After several weeks of Java, Javascript, and PHP coding, I am proud to present the beta release of the Monopoly Nerd’s online simulator!
Here is a brief video tutorial on how to use the tool. Keep in mind that it is still far from a finished product, but the numbers seem quite reliable.
As always, I welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions.
The Monopoly Nerd's Blog! 
Interesting simulator, although including background music was a bad choice. I’m getting 0% probabilities for every board I’ve tried–maybe the back-end is down?
Can you give some more details about the two AIs you’ve tried? It seems like the probabilities you calculate should be very dependent on the quality of your AI. From the description you gave in the video, my intuition is that a human player could easily beat either of the two strategies, so your simulations may not be representative of real games. I wonder if there are any records of high-level play, such as are available in chess. I know that the chess people have been able to use the large number of real games to evaluate early-game board positions without relying on AIs or simulation.
Yeah the music is mostly an inside joke…it’s actually the music from an old Super Nintendo monopoly game. 🙂
Interesting…would you mind sending me a snapshot of what you configured? Also, if you clicked “Get Sample Game” rather than “Get Win Percentages”, the numbers won’t really work out.
As for your comments on the AI, I would agree that the simulator doesn’t properly take into account trade possibilities, but in terms of building strategy, there’s some decent math and probability behind it. The said, keep in mind that the point of the simulator is mostly to compare the effects of other variables, such as color groups, starting position, etc.
I will soon be adding move-by-move sample games, with some detailed explanations behind the different types of build strategies. I certainly welcome you and/or anyone else to give feedback on any aspect of the simulator (including of course the building strategies). No doubt even the “smart strategy” can be improved, but it’s probably not as weak as you might think. Please keep an eye out for updates over the course of the next few days/weeks.
Seems like the 0% bug is unique to firefox. Using chrome I get reasonable results.
I’ll look forward to future blogs on the specifics!
Glad to hear it…lots of big changes (and explanations behind the building strategy) coming soon. 🙂