Your first online property game: which host settings to change, and which to leave alone
Ahmed Moaz · 16 October 2026
The person who opens the table makes three or four choices before anyone rolls, and those choices decide whether the evening ends at ten or at one in the morning. Most first games go wrong in the lobby, not on the board. This is a short guide to those switches for a property-trading game played online, written by the person who built the one I describe, so treat it as a builder's notes rather than a neutral review.
Start with the question nobody asks: when should it end?
A property game with no end condition ends when every player but one has gone broke. With two players that can be quick. With five or six it can take a long time, because a player who is losing slowly still has cities to mortgage and sell before they are really out.
So decide the finish first:
- No round limit. The last player left in wins. Good for a group that wants the full game and has the whole evening.
- A round limit. When the rounds run out, the richest player wins, counting cash, cities and buildings together. Good for a weeknight or a group where someone has to leave by a set time.
If you are not sure, set a limit. Nobody complains that a game ended on time.
The two rules that make rent bigger
If you host on Boardit's Property Rush, these are the switches in the lobby. Property Rush is an independent Monopoly alternative, and two of its switches change how fast money moves.
Whole-country doubling. Own every city in one country and the rent on all of them doubles before a single house goes up. Leave it on for most groups. It gives everyone a clear goal from the first lap, and it is what makes trading interesting, because the last city of a country is worth far more to one player than to anyone else.
Auctions for declined cities. When a player passes on a city, the table bids for it instead. Leave this on with players who like to haggle. Switch it off for a table of beginners, or for children who find bidding against a parent stressful. The game still works, and it is one fewer thing to explain.
Settings for three kinds of table
| Table | Round limit | Country doubling | Auctions |
|---|---|---|---|
| First game, mixed ages | Yes | On | Off |
| Regular group, full evening | No | On | On |
| Two players, short break | Yes | On | On |
These are starting points. Change one thing at a time between games so you can tell what made the difference.
Things you do not need to set
Turns are not timed, so nobody has to rush a big decision. That does not mean one player can stall everyone: a player who makes no move at all for two and a half minutes leaves the table. You do not need a house rule for the friend who wanders off to make tea.
Seats run from two to six. Five or six is lively, but it is also the slowest. If the group is new, four players and a round limit is the gentlest first game.
A one-minute script for the host
Before the first roll, say three things out loud:
- "The game ends after this many rounds," or "It ends when one of us is left."
- "Owning a whole country doubles its rent."
- "If you don't buy a city, we bid on it," or "Auctions are off tonight."
That is enough rules for the first lap. Everything else, from mortgages to trading, makes more sense when it comes up on the board than when it is explained in advance.
What I cannot tell you
I do not have measurements of how long games last under each setting, so the advice above is planning advice, not data. If your group times a few games, you will know more about your own table than any rule of thumb can.
Ahmed Moaz builds Boardit, a free browser game site.
Boardit is not affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro.