Power Grid | BoardGameGeek

Reply: Funkenschlag - Flux-Generator:: General:: Re: One available in auction

dshortdesign — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:31:48 +0000

by dshortdesign

That's too bad. Well, thanks for replying.

Reply: Funkenschlag - Flux-Generator:: General:: Re: One available in auction

lorna — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:54:30 +0000

by lorna

Not sure where to get one now, that one was the one I picked up at Essen.

Reply: Funkenschlag - Flux-Generator:: General:: Re: One available in auction

dshortdesign — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:26:32 +0000

by dshortdesign

I missed the auction. Bummer. Where did you get yours? How can I buy one?

Reply: Power Grid:: Variants:: Re: Standing Corrected

alexgrant — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:59:19 +0000

by alexgrant

I played it once with the rule "Step two always begins immediately during phase 4" because I was playing with a different group who insisted that was the correct rule.

As you might expect, it seriously disadvantaged the players who were at the back of the turn order and therefore built early and were unable to make use of the cost 15 spaces.

Not recommended.

Reply: Power Grid:: Variants:: Re: Standing Corrected

Ponton — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:10:48 +0000

by Ponton

A stall, however, is bad for at least one player. Hope it'snot you who doesn't see it as it'd be better to finish that stall... ;)

Reply: Power Grid:: Sessions:: Re: Failure! – Deep wounds inside

emunkki — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:24:20 +0000

by emunkki

mwdalrymple wrote:
I know that on our first game we forgot to remove power plants whose cost < then the 1st players number of cities.. it really dragged out games having a few excess plants.. totally stalls the game.

We did do this. The power plant drawing just went so that those big plants were available that early. Having 6 players of course increases the "fast forward" effect as everybody is buying plants from the market.

Reply: Power Grid:: Sessions:: Re: Failure! – Deep wounds inside

mwdalrymple — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:19:10 +0000

by mwdalrymple

I know that on our first game we forgot to remove power plants whose cost < then the 1st players number of cities.. it really dragged out games having a few excess plants.. totally stalls the game.

Reply: Power Grid:: Variants:: Re: Standing Corrected

Barticus88 — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:47:18 +0000

by Barticus88

zimm20 wrote:
However, I will miss not being able to start step 2 during phase 4, because I like the temporary change in the value of turn order and the more consistent pacing it provides.

Funkenschlag worked that way, but Friedemann changed it. He wanted to punish the player who triggers Step 2. This often leads to a stall, which some players don't like.

Reply: Power Grid:: Variants:: Re: Standing Corrected

zimm20 — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:38:04 +0000

by zimm20

Thanks for the input. I finally had a chance to replay the game with 'all' the original rules and it was very enjoyable. It was a 5 player game with the Italy map that ended up very close. The biggest differences were:

- Players tended to value plants in the open market higher because those in the future market may not move up.
- Each player owned more power plants through out the game.
- The game slowed down temporarily between step 1 and 2 because the value of playing position was reversed. We had one round with very little building.
- Step one was longer, two was shorter.
- The finishing positions were more even.

The game lasted about 2 1/2hrs. I was pleased that the uncertainty of the power plant market didn’t detract from the game. I am definitely inclined to play by the original rules in the future. However, I will miss not being able to start step 2 during phase 4, because I like the temporary change in the value of turn order and the more consistent pacing it provides.

New Image for Power Grid

oplprokop — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:10:45 +0000

by oplprokop

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New Image for Power Grid

oplprokop — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:07:21 +0000

by oplprokop

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Reply: Power Grid:: Sessions:: Re: Failure! – Deep wounds inside

jsciv — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 19:56:42 +0000

by jsciv

What's amusing to me about this is that we had more or less the same thing happen in a 5-player game last weekend. C and I are sort of the favorites in our game group and C tried the "buy opportunistically big plant" thing and ended up too broke to catch up in cities, almost exactly like the OP here. He did it as an experiment, so with two repetitions I'm going to avoid a second big plant early, methinks!

Reply: Power Grid:: Variants:: Re: 2 Player same as 3 Player

cayluster — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 13:12:48 +0000

by cayluster

I know this thread is a bit old at this point, but I just wanted to note that I DID get a chance to play 4 player Power Grid last week. I was very excited about it, but, lo and behold (and much to my surprise)... I didn't like it much better than with 2. Yes, the auction was more fun, and yes, the resource economy was more realistic, but otherwise, the game still felt flat for me.

I guess my main problem with the game is that it seems too scripted and limited in terms of player choice. I just can't see where the choices are in this game - or rather, choices seem very few, and tactical, which would be fine (I love tactical play) except that the game itself is very opaque strategically, so you can't really tell what all your tactics are adding up to. Everything seems to ramp up pretty evenly, regardless of the number of players. Let me describe what I mean.

Take the auction. With two, you can pretty much get whatever plant you need. With four... I felt it was the same. While you might not get the plant you WANT, it seemed quite easy to get one that would suit your purposes - that is, maybe you missed the oil plant that powers four cities, but you are still very likely to get some kind of plant that powers 4 cities. Not your ideal pick, but a workable one.

Or take map blocking. There is none, really, with 2, and with 4 there is. But where are the decisions? You normally can't afford more than 2 cities per turn anyway (except very early in the game), so blocking adds up to: can't build here, but I can build there. Or: can't build anywhere, so I'll save my money for next turn. And next turn I'll have more money, so I can afford to buy two. Didn't feel any more tense or competative with four - where's the screwage? Yes, it was a slower game, and yes, it was a more frustrating game, but it wasn't really more difficult, just longer.

My overall feeling is that the game is too scripted - that the few decisions you have in the game (which plant to buy, how many resources to buy, how many cities to build) are all limited by each other, and by money, AND by the fact you can't form a really coherent strategy in this game. But you don't NEED a coherent strategy, because the game ramps up so evenly that you'd really need to totally botch the early game to not be close in the endgame.

We played with 2 new players (not gamers). They took a few turns to catch on, but at the end of the game, the scores were 18,17,16,15. Even thought their plays were sometimes suboptimal (they tended to buy a plant almost every turn, even when we advised against it), they ramped up at a similar speed to us, and if they had been wiser to the ways of the game during the first few turns, they would have been neck and neck with us. In one sense it's nice that new players can do so well, but I also get the feeling that this is possible because the game is too scripted.

So I guess I don't see the excitement to this game. Overall, it is very hard to form a coherent long-term strategy, even one that shifts. Moreover, there is little reason to. Normally, you want to get the plant you want, grab the goods the cheapest, and build to as many cities as you can power. If you don't get the plant you WANT, you settle for one that works. The resources are thus a bit more expensive, and maybe you only have enough money to build in one city instead of two. But because you have leftover money, you have a leg-up on the next round, compared to those players who managed to get everything they wanted. At some point, though, you'll get everything you want, and they'll be left out, and the balance will swing back. The decisions are so minimal, and in the service of such a distant, opaque endgame, that I didn't feel like we were playing a game as much as being played by the game. In the end, the four player game doesn't seem any less economization-fiddly than the two player - because the game ramps up so evenly (because it's so "balanced"), the winner is likely to be the player who economized best throughout the game. But my problem is: there is no way to SEE how best to economize. Normally, there is one optimal choice for you per turn. If I happen not to get that choice (power plant or city), should I just save my money and not play out the turn? Seems stupid, but at that point you are only losing ground, as the rest of the "choices" left to you are so minimal that there really is no choice. Overall, the game feels like "Spend money or don't" x 3, repeat.

Honestly, I'm surprised that the game feels this way. Yes, I've only played it 4 player once, but honestly, it was long enough, and with little enough actual strategizing, that I wouldn't want to play it again. I'm trading my copy away, but at least I can feel good that I'm not missing out. I really don't get it, though. I mean, No. 3 overall? I wonder what "expert" Power Grid players are like? I can't see as they could be much different from a fairly novice player. I just don't see the fun in this one - and I do love the other Friedemann Friese games I've played, but I just don't get this one. I'm looking forward to his new game Friday - maybe that will be more up my ally, economically? We'll see...

Reply: Power Grid:: Sessions:: Re: Failure! – Deep wounds inside

emunkki — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 08:08:32 +0000

by emunkki

bluebehir wrote:
In the meta game, you've made it look really bad to buy an early big power plant. You can make that work for you.

I'm not saying it was a bad decision buying an early big power plant (that has worked before and will most possibly work in the future, if the cost is somewhat moderate), but buying two of them was too much, as Mike suggests in the following:

gopher37 wrote:
I think it's a great idea to buy a big capacity plant early on, because you can get a jump on the other players in terms of capacity. Though maybe buying the 2nd big capacity plant before you were fully utilizing the first plant wasn't the best idea, because then you likely can't utilize both of them, and will have a tough time getting cities and resources. You just have to hope that another high capacity plant comes up later when you are ready to buy.

Honestly I think many of my friends are quite bad bidders/decision makers when they have to make a decision quick. In that light I might have a slight (or maybe even a big) advantage.

