Monopoly vs. Settlers

Russell Roberts of Cafe Hayek has a great short analysis of the loopy economics of the board game Monopoly, which he delivered as an NPR commentary yesterday. And better still, he references Settlers of Catan, a game much-beloved of libertarians that a roommate (now an econ prof out in California) introduced me to back in college. One of the things I always liked about the game was that the existence of a trading mechanism encouraged players to play all sorts of coalition strategies, with tit-for-tat style mechanisms for punishing defectors, that create a much richer sort of play than the relatively simple rules might suggest.

Comments

[Ed]

Yeah, I heard that piece. Very insightful. Monopoly the game is a fantasy scenario of those alleged crimes the Sherman Antitrust Act was supposed to abolish. Though I doubt its players give its genealogy much thought.

[Devin McCullen]

Did anybody take Monopoly seriously as a economic model?

Maybe we're just not sophisticated enough, but our Settlers games don't include any coalition strategy more sophisticated than "Don't trade with the leader". However, even when we're playing other games, if someone gets out to an early lead, someone will pipe up "Okay, no more trading with Steve." (And yeah, about half the time it's me.)

[Don]

But what game is more amoral than chess? Yes, chess, where there is no diplomacy, no peace, no chance for cooperation. International relations are presented as nothing more than a bloodbath in which victory can only come after the utter subjugation and annihilation of one's opponent, followed by the cold-blooded assasination of his ruler (although, it is true, victory may come through a king's bloody suicide.)

Seriously, Monopoly is popular because it plays well. The game is extremely well designed. Games such as Settlers of Catan or Diplomacy may appeal to hardcore gamers, but they lack the simplicity and elegance of Monopoly. Economics don't really enter the equation, because the "economics" are absurd, as is the "warfare" of chess; the games have their own internal logic. They use metaphors from economics or warfare in the service of gameplay.

[Rimfax]

...our Settlers games don't include any coalition strategy more sophisticated than "Don't trade with the leader"

That sounds a lot like Cosmic Encounter , with or without lucre.

[Smappy]

I've always wanted to play a game of Settlers with a futures market and maybe contingency trades. I.e., I'll give you two wheat right now, and the next time you get a brick you have to give it to me; or I'll give you one sheep, and if I lose half my resources on a seven roll you have to give me two ore. My wife won't go for it, though.

[Jennifer]

Monopoly's bizarre building codes (like, no building a house unless you have an enitre color group first) helps people learn and grow comfortable with the caprice of Zoning Boards.

And the fact that you can get out of jail early if you're willing to pay a little cash is a scathing indictment of our corrupt justice system.

(I'm not even going to mention the fact that the only time I ever have to pay Luxury Tax seems to be when I'm broke.)

[crimethink]

I've got wood for sheep!
[/arcane Settlers humor]

[Two person games run!]

Carcassone baby!

[linguist]

But what game is more amoral than chess?

Risk!

[Smappy]

Why is it that about 90% of the most enjoyable games run completely counter to libertarian ethics? Most of my favorite games have the following steps:

1. Kill a host of enemies
2. Plunder their wealth (in order to)
3. Kill a stronger host of enemies
4. Plunder their more considerable wealth
5. Lather, rinse, repeat

Maybe if centralized coercive power weren't so much fun we'd have less of it.

[crimethink]

linguist,

You can still make alliances in Risk. Though it's easy enough to break alliances with computer players in the Playstation edition....

[Number 6]

Linguist-More amoral still; Risk with nukes. That's how my high school Geography teacher had it set up. Each team had one or two nukes. Once a space was nuked, fallout made it impossible to occupy that space for a given number of turns. The amorality came in when you realized that it was occasionally a good strategy to nuke your own forces in order to deny the enemy access.

[Number 6]

Why is it that about 90% of the most enjoyable games run completely counter to libertarian ethics?

Because good games use rules that fit with human nature.

[Don]

More amoral Risk: when a player broke a truce with me, I threw all of my forces into a bloody suicide mission against him, leaving my territories completely unprotected and wiping half of his army off the map. He responded: "What are you doing?! this is crazy, you're going to lose!"

"I know. So are you."

