

The rent on high dollar streets is insane. I just bought an $11M road and a $75K house gets me $820K in rent.

Yeah...the one thing I can say for the new tax set-up is that it does encourage building more expensive structures. Otherwise, I'd still be building nothing but $50K houses and collecting a 7:1 ratio of rent. Five roads is too few, but at least it does create an incentive to build something larger.

[QuikSand]

Back to more banal stuff...I have not been reading any strategy blogs, etc, but I may have stumbled upon a nice profit-maximizing approach. If you place two of the second-smallest units at the closest possible interval, you can then go back and squeeze in a green house in between them. I think that pushes more rent into the space than you'd get from just green houses. Not sure if the spreadsheet Subby posted had taken this into account. For lower-tier players just getting rolling, this seems better then just placing all green houses (I guess the Chance card is the drawback, though I personally still haven't seen a Chance card offering me a special building).

[Subby]

Originally Posted by PineTar

Just dropped a sewage plant on one of LOW B HOI's streets.

Ditto

[Coffee Warlord]

Soulcry just demolished one of my bonus buildings. Make him pay if you wish.

[GoldenEagle]

Originally Posted by GoldenEagle

Does anyone know how I use demolish card on one of my own properties? Can't seem to figure it out.

I still can't figure this out. I want to get rid of the hazard on my property. I have a bulldozing card, but I can't figure out how to destroy the hazard.

[GoldenEagle]

Originally Posted by Subby

Ditto

Thanks guys.

[Subby]

Originally Posted by GoldenEagle

I still can't figure this out. I want to get rid of the hazard on my property. I have a bulldozing card, but I can't figure out how to destroy the hazard.

Click the plus next to the building and click Demolish when the building card comes up.

[Subby]

Originally Posted by Coffee Warlord

Soulcry just demolished one of my bonus buildings. Make him pay if you wish.

Demolished one of his grid buildings.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Coffee Warlord

Soulcry just demolished one of my bonus buildings. Make him pay if you wish.

I just demolished a building of his that was earning over $1M per day.