Our group usually push players toward fast gameplay and discuss the game situation and powers between different players openly.

gopher37 wrote:
I sometimes think of Power Grid like Settlers of Catan - in that it pays off huge down the road to get your city engine up and running as quick as possible, since you can exponentially make money from your cities, leading you to be able to afford better plants and more cities. So likely buying that 2nd big capacity plant set you back in terms of city building and cash flow.

I have to admit that I've never played or even watched Settlers of Catan... :blush:

More info:

I had the plants 8 (1 uranium to 2 cities), 25 (3 oil to 5 cities) and 31 (1 uranium to 5 cities). IIRC, I got the smallest plant for 8 and the bigger plants didn't cost much more than their initial bid.

Oil was relatively cheap during the complete game (I think the most expensive oil bought was 4 electro). For a long time I was the only one with uranium plants, but still the prices were quite high.

I was practically alone in the yellow area even quite long to the stage 2, with next city only costing 6+10, but still couldn't afford it. Maybe I should have done the decision to not produce electricity to any city earlier and I might have had some chances. Without the second 5 city plant I could have bought a new city in no time.

This was our first 4+ player game, and it ended sooner than anyone of us who had played before, thought. Considering this fact I would not try this strategy again in a 6p game, at least not buying two big power plants...

The other fav. ("I") warned all the other players not to let me buy another big factory after I already had 5+5+2. :shake: No way I would have had the money for that, as I didn't even have money for new cities.

Seems like our gaming group does remember some really nasty beatings :devil: a long time, as I still notice that the other players are playing cooperatively against me sometimes – even with the risk of losing a place or two in the final rankings their selves, just to get somebody else winning. Some of them actually even announce aloud that I shall not be given any advantage and I must be blocked...

A new session report is coming from the next game (if I don't utterly fail again and fall to the last place :shake: )

Session: Power Grid:: 5 player session - USA map

gopher37 — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 05:47:45 +0000

by gopher37

We played Power Grid on Saturday, this time the players were me, Matt, Alex, Keijiro and Dort. All of had played before (Alex just needed a little refresher on some of the rules), so all of us knew how the game worked.

Map selection:
We decided on the USA map, since it was 4th of July weekend, and also because the connection costs are lower, so the game goes a little faster as compared to Germany. We blocked out the Northwest since the connection costs are so high out there, just to speed up the game a little.

Opening power plants:
Me – 04 (got it for 6) – built 1 city, starting in Washington (east coast)
Keijiro – 05 (got it for 10) – built 1 city, starting in Norfolk (east coast)
Alex – 07 (got it for 10) – built 2 cities, starting in Chicago (midwest)
Matt – 09 (got it for 9) – built 1 city, starting in St. Louis (midwest)
Dort – 10 (got it for 10) – built 2 cities, starting in Atlanta (south)

The bidding went kind of odd I thought, I wasn’t really challenged for the 04 plant, which in my opinion is the best plant to go for. I was surprised that Alex bid up the 07 plant, oil is really pricey for that plant. And the 05 plant seemed to go for a lot, which was surprising.

Early plants:
The first big plant to come up for auction was the 20 plant (5 cap, 3 coal), I ended up getting it for $25 I think. The 21 plant didn’t end up coming down, but Dort didn’t know that he didn’t have to buy a plant, so he bought the 06 plant for cost. Then the 21 plant ended up coming down, so Keijiro got it for cost. This helped out Keijiro a ton, I thought that he was in the best shape during the early game. I was probably in the 2nd best shape.

Step 1:
I had the 20 plant, so I built 1 city first round (powered by the 04 plant), then 2 next round, then 2 more to get to 5. By now I was completely boxed in on the east coast with nowhere to go, so I just held at 5 cities and didn’t really do anything for about 4 turns, just accumulated cash. Eventually I was able to get the 26 plant (5 cap, 2 oil) for about $31 or so, so that helped out a lot. I then kept powering this plant instead of the 20 plant so that I didn’t exhaust the coal supply.

Keijiro was in the same spot as I was with being boxed in at 5 cities. He was using the 21 plant (4 cap, 2 hybrid) and 11 plant (2 cap, 1 uranium) to power 5 cities. The other guys had a variety of lower capacity plants. Alex eventually also got boxed in in the north at 6 cities. Matt still had room to expand in the west, and Dort in the southeast. Though since Matt had high connection costs, so he couldn’t expand as much. Dort could have built to Miami to end the step 2 stall, but he didn’t build there until a couple turns sitting at 6 cities. By this time I was accumulating a ton of cash sitting on 5 cities basically doing nothing. Dort probably should have built to the 7th city as soon as possible, because he started to get hammered in terms of resource costs since he always bought last. Do you guys agree that he should have built the 7th city as soon as possible since only Matt could have surpassed Dort in terms of triggering Step 2?

Step 2:
When Dort built his 7th city, I was in the 2nd to build spot, and Keijiro was in the 1st to build spot. Keijiro built 6 cities, and then I followed with 6 (I could have got to 7, but wanted to be below him in terms of turn order, since I had the lower power plant number). I had picked up the 28 plant in the meantime (4 cap, 1 uranium), so I was now at 14 capacity. The other 3 guys built about 4-6 cities as well, so we were all around the same spot. Since there was a big Step 2 stall, I knew that Step 3 would arrive quickly.

I was hoping that the Step 3 card would come up soon, because all the 15 cost city spots around me were taken, so I had nowhere else to build to. So unless the step 3 card came up soon, I had nowhere to go. So I sat on 11 cities for 3 turns or so, accumulating cash again. The main person close in terms of capacity was Keijiro, I think he had 12 capacity or so. (with me at 14 capacity).

Step 3:
One key decision was that in an auction plant round everyone was going to pass, but Matt wanted to get the 19 plant (2 garbage, 3 cap), so that Keijiro couldn’t buy out the oil so Matt couldn’t run his oil plant. By doing this though, it allowed Keijiro to buy the 29 plant for cost, then the next card was the step 3 card. So step 3 likely happened earlier than it would have. This allowed me to buy the 31 plant, and then build 4 cities on the 20 cost spot to win the game with 15 cities powered.

If the step 3 card hadn’t been drawn, Matt likely would have built to 15 cities in the west (he was at 11), and then ended the game. I believe that I would have won because I could have gotten to 13 cities, and since I had higher capacity at that point would have won the game, with Matt finishing 2nd with 12 cities. Keijro would have been 3rd I think.

My power plant progression:
04 (2 coal, 1 cap)
20 (3 coal, 5 cap)
26 (2 oil, 5 cap)
28 (1 uranium, 4 cap)
31 (3 coal, 6 cap)

I think that my plant buying went basically perfect. I actually didn’t have to end up buying the 31 plant at the end, because even with only 14 capacity I would have won the money tiebreaker versus Keijiro at the end, I had a ton of cash.

End game plants:
Me – 31 (6 cap), 28 (4 cap), 26 (5 cap) – 15 total capacity
Keijiro – 21 (4 cap), 29 (4 cap), 32 (6 cap) – 14 total capacity
Alex – 33 (4 cap), 28 (4 cap), 30 (6 cap) – 14 total capacity
Matt – 19 (3 cap), 24 (4 cap), 40 (6 cap) – 13 total capacity
Dort – 15 (3 cap), 10 (2 cap), 25 (5 cap) – 10 total capacity

Me and Keijiro were generally ahead in terms of capacity the whole game, Matt started to catch up at the end in terms of capacity. He got the garbage plants, garbage was really cheap in this game. Dort just didn’t seem to get very good luck on the plant auctions, I think being the first to bid every time during Step 1 really hurt him.

Final tally of cities:
Me – 15 cities powered
Keijiro – 14 cities powered
Alex – 13 cities powered
Matt – 12 cities powered
Dort – 10 cities powered

Step 3 clarification question:
During the game a question about step 3 came up – it was pulled during the auction phase. In the rules it says to not replace power plants as they are purchased during the auction phase. Though I found a thread on boardgamegeek that the game designers issued a new revised rule set as of March 2009 clarifying that you do indeed replace plants as they are purchased like normal auctions. This sounds right, it’s too bad that the rulebook that we have is incorrect. So now we know for next time to replace plants like usual even if the Step 3 card comes up during an auction phase.

Strategy
As I play more games of Power Grid, seems like a good strategy is to get a lower number plant on the first auction (04 or 05), build 1 city on the first turn, hopefully in a low connection area, and then hopefully get lucky with the next plant auction to get a high capacity plant since you are last in auction order. Then build cities to match that capacity and hang around there if other people are stalling too, then hopefully buy another high capacity plant, then build to that capacity, etc. And building first or 2nd in step 2 seems to be a huge benefit, to grab land at a cheap price. And for making the final push, if you can pull it off it’s better to build all the cities that you need to win in 1 shot coming from a lower turn order position so that you can get cheap resources and good auction order. Seems like building in large chunks can be beneficial instead of doing piecemeal building. Do these sound like good things to do?