[Smappy]

Don/Linguist/Number 6,

I think I have the ultimate in gaming amorality. I once played a game that was risk with nukes minus risk (probably called Nuke 'Em, or Nuclear War, or something equally cheesy).

Each player draws a set of cards that determines their population. You then take turns drawing cards that represent weapon platforms (like the Atlantis or Solaris ICBM) or warheads (10 Megatons, 50 Megatons, etc.) Once you've got a fully armed nuke, you launch it against one of your opponents. Last player with any surviving population wins.

[MarkP]

Because good games use rules that fit with human nature.

The rules of a game are different from the images used to convey those rules. Money, buildings, taxes, and hotels are not at all central to the rules of the game - they're just images used to perhaps make it easier to understand the rules of the game.

[Pro Libertate]

Not to totally geek out, but all of this board game talk is making me think of D&D alignments. I can't decide which one equates to "libertarian". I'm pretty sure it's none of the evil ones, but I get stuck after that.

Maybe Reason should come out with a libertarian board game, since there's obviously a niche to be filled.

[Smappy]

Hats off to MarkP for blowing my mind. It must have been deep, 'cuz I don't understand a word of it.

[Smappy]

"Maybe Reason should come out with a libertarian board game, since there's obviously a niche to be filled."

I don't know how profitable it will be: the Libertarian Party fills a niche, but it's a pretty small one.

[Number 6]

MarkP-Yes. But that has nothing to do with what I was getting at. I was suggesting that games involving conquest, theft, and the abuse of authority work because they appeal to human nature.

[Number 6]

Pro Libertate-Chaotic good, I imagine. Or chaotic unaligned.

[Jennifer]

Wow. After reading all these "amoral" comments, I am almost proud of the fact that I've never been good at Risk.

[Pro Libertate]

You mean Chaotic Neutral? Why not Chaotic Good? We're the good guys, right?

[Max]

Catan has no war/fighting- there are the barbarians in the expansion pack, but nothing like Risk, etc. Actually was the one thing that was lacking for me. Guess I am a bit blood thristy.

[Pro Libertate]

Jennifer, half the battle is knowing to get control of Australia. Then kill like you've never killed before.

[Eric the .5b]

Why is it that about 90% of the most enjoyable games run completely counter to libertarian ethics?

Because most games game seems most satisfactory when there is one clear winner and everyone else absolutely loses. This isn't the predominant situation in real-world interactions, much less ethical considerations. More esoteric games at least allow for victory by means other than total defeat of one's opponents, but then those are more esoteric games.

In Risk, say, the accomplishment of simply preserving your territory against invasion (and perhaps making some gains by capturing some neighboring enemy territory) won't ever net you a win - though the Russians seemed pretty happy about managing that in WW2. In Monopoly, you can't just end up filthy rich - you have to end up rich or backrupt.

[CTD]

Smappy,

I think the game was called "Nuclear Escalation". I remember it being pretty fun!

[Eric the .5b]

Actually, I think many libertarians are Lawful Good by D&D standards. We just want to trim down the laws to the good ones.

Maybe if centralized coercive power weren't so much fun we'd have less of it.

Beyond board games, Civilization is a good game for naked exercise of statist power. Alpha Centauri was the version of it that was most morally honest about how dystopian and statist all of it was. 🙂

[Smappy]

CTD

That may have been it. I remember being jazzed by the brazen amorality of it all, but the game play itself was really pretty boring. A lot like bathroom humor or voting for the Green party . . .

[Timothy]

Pro Liberte: Actually, I'd say that there isn't a good D&D fit for libertarian ethics. Definitely not Lawful anything, and probably not "good" in the sense that others should be compelled to help the needy...so by the standard PHB definitions, probably in the neighborhood of true neutral or chaotic neutral, depending on the world and all that.

Of course, my opinion is that the D&D alignment system is far too simple to actually work for anything, and that many actions falling into "evil" are merely self-interested. I don't like that self-interest is almost categorically "evil" in the D&D sphere.

[/geek]

[Smappy]

Eric:

Right you are. Sid Meier's got a knack for making statist games that are a blast to play. He started early with Sim City, and he hasn't looked back since.

