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Monopoly as a Markov Chain

koaning.io

31–37 of 37 posts

Re: Monopoly as a Markov Chain

#31
post #19
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of hotels, put 4 houses as quickly as possible so there are no houses left for other people to build. Only upgrade to hotels when you can afford to put the houses that will become available onto another of your properties. Other people's sets are worthless to them if you own all the houses. Combine this strategy with the fact that the highest ROI on most properties is 3 houses, and you have a winning strategy…

Also bare in mind the original game that evolved into Monopoly was designed to be upsetting, to teach the dangers of monopolies ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_board_game_Mono... )

did not know. interesting!

Re: Monopoly as a Markov Chain

#32
post #21

Not to nitpick, but it seems like what you did would have been much more suited for an IPython (Jupyter) notebook directly outputting with matplotlib rather than writing Python code to generate data for R?

out of curiosity, how many lines of code do you need in matplotlib to generate http://koaning.io/theme/images/monopoly_plot3.png ? in R, you'll only need one. also i have done this work in a python notebook, you can specify R cells to take pandas dataframes allowing you to still use ggplot2 for plotting. see old video of mine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW8Aei2wlsM

Using the Python Seaborn library one line sounds about right:

http://stanford.edu/~mwaskom/software/seaborn/examples/scatt...

Re: Monopoly as a Markov Chain

#33

A comment on the display of the data: more decimals don't make your results look better. Only show a relevant number of decimal places. In the case of this data most of it needed 0 to 2 decimal places.

fair enough. the reason why there were so many numbers was lazyness, i just copied the R output directly.

options(digits = 3) is our friend. :-)

___

Also I should have said, "nice simulation!" instead of just nitpicking.

Re: Monopoly as a Markov Chain

#34
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

out of curiosity, how many lines of code do you need in matplotlib to generate http://koaning.io/theme/images/monopoly_plot3.png ? in R, you'll only need one. also i have done this work in a python notebook, you can specify R cells to take pandas dataframes allowing you to still use ggplot2 for plotting. see old video of mine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW8Aei2wlsM

Using the Python Seaborn library one line sounds about right: http://stanford.edu/~mwaskom/software/seaborn/examples/scatt...

thats not a facet grid though, in a facet grid you'll have split data across different cells. this is a cross plot across 4 columns. i did find this tho: http://stanford.edu/~mwaskom/software/seaborn/examples/facet...

Re: Monopoly as a Markov Chain

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

fair enough. the reason why there were so many numbers was lazyness, i just copied the R output directly.

options(digits = 3) is our friend. :-) ___ Also I should have said, "nice simulation!" instead of just nitpicking.

no worries. this way i've learned something. +1

Re: Monopoly as a Markov Chain

#36
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd utterly forgotten about house rules, but you're right, they're infuriating. The combination of not auctioning off properties when passed up and free parking make games go on forever .

Hm, "Free Parking" - do you mean something like?: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Monopoly/House_Rules#Free_park... It's been a long time since I played, but I can't remember "mandatory auction" was part of the core rules. Then again, who knows what changes may have been made to the Norwegian version.

This one really gets me, because no on ever believes its in the rules until I get them out and point it out.

> Whenever you land on an unowned property you may buy that property from the Bank at its printed price. You receive the Title Deed card showing ownership. Place the title deed card face up in front of you. If you do not wish to buy the property, the Bank sells it at through an auction to the highest bidder. The high bidder pays the Bank the amount of the bid in cash and receives the Title Deed card for that property. > Any player, including the one who declined the option to buy it at the printed price, may bid. Bidding may start at any price.

From http://richard_wilding.tripod.com/monorules.htm#buyingproper...

That rule alone completely changes the dynamic of Monopoly, transforming it from a dirge like plod around the board desperately hoping you'll roll the right number for the property you want, into a game in which people will near bankrupt themselves to buy a property they don't want an opponent to pick up.

Re: Monopoly as a Markov Chain

#37
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm, "Free Parking" - do you mean something like?: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Monopoly/House_Rules#Free_park... It's been a long time since I played, but I can't remember "mandatory auction" was part of the core rules. Then again, who knows what changes may have been made to the Norwegian version.

This one really gets me, because no on ever believes its in the rules until I get them out and point it out. > Whenever you land on an unowned property you may buy that property from the Bank at its printed price. You receive the Title Deed card showing ownership. Place the title deed card face up in front of you. If you do not wish to buy the property, the Bank sells it at through an auction to the highest bidder. T…

To be clear, I certainly didn't doubt you were right -- I can barely remember the last time I played. We had an old busted up version at our cabin. I certainly can't remember the last time I read through the rules booklet.
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