It was another great game of Power Grid!

Reply: Power Grid:: Sessions:: Re: Failure! – Deep wounds inside

gopher37 — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 05:39:53 +0000

by gopher37

bluebehir wrote:
In the meta game, you've made it look really bad to buy an early big power plant. You can make that work for you.

I think it's a great idea to buy a big capacity plant early on, because you can get a jump on the other players in terms of capacity. Though maybe buying the 2nd big capacity plant before you were fully utilizing the first plant wasn't the best idea, because then you likely can't utilize both of them, and will have a tough time getting cities and resources.

Reply: Power Grid:: Sessions:: Re: Failure! – Deep wounds inside

bluebehir — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 05:34:16 +0000

by bluebehir

In the meta game, you've made it look really bad to buy an early big power plant. You can make that work for you.

Session: Power Grid:: Failure! – Deep wounds inside

emunkki — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 03:31:55 +0000

by emunkki

On the Saturday night gaming session we finally got Power Grid on the table again - many of us had waited this moment literally for months.

In our 6 player game we had two newcomers (also a bit new to board gaming in general) "K" and "T", one who had played once, "H", and three who had played many times (me, "I" and "R") and my wife as a spectator.

We used the German map, as we think the US map is not that good and we didn't want to bring any new rules into the game with the Korea/China boards. We also used the Power Plant Deck 2 to make it slightly harder for us who have played PG quite a lot.

Me and my friend ("I") have always been the favorites of any PG game, but this was not brought into public knowledge this time, but we definitely knew what we were getting from each other... After drawing the first round order, we were on the 5th and 6th places, so we got to bid last. What a start!

After explaining the rules to the newcomers, we went on a really fast start. Everybody were starting quite steadily and that lasted for a few rounds.

Then I started my little experiment. I bought a plant that was capable of producing power to five cities, even if I had two cities and couldn't afford to buy more as I bought the plant.

I was already slowly beginning to drag behind, but the big hit was that I went for another 5-city plant, still unable to build my third city! I was really dragging, I barely could buy some resources (:nuclear even if I got the lowest prices. Just after buying the second big plant, I couldn't buy the resources at all - that really made it clear i was going to finish last! At that time I already noticed that the other favorite was quite strongly going for the lead.

While the game went forward, another of the newcomers, "K", kept on wondering how could I be in the last place and lose the game, seemingly sincerely but OH so in her ironic style which made my loss even more hard to take...

I finished finally with 10 cities with a spurt beginning some rounds too late (remember I basically didn't need to buy plants when the auctioning was the rawest) when my friend ended the game with exactly 15 cities. The places 2-3 were tied at 14 cities, "K" finished second, "R" third. Places 4-5 were tied at 12, "H" won "T" by a few electros. A really painful loss for him!

The game lasted a whopping 3 hours plus reading the rules. Most of the playtime I didn't have much choices as I was totally broke and couldn't do many things to change the game course. I still had surprisingly fun watching the game and making fun of myself. I think even my wife was surprised on how well I took the victory... outwardly. I got really deep wounds inside losing to two newcomers and with a gap that big.

I am not afraid of taking PG on the table again next week when we are playing again - revenge is sweet

Reply: Power Grid:: Variants:: Re: Standing Corrected

Karlsen — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 21:50:03 +0000

by Karlsen

zimm20 wrote:
1. New power plants are always added to the end of the futures market rather than keeping the plants in numerical order. This leaves no surprises so you can always plan a head for future plants. The only exception is that plants removed because they are valued less than the highest number of current connections are replaced directly from the draw pile.

Just play the China map where this is a variation for the first 30 odd power plants. The planned economy. Otherwise no, no, no :meeple:

zimm20 wrote:
2. When choosing power plants during phase 2, if the first in turn order doesn't win the auction they initiate, choice for the next plant still passes to the next in turn order. This sequence continues until everyone has purchased a power plant or passed. It allows the leaders to potentially win a more desirable power plant from the future market with out getting stuck or forced to pass because they are constantly initiating the auctions. They need only loose the auction for the first plant they select.

This would help to destroy the self balancing mechanism of the game. I would never do this.

zimm20 wrote:
3. Step two always begins immediately during phase 4.

Which would totally screw over which ever players had already had their go, which combined with your option 2 would mean that you have two variants that help push the leader ahead (assuming you are getting the turn order correct) instead of the design as per the rules which is to peg the leader back.

Interesting, but these changes make it not Power Grid, I would not play them (with the limited exception of the China map as mentioned above).

Reply: Power Grid:: Variants:: Re: Standing Corrected

Ponton — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 21:37:04 +0000

by Ponton

1) On first sight, this seems like no great change to the basic rules (just makes it easier to plan ahead). The only great problem I see, however, is that very good plans come too early into play. The 50, for instance, comes never into play before step 3, and now could enter the game even in step 1. I strongly recommend to play by the rules written.

2) This is part of the turn order design. Do not change this! The leading player is supposed to have the disadvantage to propose plants first and get stuck with not so good ones.

3) This also has a great impact on the game. Usually, you need to think twice if you let step 2 begin by building the 7th city as you'll be the last one to build into the new area next round. Now, with your rule, it's a no-brainer to start step 2 and build some 15 cities right away. Also, the punishment for people who didn't build as many cities earlier or got surrounded by others (due to risky play in the beginning) now completely vanishes as they will get the 15 cities the round step 2 begins, where they usually wouldn't be able to build anything as all cities would be taken.

I strongly recommend to play by the rules written! I know it must be a hard time for you to recognize you've played so badly wrong for such a long time. You now have the chance to correct this. Do not be afraid to stand for your failure to explain the rules to so many people correctly. They'll be happy if you tell them the correct rules now that you know them. I hope you'll have a much greater time with Power Grid than you had now. I'm sure you will.

Reply: Power Grid:: Variants:: Re: Standing Corrected

DaviddesJ — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 20:58:43 +0000

by DaviddesJ

zimm20 wrote:
1. New power plants are always added to the end of the futures market rather than keeping the plants in numerical order.

If I understand this correctly, it's pretty similar in effect to "keep the top card of the draw pile face up" variant that's been proposed before. I never heard much from people trying it, though.

Reply: Power Grid:: Variants:: Re: Standing Corrected

UnknownParkerBrother — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 19:39:02 +0000

by UnknownParkerBrother

Yes, try playing the game as designed a few more times before "correcting" it. It's a pretty good game. :)

#1 is interesting, because some do complain about the luck of the draw there. Good option for those folks.

Thread: Power Grid:: Variants:: Standing Corrected

zimm20 — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 19:27:23 +0000

by zimm20

After years of playing Power Grid with either the same group of people or newbies, I finally had an opportunity to play with a completely different circle of experienced players. During a preliminary explanation of the rules to the one non-veteran, I was surprised to find that I had been playing with many of the wrong rules. I shutter to think how many people I have taught to play the game incorrectly. Anyway, here are the three variations or house rules I always played and I would appreciate any input experienced players may have on them.

1. New power plants are always added to the end of the futures market rather than keeping the plants in numerical order. This leaves no surprises so you can always plan a head for future plants. The only exception is that plants removed because they are valued less than the highest number of current connections are replaced directly from the draw pile.

2. When choosing power plants during phase 2, if the first in turn order doesn't win the auction they initiate, choice for the next plant still passes to the next in turn order. This sequence continues until everyone has purchased a power plant or passed. It allows the leaders to potentially win a more desirable power plant from the future market with out getting stuck or forced to pass because they are constantly initiating the auctions. They need only loose the auction for the first plant they select.

3. Step two always begins immediately during phase 4.

I think I prefer the three variations of the rules with which I have been playing. Although I may propose placing the power plants in numerical order during the bureaucracy phase of the first few rounds of play. The one game I played using the standard rules was so different from the games I normally play for reasons other than the rules difference that I’m probably unable to fairly evaluate the changes.

New Image for Power Grid - Benelux/Central Europe

Moose_Head — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 11:07:51 +0000

by Moose_Head

Power Grid - Benelux/Central Europe: One move left for red to win. Gam...

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Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: Rules in Japanese

ralpher — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 23:32:00 +0000

by ralpher

Yeah, that'd be cool.

Reply: Power Grid:: Reviews:: Re: Choose Your Own Adventure review of Power Grid

princemousey — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:57:05 +0000

by princemousey

Reply: Power Grid:: Reviews:: Re: Choose Your Own Adventure review of Power Grid

Hungadunga — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 05:49:23 +0000

by Hungadunga

Don't forget to add two questions when you get to Phase 3.

Review: Power Grid:: Choose Your Own Adventure review of Power Grid

ragingoptimist — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 03:40:02 +0000

by ragingoptimist

You're walking down the streets of Springfield when you see Mr. Burns and Smithers walk up to you with a copy of Power Grid. Removing from your mind the confusion of how and why you are in a cartoon world inhabited by yellow people, you hear Mr. Burns ask "What is 14 + 20 - 6 + 12 + 9 - 3?"
A) Threeve? My math skills are slightly better than a really smart dog but not quite as good as an average first grader. Go to #1.
B) Clearly 46. Go to #3.
C) Give me a minute... 49, 48, 47, 46! Go to #2.