BTW, anyone else notice that the capitalist faction in Alpha Centauri is the most difficult to win with? And that they have ridiculous restrictions on colony growth? Even so, I think I'll write in Nwabudake Morgan for president in '08.

[Smappy]

Addendum:

By show of hands, who thinks Bush = Shen-Zhi Yang and who thinks he's the male version of Miriam Godwinson?

Any non-geeks out there feel free to tell me to shove it.

[Devin McCullen]

Gaming geek alert!

The nuclear war game you're thinking of is Nuclear War (Nuclear Escalation was an expansion). It's been around since the '60s, and is considered the epitome of "Beer and Pretzels" games - fun, but not serious.

There are some games out there where the players are cooperating to defeat the game - the one I'm familar with is a Lord of the Rings game where you're all hobbits, with various boards for different regions of Middle-Earth.

I'd argue that Settlers is a better game than Monopoly in terms of play as well - it's shorter, there's more interaction, and it ends with one person winning rather than everyone else losing.

If you want games with economic components (and I'm not really familiar with them myself), you should check out the 18xx train games. There's a bunch of different ones, 1856 and 1870 are the two biggies. Lots of stock manipulation involved.

And I haven't mentioned Puerto Rico or Silverton yet, and I have to catch the train home...

[Dougla Fletcher]

But what game is more amoral than chess?

Russian Roulette?

[Mad Scientist]

Smappy, the game is called "Supremacy." I used to play it with some buddies in college. Even better than nukes are the laser satellites you can use to shoot down the nukes. The tricky part is that if 12 nukes appear on the board then EVERYONE loses. It's a tough game to play when the guy who's about to go out has a fistful of weapons and a vendetta.

[Eric the .5b]

BTW, anyone else notice that the capitalist faction in Alpha Centauri is the most difficult to win with? And that they have ridiculous restrictions on colony growth? Even so, I think I'll write in Nwabudake Morgan for president in '08.

I always found the Morganites the easiest faction to win with, as long as you kept from getting stomped by your neighbors early on in the game. I found the Gaians and the religious nuts the hardest.

In all cases, I found it best to keep my society to non-controvercial social settings until I knew I could fend off all my close neighbors.

(For the uninitiated, in Alpha Centauri you run colonists split into psuedo-ideological factions running their own nations on an alien planet. If you actually made social choices, there was always one other faction that, if still in the game, would inevitably go to war with you because you'd made that choice. Horribly silly, really.)

[Blappy]

Fer serious, Smappy, I always thought the Gaian faction was the easiest faction in Alpha Centauri to play (although it never made sense that they were called "Gaians," since Gaia bit it after the colonization mission) since they could just spawn Mind Worms and steamroll over the other factions.

Although, honestly, who could feel connected to an environment that looked like vomit over sawdust?

[Thomas Paine's Goiter]

Jennifer, half the battle is knowing to get control of Australia. Then kill like you've never killed before.

That USED to be my strategy. I'm a South America guy now.

[Timothy]

Anybody else a fan of the Munchkin card game?

[Mike]

Everyone's favorite state-sponsored TV network covered the history of Monopoly in an episode of _History Detectives_ a few years back: http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/case/202_index.html

[timekeeper]

re: the 18XX train games

1856 and 1870 are the two best games in the series that are still available. 1829 (the original British version), 1853(the Indian verison), and 1835 (the German version) are far less flexible than the two Dixon designs. 1830 (the NE US verison) is the best one of all, but Hasbro killed it when they bought Avalon Hill.

FWIW, 1830 was the game that inspired Sid Meier to create Railroad Tycoon, just as the board game Civilization (another Avalon Hill game) was the impetus behind the computer version. If you want to talk about commodities trading, Civilization with the expansion pack is the way to go. A total of 18 different resources (two of each value) with a geometric progression for amassing more of any given resource.

Re: Sid Meier and SimCity

Wil Wright wrote SimCity, not Sid Meier.

Re: Alpha Centauri

For lots of fun, run the Morganites with a green economy, or the Daughters of Gaia (the tree-huggers) with a free market. It runs counter to the official storyline, but both create an interesting dynamic, mixing together two (allegedly) exclusive worldviews.

[isildur]

I've become a huge fan of Puerto Rico recently. Such an amazing game. So indirect and yet so vicious and evil.

