How long do you keep a room?

When you play Monopoly Hotels, you get to pick your own strategy.

Seriously.

It's ALL about choice.

When I first started playing, I was simply filling hotels with whatever rooms I could afford (the Horse room, the Wheelbarrow room, the Cupcake shop).

As time went by, I started getting smarter about the rooms I bought.

Some rooms give you better bang for the buck. And some cost a lot to build. Well, most rooms, even now, cost more than they are worth (in my not so humble opinion).

For example, today, I wouldn't bother with a Cupcake shop, even though it pays out every 45 minutes. Why? *Because* it pays out every 45 minutes. Seriously, who has the time to check a game every 45 minutes?

Most of the rooms I buy now pay out at 6 hour intervals or less frequently.

I figure I can likely check the game 2 or 3 times a day, so this averages out pretty well.

If I check the rooms first thing in the morning, maybe once at lunch time, and again some time in the evening, I've made a decent profit for the day.

There are some rooms that I've purchased, like the Dragon's Breath room, which do pay out more frequently - every 3 hours in that particular case. This one was a calculated decision.

Given that a room's total dollar-cost-of-ownership is the sum of the price of the room (M$900,000 for the Dragon's Breath room) + the cost to build it (M$450,000) + the cost to paint it (M$180,000) ... [that's a cool 170% of the purchase price, by the time you total it up!!], there has to be some compelling reason for you to actually purchase a specialty room.

Rooms like Dragon's Breath make sense occasionally ... this particular room pays M$31,500 every 3 hours.

But you should also keep in mind how long it takes for ROI (your Return On Investment).

The Top Hat room, for example, costs M$1,000 to buy, M$500 to build and M$200 to paint, for a total cost of M$1,700 up front. But it pays back FAST: every 6 hours, it pays back M$750, so within 12 hours, you've already recouped M$1,500 of that original M$1,700 expenditure. So, you see, a Top Hat room pays for itself in less than a day.

But a Dragon's Breath room? Gee. At M$31,500 per pay-out, you'll need some 48.57 payouts to  get to the M$1,530,000 total cost of ownership. Assuming that you're able to collect rent every 3 hours for 18 hours of the day (okay, you get to sleep for 6 hours), you'll collect 6 payouts in a single day, a total of M$189,000.

You can do the math. Chances are good it will take between eight and ten days to pay for this room. *After* that initial payback period, the rest is pure gravy, so *I* find this room is worth the price.

If you're at the early stages of the game, though? It may NOT be worth your time. If that's the case, the best bang for your buck is still the Top Hat room ... stock up on those, even though it makes your hotel look boring ... remember that after a day or two, you can discard your Top Hat room without a care, it's already more than paid for itself - you've probably earned at least twice its value in profit.

There are other reasons to collect certain rooms or attractions, of course.

One of them is the pursuit of gold.

Remember that the Sticker Book lets you put together certain combinations of rooms to collect a sticker.

Well, some of the stickers also result in earning a gold bar.

Given how stingy Electronic Arts is about letting you earn gold, you may well want to pick up some attractions to gather gold.

It won't be cheap. Think about it, the Fancy Restaurant costs 55 gold bars! Which, when you think of it, isn't exactly a great return for your investment of gold ... you could surely buy a hotel or a museum for that much!

And NO rooms currently pay rent in gold, even if you paid gold to buy the rooms. So ... choose for yourself if it's worth it to pay out gold to buy a room.

In the Ventnor Museum, for example, you can pay 90 gold bars to pick up a Neanderthal room. Would I do that? In a heart-beat ... the payout is M$312,500 AND 77,968 experience points every 6 hours. Well worth the investment, even if it takes a few days to build, and wipes out my cache of gold.

So how long would I hold on to a room I've built?

Bottom line: it depends.

For a room that I picked up just for the joy of getting a sticker, like the Cupcake Shop, the Theater room, the Floral shop (still building) and the Yoga Salon (still building) that I'm collecting to get the Destination Station sticker (and maybe a gold bar):

For such a set of rooms? I personally wouldn't keep them much longer ... the cost-benefit analysis says it's not worth it to have those rooms taking up space when I could, instead, have higher-producing rooms taking up the same space.

For example, to buy these 4 attractions, here's the purchase price:

That's a total of M$4,708 in purchase price, with a total cost of M$8,003.6 if you include the building and painting cost. And it takes several hours to finish building and painting and then to collect your first payout from the pricier rooms (the Theater room only pays out every 8 hours).

BUT.

Think of it this way: no matter how much you spent, if there's a room (like my favourite, the Top Hat room) that pays out more money than this room does, why not put in one of those instead?

The Theater room takes up 4 squares, and pays out M$1,900 every 8 hours. So each of those squares pays out a quarter of that, or M$475 every 8 hours.

A Top Hat room takes exactly ONE square. AND it pays out M$750 every 6 hours.

No-brainer, no?

I would replace a Theater room with 4 Top Hat rooms just ASAP ... I'm only holding on to it until I finish my 4 attractions and get my Destination Station sticker. EA doesn't take away your stickers once you've earned them (nor does it give you any reward for collecting the same sticker twice, so don't bother!), so there's no point in holding on to a room that's served its purpose.

You'll have to do the cost-benefit analysis yourself ... your goals may be different than mine, you see. I'd rather have more bang for my buck. But my 5-year-old friend, for example, would MUCH rather see her favourite toys in the hotel - you should have just seen how excited she got when she unlocked Rainbow Dash!

So it all comes down to strategy.

Given that there is no clear way to "WIN" at this game, I'd say just enjoy the journey. If it makes you happy to fill your Sticker Book or your Guest Book, that's where your money is better spent.

If, like me, you're kinda hotel-crazy? Then you want high-value rooms paying you large amounts of rent at intervals that work for you ... remember, if you have a day job or you go to school or university, you may only be able to collect rent a couple of times a day, whereas, if you're home from school on summer vacation, you may be able to "play" Monopoly Hotels all day long and collect both rent and Community Chest bonuses ...

Whatever you do, just enjoy the game ... that's really the bottom line.

And DON'T, for crying out loud, wake up in the middle of the night to play ... it's simply not worth it, you'll be tired, and you'll wind up spending your money/gold on things you realise in the cold light of day that you never wanted.

Ask me how I know ...