#1 "Release the hounds!" you hear Mr. Burns bellow. Before being mauled, you know in your heart that you were never meant to play Power Grid. While very well designed, it isn't for everyone. Now about those hounds...

#2 "Do you enjoy games that are math intensive?"
A) Math is the opposite of fun. Go to #1.
B) Not my first choice, but math is OK. Go to #3.
C) Math is my true love, while board games are only my mistress. Go to #4.

#3 "Do you mind tight economic games that require meticulous resource management and excellent long term planning?"
A) I'm allergic to the word economic and I don't know what meticulous means. Go to #1.
B) Uh, sounds alright. Go to #5.
C) Those words sound like poetry to my ears. Go to #6.

#4 "Out of my way!" Mr. Burns rudely pushes past you, having decided that you don't have what it takes to compete with him in building a power plant empire. You wonder if you would have had good time with this game, and decide to try playing it later with Principal Skinner. You might like it, but be prepared for a relatively dry but excellently designed 2 hour game. Its mechanics are nearly perfect, but the theme is not for everyone.

#5 "Would you spend 30-50 bucks for a good board game with solid components?"
A) That's too many dollars for too few electros. Go to #1.
B) I'm not certain this game is worth it. Go to #4.
C) If it's as good as its BGG ranking is, it would be a steal at twice the price. Go to #6.

#6 "Excellent!" says Mr Burns as he presses his finger tips together. "We shall play this "Power Grid." After I destroy you at this incredibly fun game, we shall endeavor to make the life of Friedemann Friese miserable. Green hair! The audacity!" You have a surprisingly enjoyable time, despite the fact that Mr. Burns outbids you with real money during every auction phase and has modified the game board to deliver electric shocks whenever you try to block him in. As for Friedemann, he was never the same...

New Image for Power Grid

BungJon — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:28:20 +0000

by BungJon

Set up and ready to go

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New Image for Power Grid

Taxers — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:22:13 +0000

by Taxers

Camille is camera shy during Power Grid

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Reply: Power Grid - Power Plant Deck 2:: Rules:: Re: Any chance of official guidance on using this deck with the newer maps?

Ponton — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:23:02 +0000

by Ponton

Oops, thanks for clarifying. You're right, in the new deck the 11 is wind power. So, with the new deck maybe use 9 or 10 instead of 11. I don't know it by heart, but one of this might be a nuclear plant.

Reply: Power Grid - Power Plant Deck 2:: Rules:: Re: Any chance of official guidance on using this deck with the newer maps?

Werbaer — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:08:11 +0000

by Werbaer

Ponton wrote:
This is wrong. On the France map you replace the 13 with the 11. You are free to remove the 13 from the game or shuffle it into the rest of the draw pile. The rules suggest you remove it. But the 11 is never removed!

He is talking about the new power plant deck. In this deck, 11 is the first wind power plant.

Reply: Power Grid - Power Plant Deck 2:: Rules:: Re: Any chance of official guidance on using this deck with the newer maps?

Werbaer — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:07:04 +0000

by Werbaer

Barticus88 wrote:
DaveD wrote:
The only change is to remove plant 11 when using France.

If you remove the 11 plant from the new deck in a 6 player game, you are courting disaster. There must be a ninth predetermined plant when playing with six players.

But that's what the rules tell you. I assume with 6, you should include it nonetheless.

Reply: Power Grid - Power Plant Deck 2:: Rules:: Re: Any chance of official guidance on using this deck with the newer maps?

Ponton — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:17:10 +0000

by Ponton

DaveD wrote:
The only change is to remove plant 11 when using France. I don't see why any of the other boards, except China should require any changes, although I have not tried Quebec or ENBW.

English rules here

http://www.riograndegames.com/uploads/Game/Game_226_gameRule...

This is wrong. On the France map you replace the 13 with the 11. You are free to remove the 13 from the game or shuffle it into the rest of the draw pile. The rules suggest you remove it. But the 11 is never removed!

New Image for Power Grid

edmeadows — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:26:44 +0000

by edmeadows

Isiah looks on as Stacie makes her move (she absolutely routed us, pow...

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Reply: Power Grid - Power Plant Deck 2:: Rules:: Re: Any chance of official guidance on using this deck with the newer maps?

Barticus88 — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:33:31 +0000

by Barticus88

DaveD wrote:
The only change is to remove plant 11 when using France.

If you remove the 11 plant from the new deck in a 6 player game, you are courting disaster. There must be a ninth predetermined plant when playing with six players.

Reply: Power Grid:: General:: Re: The World at BGG

Paul65 — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:14:40 +0000

by Paul65

:D 28 today!!! :D
To get to 30 would be cool. :cool:

Reply: Power Grid:: Strategy:: Re: The most youve paid for a power plant (or, the most you got someone else to pay).

tbr4ws — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:02:33 +0000

by tbr4ws

one game online nobody built the 7th city and everybody saved money until the step 3 card came up and a plant went for 114

Reply: Power Grid:: General:: Re: Korea/Germany

Karlsen — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 23:48:54 +0000

by Karlsen

tommynomad wrote:
Yup, my bad for putting this in the expansion's forum. Sorry.
The base game sold here in Korea contains a double sided map, with Korea on one side and Germany on the other.

Fixed that, moved to Power Grid now.

New Image for Power Grid - Benelux/Central Europe

Imploded — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:36:13 +0000

by Imploded

Grandma plays Benelux map

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New Image for Power Grid - Korea/China

Imploded — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:34:01 +0000

by Imploded

Grandma plays Korea map

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Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: Establishing Turn Order or Auctioning Plants...which should come first?

freduk — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:33:07 +0000

by freduk

Eric Brosius wrote:
freduk wrote:
Personally I wish games companies would STOP changing the base game rules between editions or expansions.

It sounds like you want all expansions to be just a new map. That's one kind of expansion, but not the only kind.

Not at all, I like the new card deck too :)
But there's a difference between introducing new aspects of play, and changing the basic rules.

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: Establishing Turn Order or Auctioning Plants...which should come first?

Eric Brosius — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:36:35 +0000

by Eric Brosius

freduk wrote:
Personally I wish games companies would STOP changing the base game rules between editions or expansions.

It sounds like you want all expansions to be just a new map. That's one kind of expansion, but not the only kind.

Reply: Power Grid - Korea/China:: General:: Re: Korea/Germany

Barticus88 — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:53:29 +0000

by Barticus88

russ wrote:
If we're talking about the base game, then I'd have expected "does not have the US on the backside, however, but the Korea map."...!

No. The Korean edition has Korea on the front and Germany on the back. The US edition had USA on the front and German on the back. The German edition has Germany on the front and USA on the back. The French edition has France on the front and Quebec on the back. The Quebecois edition has Quebec on the front and France on the back....

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: Establishing Turn Order or Auctioning Plants...which should come first?

ekh_86 — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:47:16 +0000

by ekh_86

freduk wrote:
Every time I play Carcassonne with new people, we have to decide which version of the rules everyone is happy with. :( Now I'm going to have to do the same thing with Power Grid :angry:

Why? The "new" rules only apply to the EnBW edition. Just treat the "new" rules as you would for any Power Grid expansion map - specific to that map only.

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: Establishing Turn Order or Auctioning Plants...which should come first?

freduk — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:41:01 +0000

by freduk

Personally I wish games companies would STOP changing the base game rules between editions or expansions.
"Making the game easier for new players" is a terrible excuse for fiddling. If a person is intelligent enough to cope with the complexities of a game (in this case Power Grid) then they will have no problem at all with a "turn one only" rule.
Did they not learn from Carcassonne? "How do farmers score?" is probably the most-asked question on the geek (well, ok...). Is this because farmer-scoring is complex? NO! It's because they changed it between expansions, and now people have different copies of the same game, but with different rules.

Every time I play Carcassonne with new people, we have to decide which version of the rules everyone is happy with. :( Now I'm going to have to do the same thing with Power Grid :angry:

Leave The Rules Alone (unless they actually cause a problem)

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: Establishing Turn Order or Auctioning Plants...which should come first?

Eric Brosius — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:59:26 +0000

by Eric Brosius

The rules in EnBW are slightly altered in such a way as to make the game easier to learn. This seems reasonable for a game that people who are not regular gamers might buy.

In the base Power Grid rules, the turn order is determined before the auction, except in the first turn, when it is determined after the auctions. This creates an exception. In EnBW, it is always determined after the auctions.

This creates a new, but as far as I can tell equally challenging, game.

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: Establishing Turn Order or Auctioning Plants...which should come first?

Ponton — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:27:40 +0000

by Ponton

I've asked the same question to 2F-Spiele per mail. They told me this change was meant to make the rules easier for newbies. This way there is no exception for round 1 where the turn order must be adjusted after the auction. Also, it definitely changes strategies when playing with the new phase order. Just try out.

