monopoly: no houses...only hotels left
Bob Henninger
direct from the bank to update your properties if no houses are available.
So if the bank is out of houses, can you bypass the formality of buying four
houses for each property(since in this instance none had been improved yet)
and just pay 5 times the amount of a normal house (the same as buying 4
houses and turning them in and paying an additional "house payment") for
each property and plant a hotel on each one?
Doesn't say anything against in the rules? We allow it as a house rule, but
would that fly in tournament play?
bob
Christian Killoran
> A question came up during a game of whether you can or cannot buy 3 hotels
> direct from the bank to update your properties if no houses are available.
>
> So if the bank is out of houses, can you bypass the formality of buying
four
> houses for each property(since in this instance none had been improved
yet)
> and just pay 5 times the amount of a normal house (the same as buying 4
> houses and turning them in and paying an additional "house payment") for
> each property and plant a hotel on each one?
Strict interpretation of the rules answers this clearly...a player may build
a hotel when he has four houses on each property of a complete color group.
If all 32 houses are in play, and you cannot meet these conditions, you
cannot build a hotel. It is a common strategy to deliberately avoid hotel
upgrades if doing so causes a housing shortage and makes it impossible for
opponents to develop their properties.
At least with the groups I game with! :)
I am not a tournament Monopoly player, so I don't know what would fly there.
Christian Killoran
Scott Slomiany
"Christian Killoran" <mrx...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:HjS8a.1120$wJ1.1...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net...
> "Bob Henninger" <art...@suscom.net> wrote:
>
> > A question came up during a game of whether you can or cannot buy 3
hotels
> > direct from the bank to update your properties if no houses are
available.
> >
> > So if the bank is out of houses, can you bypass the formality of buying
> four
> > houses for each property(since in this instance none had been improved
> yet)
> > and just pay 5 times the amount of a normal house (the same as buying 4
> > houses and turning them in and paying an additional "house payment") for
> > each property and plant a hotel on each one?
From what I have heard, the correct way to play is that the houses are a
REQUIREMENT to a hotel. And, in fact, not upgrading to hotels and hording
houses is a valid strategy in Monopoly to prevent your opponents from
improving their properties. However, let it be known that I'm not a big fan
of Monopoly, and have never really played it in the past oh 20 years or so,
so I may be wrong.
RRI1
>can or cannot buy 3 hotels direct from the bank to
>update your properties if no houses are available.
Only if the all of the properties in the group already have 4 houses on them.
If even property has fewer houses, you cannot build hotels on it.
>So if the bank is out of houses, can you bypass
>the formality of buying four houses for each
>property(since in this instance none had been
>improved yet) and just pay 5 times the amount of a
>normal house (the same as buying 4 houses and
>turning them in and paying an additional "house
>payment") for each property and plant a hotel on
>each one?
Nope, you cannot bypass the four house requirement when you build hotels.
Although if there plenty of houses left in the bank, people won't necessarily
place the necessary houses on the property. They'll just count to make sure
there are enough there.
>Doesn't say anything against in the rules?
It certainly does.
>We allow it as a house rule, but
>would that fly in tournament play?
Nope.
Richard Irving rr...@aol.com
Made with recycled electrons!
Dave Vander Ark
This is clearly illegal according the official rules. You'd never be
allowed to do this in tournament play. You may not build a hotel if you
don't have 4 houses on the property first, and each property of the
color group needs to have been developed evenly. This means that to
build hotels on a color group with 3 properties, you need to have 12 of
the 32 total houses on the group before going to hotels.
The following paragraph is quoted from the official rules (immediately
after the section entitled "Hotels"):
"Building Shortage...When the Bank has no houses to sell, players
wishing to build must wait for some player to turn back or to sell his
houses to the Bank before building. If there are a limited number of
houses and hotels available, and two or more players wish to buy more
than the Bank has, the houses or hotels must be sold at auction to the
highest bidder".
Creating a building shortage by monopolizing the houses is about the
only way to cause a closely tied game to break in your favor. House
rules like unlimited houses/hotels and like adding money into the game
on Free Parking make the game last far longer and remove some of the
strategy from it.
--
Dave
Remove the x from my email address to reply
Ben Witz
Publishing in 1988. Page 60 explicitly states that if the houses are not
physically available (either 4 on each lot of your color group, or
physically available to be built up to in the bank), you may not buy a
hotel. Furthermore, say you need to sell to raise money for a debt. If
the bank only has 3 houses left, tough - you must break down to one house
each on the reds or oranges or whatever 3-lot color group you got.
Also, it mentions a situation in a 1983 Tournament where a player wanted
to sell his hotel into 4 houses to cause a building shortage. The judge
determined that you 'forego' the right to a shortage when you build up to
hotels, so this tactic is now outlawed.
"Christian Killoran" <mrx...@earthlink.net> wrote in
news:HjS8a.1120$wJ1.1...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net:
--
============================================
Benjamin W. Witz -- Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, USA
walk...@yahoo.com, ben...@charter.net, walk...@charter.net
ICQ#: 166415311 -- Yahoo:WalkieT72
============================================