Settlers never really clicked for me. I think it was the direct confrontation in it. I don't really like games that imply a zero-sum outcome -- 'hurting you is as beneficial to me as helping me.'

Puerto Rico encourages you to always act to help yourself, which may hurt or help other players in turn.

[Pro Libertate]

Hey, does anyone own Civilization IV? I've got Civ. III, and I'm debating purchasing the new one. Any advice? It'd be a change of pace, because my last incredible waste of productive time was Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II. More light sabers than planning, I'd say. Though it was a great game (not as good as the original, I hasten to add).

[James]

I believe what MarkP is trying to explain is that each game is set of variables and probabilities that can be expressed as an equation. "Play" consists of calculating the probabilities and altering your strategy as events warrant. Thus each came can be written as a sufficiently complex equation. The colored tile and slips of cardboard are only visual representations of the variable outcomes to enable intuitive calculations and make the game more "fun." The underlying logic of Monopoly is irrelevent: substitute different bits of cardboard and paper and you would have a game that looks very different, but is the same game on a mathematical level. It would not even be recognizeable as Monopoly or even Monopoly-like to most people. Its "rules" and "worldview" could be completely opposite.

I won Risk from Africa once. I have never been able to do it since.

[mtc]

funny, i always thought trying base yourself in australia was a sure suicide-plan. in risk, winning is about getting a card every turn, and in the end, killing other players at the right time to get the maximum the number of cards.

[Eric the .5b]

For lots of fun, run the Morganites with a green economy, or the Daughters of Gaia (the tree-huggers) with a free market. It runs counter to the official storyline, but both create an interesting dynamic, mixing together two (allegedly) exclusive worldviews.

It also prevents any friction with the Morganites if you play free-market Gaians or with the Gaians if you play green Morganites. I think you forfeit some bonuses, but you lose a major, unrelenting antagonist (and gain trade and alliance opportunities).

[Eric the .5b]

Fer serious, Smappy, I always thought the Gaian faction was the easiest faction in Alpha Centauri to play (although it never made sense that they were called "Gaians," since Gaia bit it after the colonization mission) since they could just spawn Mind Worms and steamroll over the other factions.

Once you get Mind Worms and other native-life units, sure. Until then, Gaians strike me as even more fragile (and fragile for longer) than the Morganites.

[Stevo Darkly]

It's been years and years since I had the time or patience for Risk, but I used to like it. I wanted to create a variant with these features:

1) I'd use Monopoly money in the game. Instead of the roll of the die at each turn being used to determine how many armies you got (at least that's how I remember it working), it would determine how much money you got per turn. You would also get a certain amount of money based on the number of territories you controlled.

2) You could use your money to buy any of the following, for set prices, in ascending order of expense:

a - Armies. (Like traditional Risk.)

b - Cities. There represented productive, industrial, wealth-producing assets. A city would generate X amount of money for you at the beginning of each turn, that you could use to buy the other items. (Or more cities.)

c - Nuclear missile launchers. Nuclear missiles could reach any territory, and wipe out all armies and cities within the territory at which they were launched. They could only be defeated by ...

d - Orbiting laser satellites that could shoot at missiles launched from any territory and prevent them from reaching their targets (with a favorable roll of the dice). These laser-sats would not be placed in the territories, but in some special place to indicate they were in orbit. Laser-sats could not be reached or harmed by armies or missiles, but they could fight and destroy each other.

I figured the first priority expense would be to buy some armies, to protect your territory. But you'd also want to buy cities to increase your income per turn, so you could buy more armies. And you'd also be in a "race" to buy some nuclear missiles soon enough, in sufficient quantities, to prevent some other nuke-armed opponent from wiping you out with a massive first strike. And of course, if you could afford them, the laser-sats offered some protection against the missiles.

I thought the decisions about what to buy with your money each turn would be interesting. And what strategies would emerge? Maybe a "classic Soviet Union strategy" that bought mostly armies, nuclear missiles, and a minimum number of cities? Or a "Ronald Raygun strategy" of fewer armies, but more wealth-producing cities, enough nukes to equal those of its largest nuke-armed opponent, and as many laser-sats as it could afford?