They also told me that veteran players, of course, are free to play the game by the old rules. Also note, that the EnBW rules do not mention to remove power plants from the Market if they match with the number of citis built, and you need to remove 2 plants if no one wants to purchase a plant.

Thread: Power Grid:: Rules:: Establishing Turn Order or Auctioning Plants...which should come first?

Michael Poplawski — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 05:26:13 +0000

by Michael Poplawski

I have a copy of Funkenschlag - EnBW Edition, which not only has a different map than Power Grid (slightly modified Germany & the state of Baden-Württemberg), but also some rules differences.

Something I am wondering about is why EnBW's rules have the Power Plant Auction before Establishing Turn Order.

Can anyone think of why this rule might be different between the two games?

A dilemma I face is whether I should be using the EnBW or Power Grid rules when using the German map, especially playing with English-speakers when I have a copy of the Power Grid rules next to the board.

Anyone here have any thoughts on this?

Reply: Funkenschlag - Flux-Generator:: General:: Re: Spare Flux Genarator?

dinhluong — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 22:19:32 +0000

by dinhluong

I would also really like to get a copy of this card.

Not sure where the line is at anymore or what the going donation is.

Reply: Power Grid - Korea/China:: General:: Re: Korea/Germany

tommynomad — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 21:29:10 +0000

by tommynomad

Yup, my bad for putting this in the expansion's forum. Sorry.
The base game sold here in Korea contains a double sided map, with Korea on one side and Germany on the other.

Reply: Power Grid - Korea/China:: General:: Re: Korea/Germany

russ — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 17:24:50 +0000

by russ

pijll wrote:
russ wrote:
So someone who buys this expansion gets a 2nd Germany map, since they already have the Germany map in the base set? That is ... odd ...

No, I'm pretty sure it means that the Korean base game contains a Korea/Germany board, just like the French base game by Filosofia, Mégawatts, has a Quebec/France map.

If a Korean buys the base game and the Korea/China expansion, they'd have the Korea map twice. I guess the Korean publisher will release a China/U.S. map at some time.

Ah... The original description "The Korea Board Games edition does not have China on the backside, however, but the Germany map." confused me then, as it sounds like describing a change to the Korea/China expansion.

If we're talking about the base game, then I'd have expected "does not have the US on the backside, however, but the Korea map."...!

Reply: Power Grid - Korea/China:: General:: Re: Korea/Germany

pijll — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 17:09:26 +0000

by pijll

russ wrote:
So someone who buys this expansion gets a 2nd Germany map, since they already have the Germany map in the base set? That is ... odd ...

No, I'm pretty sure it means that the Korean base game contains a Korea/Germany board, just like the French base game by Filosofia, Mégawatts, has a Quebec/France map.

If a Korean buys the base game and the Korea/China expansion, they'd have the Korea map twice. I guess the Korean publisher will release a China/U.S. map at some time.

Reply: Power Grid - Korea/China:: General:: Re: Korea/Germany

russ — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 16:55:10 +0000

by russ

tommynomad wrote:
Just saw that my neighbourhood dept. store has ramped up their board game selection to include among others, Funkenschlag. The Korea Board Games edition does not have China on the backside, however, but the Germany map.

So someone who buys this expansion gets a 2nd Germany map, since they already have the Germany map in the base set? That is ... odd ...

Reply: Power Grid - Korea/China:: General:: Re: Korea/Germany

Barticus88 — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 08:48:33 +0000

by Barticus88

pijll wrote:
tommynomad wrote:
The Korea Board Games edition does not have China on the backside, however, but the Germany map.

Ok, it needs a separate entry in the database then!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry:

Thread: Funkenschlag - Flux-Generator:: General:: One available in auction

lorna — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 16:17:17 +0000

by lorna

I've put one up for a benefit auction here http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/43476

Reply: Power Grid - Korea/China:: General:: Re: Korea/Germany

pijll — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 09:50:44 +0000

by pijll

tommynomad wrote:
The Korea Board Games edition does not have China on the backside, however, but the Germany map.

Ok, it needs a separate entry in the database then!

Reply: Power Grid - Korea/China:: General:: Re: Korea/Germany

Paolo Robino — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 09:35:45 +0000

by Paolo Robino

It seems just right. If we Italians want to play with the Italy map, we have to buy the Italian edition ('Alta Tensione') AND the Italy/France expansion.

Thread: Power Grid - Korea/China:: General:: Korea/Germany

tommynomad — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 08:55:14 +0000

by tommynomad

Just saw that my neighbourhood dept. store has ramped up their board game selection to include among others, Funkenschlag. The Korea Board Games edition does not have China on the backside, however, but the Germany map.

FYI

Thread: Power Grid:: Rules:: Rules in Japanese

StevenE — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 05:01:09 +0000

by StevenE

I want to get this game to the table with some friends that are not fluent in English. Does anyone have a Japanese translation of the rules?

Please PM me.

Thank you

New Image for Power Grid

13walker — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 02:11:52 +0000

by 13walker

Custom power plant we made for our friend's 40th birthday. Let's just...

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Reply: Power Grid:: General:: Re: Do you like US or Germany map best and why??

tonetonitonyrussell — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:52:58 +0000

by tonetonitonyrussell

I agree with Barticus88. Germany is great (more balanced than USA). France is a very enjoyable game. For a shorter game, try Benelux. Not a fan at all of the Italy board; connection costs are way too high.

Reply: Power Grid:: General:: Re: Do you like US or Germany map best and why??

Aarontu — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:47:00 +0000

by Aarontu

I prefer the USA side by far. Mostly for the familiarity, but the unbalanced connection costs help make it more interesting.

Reply: Power Grid:: Sessions:: Re: A noob won at power Grid against tournament players

Wraith — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 11:14:22 +0000

by Wraith

Oni Chikara wrote:
That makes sense, I guess I figured that it was modern day, so I wondered why. But if it is a time before they had power that works better.

Beyond that, you also have increasing demand for electricity as cities grow (allowing more connections into cities), advancements in technology (giving better plants as the game goes along), and changes to the availability of resources. There is progress and movement in Power Grid, storywise.

Reply: Power Grid:: Sessions:: Re: A noob won at power Grid against tournament players

Oni Chikara — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 11:00:46 +0000

by Oni Chikara

Thank you all for your responses. This is giving me good ideas for how to structure and what to include in my sessions from now on.

Cities haven't had electricity for all of human history, you know. It's a game about building the first mains power supply that these cities have ever had, not about replacing power that has suddenly run out.

That makes sense, I guess I figured that it was modern day, so I wondered why. But if it is a time before they had power that works better.

You only play with 5 of the 6 areas in a 5- or 6-player game. So one area should have been out of play.

That was my fault for not mentioning that, the southern most region was out of play.

I like this session report too, however, playing in the World Boardgaming Championships means you show up to it. It should not imply that he/she is one of the top players in the world necessarily.

I wasn't implying that he was the best, simply that he plays this game A LOT in training, so he had a very very good idea of what was going on, compared to me who was flying by the seat of my pants.

Reply: Power Grid:: General:: Re: Do you like US or Germany map best and why??

Barticus88 — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 04:57:02 +0000

by Barticus88

locusshifter wrote:
I think that Germany is the better designed map with a better balance overall, as well as a more competitive layout.

Germany is better than USA. France is best of all.

Reply: Power Grid:: Sessions:: Re: A noob won at power Grid against tournament players

Wraith — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 04:43:22 +0000

by Wraith

Oni Chikara wrote:
One of the people that I played with, who is not a fan of the game at all, told me that a big part of the strategy to winning that game is to stay in last for as long as possible and then make a hard push to the finish line.

That's a drastic oversimplification. Yes, there are advantages to being last in the order, and so there's an obvious strategy about being last in the order, but that's not all there is to it. Doing only that might (obviously, considering your report, will) work sometimes, but not all the time. I've won games by knowing when to leap ahead (and I'm not talking about the final push - mean take big monetary gains from the lead then fall back into/behind the pack again).

I am powering cities, that’s cool. But why are they out of power in the first place?

Reply: Power Grid:: Sessions:: Re: A noob won at power Grid against tournament players

wha2do — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 03:15:43 +0000

by wha2do

I like this session report too, however, playing in the World Boardgaming Championships means you show up to it. It should not imply that he/she is one of the top players in the world necessarily.

Reply: Power Grid:: General:: Re: Do you like US or Germany map best and why??

bluebehir — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 02:37:07 +0000

by bluebehir

I was gonna say something similar to Fraser.

I also play the Germany map rather than USA

Reply: Power Grid:: General:: Re: Do you like US or Germany map best and why??

Karlsen — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 23:28:35 +0000

by Karlsen

They are both foreign places to me :cool:

I prefer the German map, it feels more even and competitive.

Reply: Power Grid:: Sessions:: Re: A noob won at power Grid against tournament players

Eric Brosius — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 21:32:24 +0000

by Eric Brosius

Oni Chikara wrote:
We were playing the Germany map in a five player game so everything was in play.

You only play with 5 of the 6 areas in a 5- or 6-player game. So one area should have been out of play.

Reply: Power Grid:: General:: Re: Do you like US or Germany map best and why??

matthewjhoskins — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 21:03:06 +0000

by matthewjhoskins

I like teaching new players on the US map.

Germany is a fun map, with more tension in my experience.

Reply: Power Grid:: Sessions:: Re: A noob won at power Grid against tournament players

Tekkor — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:33:52 +0000

by Tekkor

Good report.

I like Power Grid. I dont play it all the time or anything but its a game we enjoy playing from time to time. Every game doesnt need to have some grand story or narrative to make it interesting. PG is a very "mathy" game and I know that turns some people off. (no pun intended).

Its basically a game where you have to calculate your cash to the dollar for the entire game. Yeah the stay in last until the end strategy is a VERY well known strategy to use but it doesnt always work out. Even from your report...without several doses of luck you would not have won and even so you won by like 1 city powered I think.

Regardless...it is a fun game to play if your playing it with similar skilled gamers. You get one "PG Pro" at the table and the game can be very unenjoyale because they know exactly what to bid on and have all the basic math from hundereds of games locked into thier head...so your typically not going to have an enjoyable game unless you and others just get lucky and spoil his plans.

Reply: Power Grid:: General:: Re: Do you like US or Germany map best and why??

locusshifter — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 19:32:48 +0000

by locusshifter

I think that Germany is the better designed map with a better balance overall, as well as a more competitive layout.

Reply: Power Grid:: General:: Re: Do you like US or Germany map best and why??

Kester — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:57:27 +0000

by Kester

Germany by far. The costly links and uneven distribution on the US map make it a) a bit easier to get screwed during initial placement and b) more likely to hit the dreaded "phase 2 stall". Both of these make the game less fun.

On a related note, I had the misfortune of playing on the China map with the purple region included yesterday. (It has a 4-city area that costs 25 to connect to from the rest of the map, but isn't particularly cheap once you do get there.) Not fun, especially with the already scarce resources.

Reply: Power Grid:: General:: Re: Do you like US or Germany map best and why??

mac_s_1 — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:53:53 +0000

by mac_s_1

I dislike the very high connection costs in the northwest of the USA, therefore I prefer the Germany map. But it's a minor thing, I'll gladly play any map.

Reply: Power Grid:: General:: Re: Do you like US or Germany map best and why??

DarrinWilliams — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:41:15 +0000

by DarrinWilliams

I like the German map because I'm less familiar with the geography. I like learning where the German towns are.
I also think the German side plays a little better.

But I agree, it's definately the "backside".

Reply: Power Grid:: General:: Re: Do you like US or Germany map best and why??

SpieleHolger — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:34:23 +0000

by SpieleHolger

Did you recognize the rule that you can build through other cities without building into that city?

Reply: Power Grid:: General:: Re: Do you like US or Germany map best and why??

Ponton — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:34:21 +0000

by Ponton

I like Germany most, not because I'm living there, but because I think the Germany map is far more balanced than the US map with its very cheap east coast and the very expensive west. Germany has only the Ruhr area that is very cheap, but any other area isn't that much worse.

Reply: Power Grid:: General:: Re: Do you like US or Germany map best and why??

wmshub — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:34:08 +0000

by wmshub

Yes, players who start with more cities close together will do better. That's why you don't want to let only one person start in such an area; usually another player will be in the next city over, and the squabbling then will keep the players from running away with the game.

As for getting trapped by the "one house in a city" rule, you know that you are allowed to route through full cities, right? So you can always build another substation, it just may cost more if you have to pay for several links to do so.

Edit: As for preferred map, we usually play the USA side, just because it's nice to know the cities you are powering. :) Playwise, I have heard some people prefer the German side because it is more balanced, but that isn't a big deal to me, I think the unbalanced link costs can make things interesting.

Reply: Power Grid:: General:: Re: Do you like US or Germany map best and why??

Tanakor — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:33:13 +0000

by Tanakor

I am slightly offended to have my homecountry called "the backside". :p
(Not that the description doesn't fit now and then...)

I admit that I prefer "the backside", because I have a better grasp of the geography.

Thread: Power Grid:: General:: Do you like US or Germany map best and why??

timrichter9 — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:29:02 +0000

by timrichter9

If you don't have access to the expansion maps, do you prefer the USA side of the map, or the backside? And why?
Is it number of players dependent?

I found that in our 1st game (4 player) the person who started in the US South Eastern section was able to build cities quicker.

One thing we noticed was that the rule about not having more than one house in a city in Step 1, really made the "screw your neighbor" plan work well (I was stopped from building cities when I got to 4 since I was pinched between the middle atlantic player and the midwest player).

Session: Power Grid:: A noob won at power Grid against tournament players

Oni Chikara — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:55:18 +0000

by Oni Chikara

So I have now been introduced to the game that is Power Grid. It was ok. It just was not my cup of tea. I am alright with bidding games. As long as that is what the game is, you bid on something and then you take it. I am not a fan of bidding used as a game mechanic. The problem is that I misjudge the value of items, in this case the power plants, and end up quitting the bidding too early or paying too much for something. The best way to fix that is to keep playing a bunch and to do some studying, however, I do not want to get tied down to one game, I like having a range to play with, so that’s out.

One of the people that I played with, who is not a fan of the game at all, told me that a big part of the strategy to winning that game is to stay in last for as long as possible and then make a hard push to the finish line. I took this to heart, I also got the innate feeling from it, that I should be stockpiling money when I don’t need to be spending it, so that is what I did. And it paid off because one of the other people at the table plays in the Power Grid tournament at the World Board Game Championships, and I beat him.

Phase I
We were playing the Germany map in a five player game so everything was in play. I started up in the northwest area, because it was a mid cost area, with a ton of room for growth and very little room for being locked in. The first few turns went off pretty well. I got a simple 2 city hybrid plant. The coal was cheap so I bought that. I then got my hands on a 3 city wind plant at cost, so I jumped on that one. With the wind plant powering that and hybrid taking another two, I was set just to hoard money for the first few turns. Then I managed to get my hands on a 4 oil plant. That really worked out because I was the only one with an oil plant, so oil was cheap. Something that worked in my favor was the fact that I was the only person at the table not fighting for coal, and I was the only one going for oil, so while most of the time I was being out produced I was able to bank money constantly which helped.

Now don’t get me wrong I was being helped, advice here and there, and a lot of this was sheer dumb luck. I’ll get back to that.

Phase II
Phase II started and I was still at the tail end, but it was ok, I was still in good shape, because as I witnessed firsthand, it is better to stay in the rear, just not too far back. This was when things started to get interesting, the luck came in, I was able to snag a 6 city hybrid coal/oil plant. This made things really interesting, again I wasn’t producing the most, and I was still in last, but it was chugging along. So at this point I’m sitting on a 4 city oil, a 3 city wind, and a 6 city hybrid plant, oil and coal. Things were going good, I was building cities out and I was able to read areas where to build things so that I could shut others from coming into my area, and so on. I was doing well, while still keeping 4th or 5th at this point. That’s when Phase III hit.

Phase III
We were only in phase III for about a turn or two. At this point I had 9 cities, in last, and everyone else had 10, 11, 12 and 12 cities. It wasn’t looking good. But at the end of the last phase I noticed a way for a quick expansion through the center western part of Germany for cheap. The other ways were already built or way too expensive. I counted the math to bump me to max production just in case. At this point I had the money. The last round of bidding on power plants came up. It was down to me and one other player. He took a four city nuclear plant because he needed to jump production and fast, he was at 13 powered cities, another had the juice for 14 cities, and the guy in last had enough juice for 13. I had enough juice for 12; the next card to come out was the 5 oil plant. I snagged it up at cost. If it had been anything else, I either would not have had enough money to expand all the way, or would not have had enough production for the big finale.

Conclusion
Again, the luck, in the power plant and being in last place the oil was REALLY cheap. I got enough to power all 15 cities, while everyone else, even with a final push, was only able to power 13 or 14 cities. So I took the game, a first timer beat the pros. People told me good job, and while I had a strategy in mind, without the luck of the draw from the power plant pile I might, and probably would not have won.

So I am a player who did win and am still not a fan of this game. It was kind of fun, but I just couldn’t get into it. There was no story, there was no plot movement. I am powering cities, that’s cool. But why are they out of power in the first place? I guess for me, for as complex as that game is, something about it just didn’t sit right with me. Oh well, I still had a good time, which is the ultimate point of board games, right?

