Seven games to replace Monopoly

Thanks for the memories, Monopoly, but it's time to say goodbye.

Monopoly is a staple in homes across America. Copies of it are plentiful — I have one in my house, too. It’s a Star Trek: The Next Generation edition, and it has delightful pewter miniatures. I don’t know the last time I played it — I was probably 10, maybe? I have fond memories of looking at that, playing with the miniatures, flipping the box around. Playing it? I don’t have fond memories of that.

If you’re reading this newsletter, you don’t need me to tell you: Monopoly is old hat. (That’s not to say anything negative about the hat player token. It’s probably the best one, if we’re being honest.) It’s been played ad nauseam in homes around the world, and the design flaws are about as expected for a board game with roots over 100 years old. (Card games, though. Lots of great card games with even older roots.)

It’s in that spirit that I’ve got this week’s newsletter for you. If you’re looking to replace Monopoly in your family’s game rotation, these seven games are ones worth at least considering. Some feel like Monopoly in key ways, others take one or two elements of the game and work wonders. None of them are full like-for-like replacements, but some get close, and others are intentionally pretty far away.

Acquire

Your first option here — and perhaps the one that’s the most obvious — is to replace Monopoly with with a similarly classic game that just happens to be quite a bit better. May I present Acquire, designed by the legendary Sid Sackson and published in 1964. It’s basically a game of growing, acquiring and merging businesses, which are all represented on a gridded board. It does run a bit long (like Monopoly) and can be very cutthroat (like Monopoly) but it has a well-defined end state, multiple paths to victory, and basically no random input or output.

Acquire may not be the perfect replacement, but it’s the closest we’ll have to a contemporary here. (Monopoly was published in 1935, and yeah, I know there’s some backstory there — but this is less than 30 years after.)

Cosmic Encounter

Cosmic Encounter | Photo by Matt Montgomery

Weird negotiations, non-binding contracts, back-stabbing, cutthroat: Cosmic Encounter is a game that, above any other game on this list, embodies the true spirit of Monopoly, but it does it with intention. This game of alien species battling it out for galactic domination has each player taking on the role of a different alien species, each of which comes with its own unique set of abilities. Some might be fairly mundane, giving you an advantage in certain situations in the game. Others might be radical and weird, shifting your strategies considerably. And, of course, the key to the Monopoly-feeling you can find in Cosmic Encounter: alliances. Every turn is filled with alliances, backstabbing, and players picking sides. That’s so Monopoly.

Cosmic Encounter is a game that will have everyone around the table involved — they’ll feel the drama of every turn. The turn-to-turn play is not some mechanically radical thing, but that’s also what makes the game work. With a simple foundation, the weirdness can truly flow.

The Estates

While not quite as modern as the next game on this list, The Estates is a bidding game in which you’re building a new residential area. You’ll bid for floors, roofs and building permits, with the auctioneer for the round deciding if they’ll accept your bid — or if they’ll pay the amount you bid and take it themselves. If you’re the first to place a floor cube of a given color, you’ll also get the company certificate for that color. Importantly, you earn points in this game for buildings whose top floor is in your color, and if you’re not careful, you’ll end up without a company certificate. That means you’ll have to try to claw back points any way you can, and having done that once, I can say it’s really far too much fun.

Modern Art

Modern Art is a great auction game. If you’re into Monopoly for the auction (which some house rules unfortunately ignore in the game), Modern Art is a great direction to take your gameplay with a less real estate-centric hue.

In this Reiner Knizia classic, you’ll auction off cards from your hand, receiving money if other players buy them, but paying money to the bank if you do. There are even four types of auctions, with the auction type indicated on the card — it might be once-around auction, a closed auction, a free auction, and a set-price auction. That auction variety really makes the game feel broad and varied. An added bonus: You get to look at actual modern art throughout the game.

While this one’s out of print right now, I bet you can find it regardless — it’s been around for 30 years, and it’s been reprinted numerous times. If you can’t and you’re still interested — send me your bid. I won’t tell you anyone else’s bid, but the highest wins.

Power Grid

We’ll back off the weird now for something that’s a bit more rigid and mathematical: Power Grid is a network-building game in which you’re bidding for power plants, earning money powering cities, and buying resources. When I think about what I wanted Monopoly to be as a kid, it’s basically Power Grid — I wanted to strategize, make plans, and act on those plans. Monopoly is anything but that.

As the game progresses, the auctions become more tense, and the fight for resources tightens. Your ability to plan appropriately will directly influence your ability to win, but you have to balance those things. Part of the key to success is in manipulating turn order, which shifts and rotates as players are able to produce more — the worst-positioned player starts first. Sometimes you’ll intentionally tank your own bid so you can stay in last place, giving you that opportunity to start the round and gain resources first.

It’s such an intensely clever game, and it would be an amazing next step from Monopoly — at least, it would have been so for me.

Bohnanza

Bohnanza | Photo by Matt Montgomery

Bohnanza takes the idea of trading resources (as seen in Monopoly) and really hones in on the idea. This classic from Uwe Rosenberg sees you planting bean cards in two to three fields, with each field being just a single type of bean. You’re only able to plant bean cards from the first one or two cards in your hand, forcing you to sell beans that aren’t quite at maturity, earning you fewer points.

That’s where trading comes in: You can’t rearrange your hand, and you can only plant from the front of your hand. You can, however, trade beans in your hand on your turn with other players, so if you have beans coming up that you want to plant or beans getting in your way, you can offload them on another player. But this feels less exploitative and instead a little opportunistic, leaving everyone feeling just a bit better about their situation (at least until your “really favorable” trade ends in you getting max points and winning the game.)

QE

QE | Photo by Matt Montgomery

We’ll wrap up with another auction game here. QE is just about the weirdest auction game I’ve played, largely because you’re bidding on companies with money, but you don’t exactly have any money on hand. And because you don’t actually have any money, you can bid basically whatever you want, as can everyone else — and the bid is blind, so you actually never find out what anyone else bid, just whether or not your bid won.

Think you know how somebody’s going to bid? Think again. You just bid $175 for a tile you need, and another player bid $1 million. The highest bid wins the company on offer, but nobody knows what that bid was — just that they potentially lost the bid. The player who bids the most money throughout the game isn’t eligible for victory, rendering this game entirely unpredictable.

I’ve written two other guides on games that can fill a classic-shaped gap in your collection — and there are certainly more coming. I’ve included some links below.