That was my general idea, but I never had the game design skills to work out the details (prices, and amount of revenue that should be generated by various sources) or the attention span, either.

I also had an idea for a version of Risk that was based on the CoDominium/Empire of Man future history of SF writer Jerry Pournelle. That would have been a lot easier. Basically it would have been the same as traditional risk, except:

1) The territories would have been renamed after the worlds of Sparta, St. Ekaterina, Sauron, Friedland, Covenant, etc., etc.

2) Redrawing the map so that instead of being linked by adjacent borders, the territories would be spheres (circles) linked by unique Alderson Jump Point paths. (Not as difficult as it sounds.)

3) The "army" pieces would no longer represent armies, but interstellar warships.

No other changes would be needed. Basically it was just recasting the old game in a new SF guise.

I never got around to doing that variant, either.

[Eric the .5b]

funny, i always thought trying base yourself in australia was a sure suicide-plan. in risk, winning is about getting a card every turn, and in the end, killing other players at the right time to get the maximum the number of cards.

Oh, Australia is great if you can take it because 1) you get a continental bonus early on - usually by the second or third move if you dump all your starting armies on Aussie territories - and 2) there's only one way in or out, so you can dump all your produced units on your border, and as everyone fights it out in Asia, you can slowly advance to keep anyone from taking control of it.

Of course, many players know this, so Australia can become a bloodbath early on, depleting the interested parties' resources - and then get snapped up by a major force waiting in Asia.

[Eric the .5b]

Stevo,

I remember wanting a "Castle Risk" version of Risk. Castle Risk was a version of Risk using small divisions of circa-WW1 Europe as the territories players fought over, with some wrinkles. I wanted a ginormous Risk board with the standard territories broken down into much smaller territories, along the lines of how the European territories were broken up in Castle Risk. Of course, the broader borders would completely change the dynamics, I realized.

[SixSigma]

Steveo -

Axis & Allies is a game of that description via WWII backdrop.

Link

[Stevo Darkly]

My brother had Axis & Allies. I think I played it once. But I wanted a game with laser satellites and potential gobal nuclear holocaus!

[SixSigma]

Steveo -

I don't play any more either. It's a great game, but very very long. Sort of like Civilization.

But a good internet game of Civilization with 6 human libertarian players would be very interesting...

[crimethink]

Heh, do you guys remember this unsolicited advice to the Bush admin from a seasoned Risk player?

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/openletters/puppetmasters.html

[Legate Damar]

This is the Reason thread I've been waiting for for years!

1. I almost always played Alpha Centauri as the Morganites. I played other factions just enough to feel justified in making the following statement: As in all Civ-style games, it gets a lot tougher as the difficulty goes up, but the thing is that the Morganites scale up the worst of any faction. Play at the "I start in the same position as the computer" difficulty and they're a powerhouse. But the additional free cities given to the CPUs on higher levels make it exponentially more difficult to win via mind control (and if you did adopt free market, that was about your only hope since the planet hated your guts and your military needed to stay within your borders and Yang or Miriam or Santiago was coming after you.) Peacekeepers for instance, are never dominant, but at higher levels they can still win via diplomacy by staying out of everyone's way and getting 2x votes in the UN.

2. Settlers is pretty fun, but not my fave.

3. As for Civ 4, I've only played 3 games on it, but here's my take: Get it. The end game is in fact faster than the end game in Civ 3 (though not as much faster as I was lead to believe, but still, no longer a root canal I need to undergo to pay for the sweets of the first 3000 years.) UU's are no longer so dominant, the Great People angle is pretty neat, borders are (finally) treated with some respect, trading is more important, the addition of religion is interesting if nothing else. I thought it was pretty easily worth $50, though in part that's because it's one of the few games I can get my wife to play with me.

4. I, too, think that self-interest shouldn't be considered "evil" in the AD&D world. Obviously, extreme self-interest is one thing, but (as a for-instance from Torment) requesting a token payment for your services when the requestor can afford it? Not so much evil as reasonable. Using my own scale, I'd say most libertarians as Chaotic Good (if we have fewer rules, everyone will be happier) or Chaotic Neutral (rules suck as they apply to me). There are certainly a few Chaotic Evils (rules are for the weak and don't apply to me), Neutral Goods (rules should be obeyed if they can, and only if they're wretched should they be disobeyed. Therefore, fewer is better), and True Neutrals (always side with the underdog) but I think CG and CN make up the majority.