New Image for Power Grid

nastycleavage — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 07:14:15 +0000

by nastycleavage

From left to right the 10, 15, & 20 electro houses

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New Image for Power Grid

josephc4 — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 06:04:18 +0000

by josephc4

Bay Area Games Night - Cafe Express - Webster, TX - Meetup.com

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New Image for Power Grid

josephc4 — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 05:44:57 +0000

by josephc4

Bay Area Games Night - Cafe Express - Webster, TX - Meetup.com

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Reply: Power Grid - Korea/China:: Reviews:: Re: Power Grid Korea/China - Nice twists on an already great game

Tossy — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:46:36 +0000

by Tossy

lengthtoavoid wrote:
Werbaer wrote:
There's no requirement that each player starts in a different region.

or maybe I was correct:

Under "Preparation" -

"The players choose one area per player"

this does change under the exceptions when you have 6 players it seems, where it states that you play in 5 areas only.

Sorry, you're not correct :D As consolation, when I was taught PG, I was taught that same incorrect setup rule. I didn't realize it for probably at least a year or more. :)

Reply: Power Grid:: Sessions:: Re: Introducing Some Newbies

Wraith — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:56:29 +0000

by Wraith

gopher37 wrote:
Sounds like you won right before the game would have completely opened up with the step 3 card being revealed...Maybe someone should have challenged you more in the east coast? Since the rest of them had high connection costs?

I was strongly challenged near the east coast. As I said, Fergie staked out the south-east. He pushed from the south, Nikki pushed from the west, and I would have been unable to build a seventh connection if I had needed to start Step 2 myself. Most of the builds that took me from 6 to 10 connections came just after Step 2 started, when I was able to grab some more connections. I think I had the second opportunity to build connections after the start of step 2, and Fergie was the person who went before me. That let me grab cheap connections in the south-east, because he couldn't buy second connections in the cities where I wanted to go. (He came into the north-east the same way.)

The five connections to end the game mostly took me across the top of the map, just about all the way to the west coast. It cost over 150 Elektros to build those.

In the last full bureaucracy phase, I earned 98 Elektros, and I spent nothing on a power plant or resources on the last turn. I also bought no new connections on the second-last turn, to take last place in the turn order. I was rather flush with money.

Or maybe since they were new to the game they didn't know how much to bid on some of the best plants?

Neither did I. It had been a while since I had played, and I haven't played that many games myself. I honestly thought the 33 plant was just going to increase my income in the mid-game, not wind up being the fifth(?)-highest-capacity plant in play.

Fergie commented that he would have spent at least 70 on a high-capacity plant had one been available in the last turn, but the highest capacity in the current market was only 3 when he had to choose what to auction.

Reply: Power Grid:: Sessions:: Re: Introducing Some Newbies

Wraith — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:38:12 +0000

by Wraith

jp26 wrote:
sounds like you had a good game. Here, do you mean 15 though?
(since you have to build to 15 cities to end a 5-player game)

Yes, you're right. Good catch, and thank you. I probably typed 10 because I was building from 10 cities, trying to get another 5.

Reply: Power Grid:: Sessions:: Re: Introducing Some Newbies

gopher37 — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:13:58 +0000

by gopher37

Nice report!

Sounds like you won right before the game would have completely opened up with the step 3 card being revealed...Maybe someone should have challenged you more in the east coast? Since the rest of them had high connection costs? Or maybe since they were new to the game they didn't know how much to bid on some of the best plants? I think this is one of the hardest things to try to figure out. Since there weren't that many big capacity plants during the game, you timed your bidding on the plants well getting 14 capacity.

New Image for Power Grid - Korea/China

jsper — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 03:12:57 +0000

by jsper

Cover in spanish

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New Image for Power Grid - Italy/France

jsper — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:59:39 +0000

by jsper

Cover in spanish

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New Image for Power Grid - Benelux/Central Europe

jsper — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:22:34 +0000

by jsper

Cover in spanish

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Reply: Power Grid:: Sessions:: Re: Introducing Some Newbies

jp26 — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 23:52:59 +0000

by jp26

Wraith wrote:
I pointed out that I could win immediately if I could build to 10 cities.

sounds like you had a good game. Here, do you mean 15 though?
(since you have to build to 15 cities to end a 5-player game)

Reply: Power Grid - Korea/China:: Reviews:: Re: A Girlfriend's Perspective on: Power Grid - The Korea Map

Karlsen — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 23:14:44 +0000

by Karlsen

solove wrote:
lengthtoavoid wrote:
does no one have love for china? ;)

I prefer the China map to the Korea one. It's really tight.

China's tight? :surprise:

Having played Korea with five and six players I thought it made Italy look like wide open plains :D

I do need to play China again though...

Reply: Power Grid - Korea/China:: Reviews:: Re: A Girlfriend's Perspective on: Power Grid - The Korea Map

russ — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 16:37:35 +0000

by russ

lengthtoavoid wrote:
does no one have love for china? ;)

The need to sort the deck before play is a bit of a turn off for the China map.

Reply: Power Grid - Korea/China:: Reviews:: Re: A Girlfriend's Perspective on: Power Grid - The Korea Map

solove — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 12:30:43 +0000

by solove

lengthtoavoid wrote:
does no one have love for china? ;)

I prefer the China map to the Korea one. It's really tight.

Reply: Power Grid - Korea/China:: Reviews:: Re: A Girlfriend's Perspective on: Power Grid - The Korea Map

JohnBandettini — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 12:29:53 +0000

by JohnBandettini

lengthtoavoid wrote:
does no one have love for china? ;)

A billion or so Chinese people possibily!!!!!!

Reply: Funkenschlag - Flux-Generator:: General:: Re: Is this single card really worth $20 to folks?

dshortdesign — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 07:49:55 +0000

by dshortdesign

maura wrote:
as i told, there are enough official cards out there, so it should be possible for everyone to get one.

I'm not aware of any place that is selling this. Can you enlighten me, please? I would really like one.

Reply: Power Grid - Korea/China:: Reviews:: Re: A Girlfriend's Perspective on: Power Grid - The Korea Map

lengthtoavoid — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 01:51:30 +0000

by lengthtoavoid

does no one have love for china? ;)

Review: Power Grid - Korea/China:: Reviews:: A Girlfriend's Perspective on: Power Grid - The Korea Map

cerenycus — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 00:47:15 +0000

by cerenycus

Power Grid is one of my boyfriend's and my favorite games together. No matter what type of game mood we are in, we always have fun playing this game.

Contents

New game board

Recommended Players

This game is playable with 2-6 players

Setup

Setup is quite similar to the other powergrid games, except this time, there are two different markets you need to set up for. You will place the resources on the 2 resource tracks, and select the regions you will want to play in. Each player is going to receive $50 at the start of the game.

How to Play

There are 4 phases to every turn.

1. Buy a power plant
2. Buy resources
3. Build buildings
4. Power up buildings

Buy a power plant

In the first turn of the game, each player has to buy a powerplant. Once the first powerplant is built, it is optional as to if you want to buy a plant, or not.

The person who is in spot number 1, will go first. Once a player has passed, cannot bid again on this current auction.

Buy resources

This is where things change a little from the original game. Instead of having just one resource board, you will have two that you are able to choose from. North Korea and South Korea. If you choose to purchase from North Korea, you are not able to purchase from South Korea, and vice versa. Resources do not fill the same at the end of the round, so resources in one market may run out faster than others.

The person in the last spot will go first.

Build Buildings

The rules are the same for building, as they were in the previous, nothing has changed.

Power Up

In this part of the game, just like in the previous, you will power up the number of buildings you are able to, depending on the number of resources and houses available.

How to Win

The person who at the end of the game is able to power the most buildings win. Incase of a tie, money will be the tie breaker.

The Good vs The Bad

Different resource markets!

Survey Says

Having different resource markets is my favorite part of this map. You are not able to just rely on the same power plants you play with on other maps. You have to make sure you will be able to get resources enough to power all your buildings. I have found myself purchasin more resources in order to power the next round, and not haveing to worry about the resource market.

I have also found that you don't necessarily always want to be in first position, because there is a chance your resources will all be eaten up alot faster. Overall, a great expansion map to power grid.

Reply: Power Grid:: Sessions:: Re: Powerless in Power Grid

hopelisabeth — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 22:46:51 +0000

by hopelisabeth

Almost a year later and I still remember that night!

Maybe we should play that the next time we play considering the bad storms we had on Wednesday. That would fit in with the current events idea from your swine flu game night thread... oops... I mean, H1N1 virus...
:p

Reply: Funkenschlag - Flux-Generator:: General:: Re: Is this single card really worth $20 to folks?

opks22 — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 16:49:23 +0000

by opks22

maura wrote:
the problem is, if i upload a printable version of the card, everyone would be able to print that card in a professional way.

so, it would be possible, that someone printed thousand cards in a printing house and sell them.

that`s not, what`s the card was made for (money making).

as i told, there are enough official cards out there, so it should be possible for everyone to get one.

You seem to think posting the new art will cause more people to try and sell the card, whereas I believe making the card more accessible will actually discourage resalers of the previous edition of the card. IFrom the sound of your previous posts, that's what you want, so I'm not sure why you are so adamantly against the idea.

Reply: Funkenschlag - Flux-Generator:: General:: Re: Is this single card really worth $20 to folks?

