I’m the Monopoly Tycoon!
I don't play a lot of video games... just don't want to devote the time to them when I'm trying to write, podcast, and lots of other things. But my son is an addict, and gets his carefully-rationed time, usually as a reward for good behavior. Recently, he asked for Monopoly Tycoon... published in 2001, it cost me five bucks, and is networkable, so he and I can play head-to-head.
I get hooked on sims... probably the last games I sunk considerable time into were also Tycoons... Rollercoaster and Zoo. So I've been playing this one a little, trying to learn the ropes. All in the name of helping my son figure it out, of course. (It is a bit over his head, being a financial sim with lots of "hidden" information you have to go look for.)
Anyhoo, the first few scenarios are "training" levels... more or less simple setups to help you learn aspects of the game. Number four, the second in which you actually have opponents, is simple... be the first to earn $3000 in one day. It's a little tricky, until you quit trying to make sound financial decisions... in a way, it undermines the point of teaching you to play the game, because the keys to winning aren't about overall profit, but a single day's profit. Meaning you can go $10,000 in debt on day one, but still win if on day two you take in $3000 more than you spend on day two. Just don't be in the red at midnight two days in a row, or you go bankrupt.
So my initial strategy looked like this... borrow the maximum $10,000 and build like a madman on a single block (paying attention to the polls that say what people want to buy), lease that block so I pay myself rent (saving 6 AM rental costs, which cut into the day's profit), and hope that I sell $3000 over my morning costs (utilities and restocking). It didn't always work... morning costs ate my lunch, because I had a lot of businesses. On the Hard level, I was ready to run the sale price of my goods up so high on day one that nobody would buy, causing my inventory to be carried to the next day and avoiding restocking fees, then set the prices back down on day two. It's all about spending everything you can on day one and then spending as little as you can on day two. (Oddly, building a business cuts into your profit for the day, but selling a business doesn't add to it. My scheme to build big, then sell everything the next day didn't pan out.)
Then it occurred to me... the scenario starts with a few blocks full of city buildings, all of which pay rent to the landlord. Because they're full of big apartment buildings, their rent is higher than the rent on my businesses... instead of leasing the block I was building on, I could lease a block full of apartments instead. My rental costs would be lower than my rental income, giving me a nice edge.
Then it clicked... I was playing the wrong game. The short-term money wasn't in businesses, it was in real estate! Real estate has no 6 AM costs to cut into the day's profit. Real estate has a 100% predictable income.
Day one, I didn't build a single business. Instead, I bid for the leases on the three most profitable occupied blocks... money was no object, up to $15k, so I just bid, bid, bid until the computer players pulled out. There's just enough time for three properties to go up for auction in a day. So I wait until 6 AM "costs"... at which point the city pays me over $3000 in rent and I win, because I have no businesses on which to pay rent, utilities or restocking fees. Not only do I win, but it's a total lock-out... the computer opponents have negative profit for the day, due to 6 AM costs.
Did it teach me anything about playing the long-term scenario? I dunno. Even with what I spent on the leases, they would have been profitable over the long-term, though I don't think they'd have been as profitable as the same money sunk into businesses. In a normal game, I wouldn't spend willy-nilly on leases without building businesses... for one, I went negative more than I could recover in a single day, which is automatic bankruptcy if you don't manage to win before the next midnight.