[mitch]

Timothy,

My brother loves "Munchkin," and every holiday I get him an expansion set or two. It's fun, but, based on the times I've played, there doesn't seem to be too much strategy or tactics.

He also has the "Groo" card game, which is pretty fun, and seems a little less random.

We don't really have time any more for the games we used to play, endless AD&D campaigns and Games Workshop wars, though I still buy the rules books to read.

[johnl]

A beautiful game that I can't find a copy of to buy is Blood Royale. Game rules call for treaties to be followed.

[Ted]

{The computer comments on
"Global Thermonuclear War"]

WOPR: strange game. The only
winning move is not to play.

How about a nice game of chess?

-- from the 1983 movie Wargame
starring Ferris Bueller ...
uh ... I mean some accountant
named Bloom :-}

[Eric the .5b]

I, too, think that self-interest shouldn't be considered "evil" in the AD&D world.

It's a fair description of neutral, after all. But then, the presentation of alignment has been extremely contradictory as of 3rd ed.

But, still, I can't read every legalistic, moralistic, idealistic libertarian debate and not think most of them count as "lawful". 😉

[Pol]

Stop playing Monopoly because it gives capitalism a bad rap.

Libertarian Correctness, because the Political variety just isn't stupid enough?

[NaG]

I can't believe no one has mentioned "Merchant of Venus" yet. That's a pure trading game where the only way you hurt someone else is by buying up all the goods for sale at a planet or by buying the rights to the spaceports or factories (and then charging commission to those who use either) there. No zero-sum, and your only concern is figuring out how to increase your profit margins per turn by investing in ships with bigger holds and faster engines.

[JD]

I've always liked economic-development-type games. Anybody else remember Settlers II? I think I'm going to remember the little guys marching around carrying pigs, hams, logs, boards, loaves of bread, etc. for the rest of my life. And Colonization, which I always liked better than Civilization - more exploring and trading, less clash-of-civilizations stuff. In fact, I found that the game got less interesting about the time you'd fully explored and mostly developed the land. (Also, the AI cheated outrageously, I think because the developers couldn't make it good enough to win legitimately.)

It does seem like almost all the economic games are command-economy games (I tell you what kind of factory to build! I tell you what route to take!) but isn't that kind of what they have to be in order to be games? What would a libertarian economic game be anyway? "Build the court system and then don't do nothin'"? At least they do show how command economies are inefficient - I was always ending up with huge stockpiles in some places and shortages in others, or idle transport units.

Oh, and I can't have been the only one to be infuriated by the Sim City Sims' complete and utter inability or unwillingness to do anything for themselves. I guess free-market hospitals don't exist on that planet.

[alkurta]

Stevo Darkly,

There is a game out there that is similar to your Risk expansion idea. It is called War! Age of Imperialism.

It is set in the 19th century so there are no nuclear weapons or laser satellites. You start with a handful of territories. The territories not controlled by you or the other players are inhabited by "Natives".

You produce Production Points, "Money", each turn from your citeis, factories, ports, and railroads. With these production points, you can buy infantry, cavalry, artillery units. Also, you can spend these points on pacifiy the natives and "westernizing" them. Once you convert the natives, you can exploit natural rescources in their territories. These resources give you more production points.

And finally, you can also invest these production points into technologies. These technologies can give you a bonus in combat. For instance, Rifles 1 gives your infantry +1 to the dice roll in combat.

I must say this has been the Reason thread I have been waiting for all my life as well.

[JD]

I almost forgot Nuclear War! Very silly but great fun. You versus four computer-controlled opponents (like Infidel Castro, Col. Khadaffy, Ronnie Raygun, etc.). Every turn you either build a weapon, use a weapon, or propagandize against an opponent's people. Last one with any citizens left wins!

[Native NYer]

Merchant of Venus is an awesome game, espcially when you build a spaceport in a sweet spot and someone just has to trade there to save movement points, even though they hate for you to pick up the 10% vig!!!!

