Week 2 – Basic Features Update

Welcome to the 3rd installment of my blog. This week I continued to refine the base simulation with a few key improvements:

1. The Simulation Now Starts With 2-8 Players Randomly. This Is Because The Game Is Designed For 2-8 Players, And Why Not? Testing With Multiple Sample Sizes Can Only Improve The Validity Of My Eventual Data
2. Our Simulated Players Now Automatically Purchase Properties If They Can Afford Them, Excluding Railroads. In Real Monopoly, This Is Generally The Optimal Strategy.
3. I Arbitrarily Decided To Make Players To Keep $200 In Reserves At All Times. This Decision Was Made Because, Without This Constraint, Games Were Ending Almost Immediately Due To Players Spending All Their Money And Going Bankrupt As Soon As They Had To Pay Any Rent. This Left Them With No Other Recourse, As Currently, I Haven’t Given Them The Ability To Sell Their Properties To The Bank.
4. Lastly, This Is Sort Of Implied Earlier, But I Now Have A Record System That Records What Player Owns What Property.

We still have a long way to go, with the priority being other key features like building houses and trading, but progress is steady. I am confident we’ll be testing taxes in no time!