Flyers & Promo Media
Monaco
Quickie Version:
UTAD left side through the spinner to fill up your bonus; UTAD right side to the saucer to collect bonus. Rinse and repeat. Ignore the two lower saucers.
Go-to Flipper:
Right, to build bonus, score the spinner and get top lane points
Risk Index:
Medium-High; the moving target is the riskiest shot, top right saucer the safest
Full Rules:
Here’s another case where settings matter. First, let’s get acquainted with the game’s features. The primary goal of the game is to build bonus, then collect it. You build bonus four ways: by shooting the left spinner; by scoring a lit lane at the top; by hitting a lit stand up target; or by draining through a side outlane. Only one top lane and one stand up target are lit at any time; they alternate on switch hits, and are opposite-paired, i.e. the top right lane and the left target light together, alternating with top left lane and the right stand up target. Bonus goes up to 100K in increments of 10K. You collect it by shooting the saucer on the far upper right via the long chute below it. The spinner value is tied to the bonus value: it’s only worth 100 most of the time, but whenever your bonus is at 100K, it’s worth 1000 per spin. If you collect the bonus, the spinner value resets to 100. Now it’s time for the settings question. Monaco has a swinging target right in the center of the playfield that sets up double bonus in an odd way. On the standard Monaco setup, you need to hit the swinging target when it’s in each of the two “1” or “3” positions [right side and left side, one indicator light for each of the two positions; center positions don’t come into play here] to activate double bonus. On most machines, I advise people to go for bonus multipliers. On Monaco, I say, not necessarily. The rebound off of the swinging target often drains, or you may miss your shot at it and have the rebound drain. I think it’s too risky a shot to be worthwhile most of the time. If you already have half of your doubler by accident, then it’s more worth considering. However, I was at a recent tournament where the game was set so that just one hit to the target in the “1” or “3” position awarded double bonus. Now, it’s a good idea to shoot for it, especially once your bonus is up over 50,000. Like Mars Trek and Cherry Bell, among other games, Monaco poses the question of bonus collect-or-not. For Monaco, the decision turns out to be easier due to the way the spinner scores. Here’s the deal. If you shoot the bonus collect, your bonus is scored - - without the doubling - - and your bonus is reset to 10K. If you have the double bonus already activated, your playing strategy needs to reflect that. Collecting bonus without the doubling you can actually lose points if you drain before you can “refill” your bonus. For example, if you have 100K bonus built up with the doubler lit and collect your bonus at the saucer (resetting your bonus to 10K), but then quickly drain, you’ll earn 120K total: the 100K bonus collect plus 2 times the reset-to-10K bonus. If you hadn’t shot to collect bonus and drained instantly, you’d have collected 200K as your end of ball bonus. If it’s ball 5 and you were behind by 150K at the time, you just changed a win into a loss. Clearly this means that whether or not you should collect bonus depends on the game situation. Let’s do some math. Assume you have the bonus maxxed out at 100K. You collect 100K. Now, you make make N shots through the spinner (N<=4) at 20 spins per shot. Your new bonus will be 10K + (20K x N). Your spin value, for N less than 5, will be (20x100xN). Total value is 100K + 10K + 20KN + 2KN. Now do the same calculation if you hadn’t collected. Your bonus is still 100K. Your spinner value for the N shots is 20x1000xN or 20KN. So collecting added merely 10K + 2KN, essentially the 10K you got when the bonus reset plus the value of the unlit spins. Bottom line is, you get an extra 10K each time you shoot to collect so long as you DON’T have double bonus lit and drain before refilling the bonus. In summary: If double bonus is lit, never shoot to collect bonus, just keep ripping the spinner. If double bonus is not lit, feel free to shoot to collect; consider the saucer to be a 10K fixed-value shot.
via Bob's Guide