Of course each month while reading Reason I'm reminded somehow of Steve Jackson's Illumiati! game. The rule which allows you to cheat any way you can always seemed very realistic to me.

I've always thought libertarians were closer to Neutral good, but that's just me.

[DogRiverDan]

There is a game out there that is similar to your Risk expansion idea. It is called War! Age of Imperialism.

No; it's called Supremacy. It was mentioned once and has been since lost in the Risk-kerfuffle, but it is the very definition of what Mr. Darkly craves. The basic set is essentially Risk with nuclear weapons and a commodities market. Expansions add in things like nuclear missile subs, laser satellites (and anti-laser satellite satellites), neutron bombs, unconventional warfare (chemical/biological/weather control weapons), tank battalions, extra nations (like Canada and Australia), and independent non-aligned nations and local powers (called "pirates" and "warlords") to whom you can sell weapons for cash.

Annapolis has used the game to teach the principles of realpolitik to naval officers. The game is an excellent simulation of such, although it is ridiculously out of print and good luck finding a copy. (my complete set, including the 3' by 4' map, is mine, mine, mine and I will not be parting with it, thank you).

As for alignment, Chaotic Neutral is the closest fit to a libertarian mindset for D&D 3.5, but it's worth noting that the whole concept of alignment was predicated on the assumption that there exist real, powerful, and meddlesome deities embodying the concepts of Law and Chaos who will F*ck With You if you don't hew to the literal precepts of your alignment. Games like the Palladium Fantasy RPG have tried alternative alignment systems which more accurately resemble simple ideologies. Then again, since alignment no longer really means anything in D&D 3, it can probably be thrown out entirely.

[Eric the .5b]

What would a libertarian economic game be anyway? "Build the court system and then don't do nothin'"?

It probably would involve playing a merchant, not the government.

[Pro Libertate]

DogRiverDan,

Which brings up another question--who is the god of libertarians? Or, for our Catholic guests, the patron saint?

[JD]

It probably would involve playing a merchant, not the government.

Which in turn reminds me of Dope Wars, although to call that an economic sim is to give it too much credit. It always bugged me that the commodity market in that game was almost totally random and prices were fixed (that is, if no one was buying a certain commodity, that was it - you couldn't agree to lower your price until somebody bought). Still, it struck me as a good way to teach about the importance of profit margins and inventory turnover.

[pgt]

A Reason H&R thread I must join.
Are there any other fans of the Empire Builder series here? The winner is the player who draws a complete rail line on a mapboard and accumulates a certain amount of money first. There is no driving others into bankruptcy, and with one simple rule change everyone can stay in the game. (If you are not going to win, try doing the best you can with what you have.) The geography and logistics are as important to me in these games as the economics.

[Jadagul]

Eric the .5b, you made me realize that I actually know the game y'all are looking for, if you want a computer game: the aptly named capitalism. It was only when I looked it up for this thread that I found out that a sequel has been released, but the original version was certainly amusing.

[Brian]

Many of the "German-style" games (of which Settlers was the first to really cross-over to America) emphasize player choices instead of random luck. For example, in Settlers the dice determine which goods are produced (for everyone), not how far you move (and therefore, what you can buy, in Monopoly).

While I don't think the games are inherently libertarian (or anti-), the defining characteristic is that players choose their action(s), instead of "Roll your dice and move".

Germans are (unsurprisingly) not too fond of wargames. Conflict usually takes the form of competition for resources.

Look at http://www.boardgamegeek.com for lots more information on any game you care to see, including pictures, descriptions, etc.

[Kevin Carson]

Monopoly was originally designed by a Georgist specifically as an economics lesson, so it's not surprising it makes landlords come off looking like parasites.

[Andrew Ian Dodge]

I love Nuclear War/Escalation by Flying Buffalo Games who still sell it. I have played it many times and love it as its fun as hell.

There is a shareware game on the Mac called Simbabwe; which lets you play in a simulation of Mugabe's Zimbabwe. The game is approved off by Zanu'PF's opposition.

Settlers was alright but the game-play was a bit weak and graphically it was rubbish.

A good libertarian game is Cyberpunk2020.

[Custom Nike Dunk]

thanks