Giza, Alexandria, Cairo and CAI Airport: how Egypt sits on a Monopoly alternative's board
On 22 October 2026 Egypt joined the board of Property Rush, my free property trading game. I build Boardit from Egypt, so these are names I know well. This post is about what the Egypt tiles do in the game, with the numbers, for anyone comparing boards while looking for a Monopoly alternative.
Where does Egypt sit on the board?
Early. Walk from Start and you meet Brazil first, then CAI Airport at tile 5. Giza follows, then Alexandria. A Surprise card comes next, then Cairo, and then the Prison corner. The set has three cities and one airport beside it.
The change on 22 October swapped the names on an existing set. The tiles, prices and rents did not move, so a table that knew the board before will find the same economy under new names.
What do the three cities cost?
| City | Price | Rent on bare land | Rent with a hotel |
|---|---|---|---|
| Giza | 100 | 6 | 550 |
| Alexandria | 110 | 6 | 550 |
| Cairo | 120 | 8 | 600 |
To own all three costs 330. Owning the whole country doubles the base rent, so the figures become 12, 12 and 16 before a single house goes up. Houses cost 50 each, and a hotel counts as the fifth. Putting hotels on all three cities costs a further 750, so a full build is 1,080 in total.
Is it a good set to own?
Here is my honest answer: it is a sound early set, not a great late one. In a simulation of 3,000,000 turns of one token, the Egypt cities took 6.8% of all stops. With hotels on every city, the set earned 38.73 per opponent stop. That ranks seventh among the eight countries. Only Brazil's cheap pair earns less. The Netherlands, at the top, earns over 100.
So the Egypt set is cheap to complete and cheap to build, and it pays modestly. That makes it a good first goal. You can reach it with a starting purse of $1,500 and still have cash to spare.
What about CAI Airport?
The airport sits just before Giza. It costs 200, and its rent grows with the number of airports you hold: 25 for one, 50 for two, 100 for three and 200 for all four. In my simulation CAI took 2.85% of stops. That is a little above an even spread of 2.5% a tile.
An airport pays slowly alone and quickly in company, which is why it matters to trade for the others.
Why these places?
The three cities have real stories behind the board names. Alexandria was founded by Alexander the Great in April 331 BC, according to Wikipedia. CAI is the airport code of Cairo International Airport. Giza is the city next to the pyramids. A name on a tile cannot teach history, but it can start a conversation across the table.
How do you play it with friends?
Join a table, buy what you land on, and aim to finish the Egypt set before anyone else does. I run the game on Boardit, where friends in different places can play online from a browser. A guest needs only a name.
If a seat is empty, the host can place a bot there. Bots buy, build and bid like anyone else.
What would I do first with the set?
Buy Giza or Alexandria early, then offer a fair swap for the third city. When two of you hold parts of the set, the double rent is out of reach for both. That is where the table talk starts.
Property Rush is an independent Monopoly alternative, and Egypt is now one of its eight countries.
Boardit is not affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro.
Ahmed Moaz builds Boardit, a free browser game site.