Customer Reviews

University Games Anti-Monopoly Board Game

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Perhaps there is a trick to this game that I am missing, but so far I have found it immensely frustrating. The concept is that you either play as a Monopolist or a Competitor. It is very difficult to win when playing as a competitor, because the rents you charge are much lower, although you pay the same amount as the monopolist for everything. For example, the railroads cost $200, both of you have to pay that amount. The competitor charges $20 rent. If the competitor owns all four railroads, he still only charges $20 rent. However, if the monopolist buys all four railroads, he charges $320 rent. Considering you only receive $100 for passing Go, landing on a railroad could bankrupt you if you are the competitor.

As far as property is concerned, you both still pay the same to own a property, and you pay the same amount for houses and hotels. However, the competitor charges much less rent. For a property with three houses, a competitor may charge $25, while a monopolist will charge $50. As a competitor, you never make back as much money as you spend.

The first four or five times we played this game, the monopolist easily won. The last time we played it, the competitor managed to survive, and the game was "balanced". Then all we did was exchange money back and forth--competitor lands on my property, he pays me. I land on his, I pay him. There was no real way to win the game at that point. The game went on for at least two hours, and I have never been so bored playing a game in my life. We thought if we kept playing the game, we would get better at it and it would become more enjoyable. I think the most enjoyable part of this game would be watching it burn.

If you are a person that likes the original Monopoly, pass on this game. This has to be the most boring, frustrating thing I have done since I played hide and go seek with a blind guy. Dude sucked at that game. If there is excitement to be had here I must have missed it.

How it works:
In Anti-monopoly, the players are split into 2 different factions. The Monopolists, which I will, from this point further, refer to as the winners, and the Competitors, or losers. Everyone starts with the same amount of money and can spend the money on houses or "apartments" (aka hotels). I played the banker and about the time I finished counting and distributing the money the fun ended.
Losers don't have to wait until all of that color property is owned to start building houses. All they need is 1 property and they can start building. But the downside is that no matter how many houses are on a property, the losers only charge a flat amount for rent. Whereas the winners can charge crazy amounts for having houses on a property but the winners can't buy houses until the majority of property of that color is owned. If this sounds confusing, its because it is.
Players run out of money way to freaking fast in this game. After about 15 minutes most of us had less than $100 left of the starting $1500. Need more money? No worries just pawn your properties to the bank at 0% interest! That is the best deal ever. Its like a payday loan but without the hassle of getting your legs broken when you fail to pay the interest. Another sure fire way to get more money, get randomly selected at the beginning of the game to be a Monopolist.

How to win:
Play as a Monopolist.

Verdict:
Take my word for it, avoid this game. It reminds me of that bag of fake knockoff cereal you get in the grocery store. You know, the fake Trix called Fruity Shapes or something. If you've ever had those you know something isn't quite right but you just can't place your finger on it. Maybe the cardboard has some chemical reaction with the toxis plastic that gives the cereal some different taste. I dunno, anyway... As I was saying avoid this game unless you like boring things. If you do, go watch LifeTime.

@Mike_Fielden
[...]

Unfortunately, this entire game is based upon a false premise and thus teaches an erroneous lesson. The game itself is a market. And a given market breaks down into one of 3 categories: Monopoly, Oligopoly(Limited Competition), or Panopoly(Full/Open-Competition). The original game itself actually starts as an oligopoly or panopoly, with price fixing(READ: Government subsidy or regulation), and the objective of becoming a monopoly.

You cannot have a monopoly faction competing against a competitive faction. If this games illustrates anything, it illustrates the detrimental effect of government regulation subsidizing one faction of a market, and forcing another faction to compete against them. Which in the real world and in the game, as the other reviews have also largely indicated, kills competition.

I bought this game for my brother as a Christmas present because I thought it sounded intriguing. It turned out to be the worst Christmas present ever. My brother hated it so much he started screaming and throwing the game pieces across the room. If you're looking to buy a board game please, please, please, please, please, please don't pick this one.

The point of the game is that you can choose to be a competitor or a monopolist, and there are different rules for each. Unlike with the other reviewers, to us the game seemed rigged against the monopolists. But whether it's rigged against the monopolists or the competitors, who wants to play a game that's rigged?

I purchased this game for a friends large family who play games very often and recently had an opportunity to play it with them. We played on the short game rules as it was running late which has you play for a set amount of time, and then uses a unique scoring mechanism. It calculates your value by one giving you a percentage of your cash on hand, then two having a theoretical person visit every property on the board (so you collect rent once from every property with the hotels etc. calculated in.)

As a monopoly enthusiast who rarely loses I decided to take on the challenge of competitor which they had stated it is impossible to win as. I played an aggressive game making some very lopsided (in my favor) trades in others time of need and by the end had a large set of properties along with a number of houses / hotels, but even with all that out of the 5 players the 3 monopolists had the highest scores then the two competitors. There is just no way to make more then you spend on properties as a competitor, and if you just sit on the cash for the most part the monopolist still wins.

This game has a great idea, but I have to assume its trying to spread a political message about monopolies rather then be a game. Whats the point of a game where you know who is going to win or lose after the very first round where you determine who is a monopolist / competitor? Possibly with some reworking on the rules it could be a good game but I cannot figure out what would need to be done, I'll just play Monopoly instead.

This game is really just not fun. Unless you really embrace the roles you are given in the instructions, money grubbing jerk for monopolists valiant defender of the free market for the competitors, I don't really see how you can enjoy yourself. My wife and I were both very excited to give it a try, but that hope decreased rapidly as we read through the instructions and ran out before we made it around the board even one time.

This is a fun board game. I used to play monopoly a lot as a child. When I saw this, I said to myself " Why not try this?" i can say that it was worth buying it. I have had some wonderful time with my friends palying it. The only problem with the gameplay is that it's not a 100% fair game. The monopolists will win win 9 out of 10 times for sure. Competitors have a good chance of winning only if they can buy a lot more land than the monopolists.

If you are a monopoly collector you know the only thing that changes between sets is the tokens and community chest/chance cards. This game has a lot more to offer. The rules are different for competitors and monopolist. The rent is different, the utilities prices are different and you don't have to own all of one color to build house and hotels. It takes a little getting used to but once you get the hang of this game, you'll love it!

My friends and I struggled to play through this game. I don't know if it was because it was the last game of the night or what, but it just wasn't much fun. I think the thing that blew the deal for me was the low amounts of money handled throughout the game. I won that game after we decided to just call it quits and tally our assets, and I had less than $1000 total. Granted, the rules tell you to multiply the dollar amounts by 1000 to get a feel for what the real world would be like, but it's still not as much fun like that. Lastly, there are two cards in each (capitalist and monopolist) deck that have absolutely no effect on the game. What's the point of that? Its like somebody got forced out of business by a big company and decided to make a game about how badly they got screwed over.
Well, as I have only been able to play this game once, take this review with a grain of salt. It could possibly be more fun than my experience with it has been, but I'd not be able to convince my friends to play it again. Once was enough for them.

Great game. The instructions are a little complicated at first but it did not take very long to get the hang of it and it was alot of fun! I would highly recommend this game.