Monopoly Bots are Dumb

Nobody in the real world ever wants to play monopoly with me, either because the game takes so darn long, or I cheated at monopoly on their 1 year wedding anniversary(sorry again!). I have resparked my love of Monopoly through an ehem "free" version of monopoly on my HTC Sprint Mogul Pocket PC phone.

After a month and a half of play I have probably racked up 50-60 games. I learned some rules that I was not aware of and became pretty proud of my skills. More than anything though I think I got reminded how awesome the game is!

Sadly though, I am losing interest in the game. It became really apparent that I am way way way smarter than the AI in the game. I am finding that I probably win about 70% of the time when paying against 4 bots. I have found ways to win at the game almost every time. There is no difficulty setting to be found and I am getting tired of winning.

Here is an example of the bots' lack of AI. Lets say that all "deed groups" (Like Boardwalk and Park Place) are split amongst different players except for one group. Of the remaining group one property is for sale, you own one property and one is owned by another player Player 1 lets say. Any humanoid in Player 1's position knows that this is valuable real estate! The ownership of the last remaining set is the most probable path to success and it should be pursued. The bots are ignorant to this situation and will gladly trade the property for a $10 profit.

Another really frustrating shortcoming of the bots that I have found is their insufficient trading knowledge and risk assessment. In one game I was playing I had three deed groups that I owned and had houses and hotels on. There was one player left in the game. The bot was bleeding badly. He had about $2500 dollars remaining, but no chance of winning without a complete deed group. He was one property short from having a complete deed group on three groups. I was growing very impatient and bored with the game and decided that I was going to try and spice up the challenge. So I made an offer to the bot that I thought it would not refuse. $1000 for the remaining three properties that he needed. The bot did a quick evaluation of property value and determined that the deal was no good because the property value was less than the amount of cash I requested.

I was thinking today about what arsenal of artificial inelegances a smart monopoly bot would need to posses. I know that this is a game and that I am taking the discussion way to far, but the software engineer in me takes over and I have to conceptualize what the bot would act and behave like. Here are a few of the "features" that I thought of right away.

Bot AI Features

• Awareness of the methods of the game (What are the ways money is made)
• ROI on property ownership
• When to buy or pass on property
• When to offer a trade.
  
• In a trade should it offer cash or property.
• In a trade offer when should it accept or reject, or counter offer
  
• In a trade offer dealing with property when should the trade allow another player to complete a deed group
  
• Intelligence of if the bot is in a winning or losing situation
• The ability to take more or less risk based on the scenarios of the game
• Knowledge of the other players in the game, what they own, what they want and need to win
  
• Awareness of probability of success
• Knowledge of how much cash to keep on hand (Should I spend everything I have on houses or keep cash on hand)
• When to mortgage. Sometimes a good strategy is to mortgage property before you need to to buy property or houses.
• When to buy houses, where are the other players on the board, where is the bot in relation to danger areas on the board

This is a very rough list, but there are some really challenging engineering concepts here. Do I plan on sitting down and developing a Monopoly bot this weekend, no. But man it would be a really good software development project to have a Monopoly bot building contest!