JeffyJeff — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 16:42:06 +0000

by JeffyJeff

maura wrote:
so, it would be possible, that someone printed thousand cards in a printing house and sell them.

that`s not, what`s the card was made for (money making).

Reality check... no one in their right mind would print a 1,000 cards trying to make money... as they clearly wouldn't make money...

2nd... that would be clear case of copyright infringement and not considered "fair use"

However that said... the suggestion to use the spare step 3 card (for those of us w/deck 2) works for me

Reply: Funkenschlag - Flux-Generator:: General:: Re: Is this single card really worth $20 to folks?

maura — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 15:12:20 +0000

by maura

the problem is, if i upload a printable version of the card, everyone would be able to print that card in a professional way.

so, it would be possible, that someone printed thousand cards in a printing house and sell them.

that`s not, what`s the card was made for (money making).

as i told, there are enough official cards out there, so it should be possible for everyone to get one.

File: Power Grid:: PowerOutage Tiles

GamerAtom — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 15:06:25 +0000

by GamerAtom

PowerOutage Tiles for Board Game: Power Grid ]]>

Reply: Power Grid:: Sessions:: Re: Introducing Some Newbies

solove — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 09:55:46 +0000

by solove

Excellent session report.

Session: Power Grid:: Sessions:: Introducing Some Newbies

Wraith — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 09:31:00 +0000

by Wraith

It's been ages since I wrote a session report. Last night we finally had a good enough session to kick me into writing one again.

I've been hosting a fortnightly games night for a couple of months now. Usually attendance hasn't been very high, but four people is enough to get one good game of something, so it's enough. Last night we had five: Nikki, Fergie, Chris, Michael (unexpectedly brought along by Chris and not previously known by me, but certainly welcome) and me. Nikki wanted to start out with a couple of games of Bang, but I've been trying to get Power Grid on the table for ages, so we agreed to start with Bang and then I'd teach the others Power Grid.

It took about an hour and a half for me to bag myself two Sheriffs, so I was getting worried that tiredness would make learning difficult, but the basics of the game are pretty intuitive - the others had no trouble comprehending the need to buy plants, buy fuel and connect to cities in order to power cities - and nobody felt they needed an in-depth explanation of the exact mechanics for churning the plant market, so it was all good. I made sure to told them what triggers Step 2 and Step 3, the end-game condition and the victory conditions, and I pointed out a few tactical considerations. When I mentioned that the 06 plant is often considered a bad initial purchase, somebody immediately talked about the cost of the plant plus the cost of the fuel and how it compares to the income for powering one city, so I could tell they were getting it.

We chose to play USA with the expensive south-west region out of bounds (mostly to keep costs down and speed the game, lest the late start on the new game take us too late into the night).

I wound up purchasing the 03 for 3, as the last to purchase. The others bought 04, 05, 08 and 09, leaving oil rather unloved. (This might have given me an advantage right from the start - it's been ages since I've played, and I honestly don't remember which plants are considered worth bidding up.) That gave me an opportunity to talk about the delicate balance between marking out enough territory to get the builds one needs, and trying to take such a big piece of territory that somebody builds inside of you. I built two cities to make it obvious that life would be very difficult for anyone who tried to build behind me in the north-east corner. Everyone took the hint, and we saw building with hints of aggression moderated by caution. Fergie marked out the south-west corner in a similar fashion to what I had done, Michael pressured him from the east, Nikki pressured me from the east, and Chris build further west than the rest of us, in somewhat more expensive territory but with by far the best options for expansion if the game was a slow one and territory became hard to find.

The next couple of turns saw heavy bidding over eco plants especially (with Nikki taking what was swiftly declared an ethical stance, when she acquired both a green plant and a garbage-burner). I wound up with the 20 (3 coal -> 5 cities), giving me superior capacity to everyone else, but far too short on connections to make full use of it. The price of coal skyrocketed, as so many of us were using it, while those with hybrids saw the oil price steadily dropping. Nikki even got good value out of her garbage-burner, as the price of garbage dropped so low because it was the only garbage plant on the board. Chris had commented at the start of the game that uranium really shouldn't be so expensive because in reality the price of uranium is almost negligible beside the cost of a nuclear plant, and then he saw the game conform to that view, with all the uranium coming up before the first nuclear plant even became available to purchase.

And while this was happening, everybody's eyes lit up. Nikki was just about panting with the adrenaline rush. All the possibilities, all the consequences hit the four new players. We were all trying to wrap our brains around where the game was going to go, and seeing all the knock-on effects of each decision. The four new players were thoroughly hooked. Someone - I think Chris - said now he understood why I had been trying to get the game on the table for so long.

The territorial wars on the board got nasty, with Nikki and Fergie pressuring me and Michael pressuring Fergie. I realised that while the 20 was a great long-term plant, right now it was going to sink me, because I couldn't even build enough cities to trigger Step 2, and there was a real threat of coal becoming simply unavailable to purchase. I managed to buy the 33 (eco powering 4 cities), so that I could sit out the resource purchases. I could power 10 cities, but couldn't come close to connecting to ten cities, so I had to supply to 4 or 5 only for several turns, just saving the coal for when it finally became useful.

Michael became the sole purchaser of nuclear plants. They gave good returns for his resources, but when Step 2 came, he was desperate to upgrade his capacity. His capacity was never going to cut it going forward.

Chris got high efficiency with the 25 and 29, but had trouble getting a decent-capacity third plant to go with them.

Nikki upgraded her garbage plant to the 30, and managed to get to 13 total plant capacity (I don't remember exactly what plants).

Fergie was heavily pressed for space, and while he managed to spread quite well as soon as Step 2 started, he had trouble getting high capacity plants.

And the plant market stalled, with an array of 2- and 3-capacity plants being all that were available for purchase for several turns running. Michael was falling behind, and we all knew he couldn't allow it to continue, so he replaced a 1-capacity plant with a 3-capacity. That let me purchase the 26. I still didn't have the money to connect to 10 cities, let alone the 14 I could power with the combination of plants 20, 26 and 33, but the combination of plants would prove to be the decisive advantage.

It wasn't yet a foregone conclusion. Nikki had 13 capacity and a good plant could give her better capacity than me. Chris had a 6-capacity plant too, and while it would take a big plant to give him the game, four such plants loomed in the future market. The number of connections had continually hovered just below where they would have to be to take an additional plant out of the markets and cause a big plant to drop.

A turn came where I was last to build. I declined, knowing that turn order was vital to me. I needed more than the one city I could build, the one city that would prevent me from having first build next turn, and I needed to prevent anybody increasing their plant capacity beyond mine.

The market twiddle still left a 3-capacity plant as the best purchase. Fergie took it anyway, and I had the option to buy the 31 at cost. I pointed out that I could win immediately if I could build to 15 cities. We did the maths together, and I had the money - but not if I was silly enough to by the attractive but deadly plant that had been offered to me. We called the game at that point, for we all knew the outcome.

I won with my 14 capacity (with resources stockpiled on previous turns - no vulnerability in the resource market at all). Nikki was second with 13 capacity. Chris and Fergie had 11 capacity, I think, both with connections and resources to make use of it, but Chris had a clear lead on money, for he had been well geared for efficiency for quite a while. Michael trailed with a final capacity of 10, I think.

I examined the plant deck. The top two cards were the 11 and the Step 3 card. The top 11 plants had never become available for purchase, and were either below the Step 3 card or in the future market. I had expected to have to replace the 33 eventually - I bought it just to get out of an efficiency jam - but with so many high-capacity plants out of the action, I had bought an end-game plant without realising it.

Chris and Fergie talked about how I had won. They've learnt from their defeat. They'll compensate when next they play. I won't be able to stumble into victory then.

Nikki asked if we could play again, but it was quickly pointed out that it was twenty minutes past midnight and some of us had things to do in the morning. Next time, it was vowed, we will play Power Grid again.

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: My Rules Questions

crambaza — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 08:31:31 +0000

by crambaza

rkuehl wrote:
I beg to differ on this one. I'm pretty sure you don't have to pay that connection cost twice. I don't have the rule book right in front of me but I think I remember reading that. It doesn't make sense to have to build a new connection when you already paid it. Otherwise there is absolutely no reason to leapfrog in the first place if it is going to end up wasting money in the long run.

Ordinarily, you wouldn't build through an empty city. Leap frogging is used to get out of a jam.

It's more like this:

YOUR CITY -- 14 -- CITY WITH NO ROOM FOR YOU -- 12 -- EMPTY CITY

In this case, you would need to build 14 + 12 + 10 to get to the new city, but at least now you keep growing.

When the later phases of the game occur, and room in the middle city opens up for you, you will need to pay the connection back to that city.

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: My Rules Questions

UnknownParkerBrother — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 08:13:41 +0000

by UnknownParkerBrother

Nope, Russ is right. What are you going to do, remember each connection you've used? "I don't need to pay this 12, remember that I already paid that connection 86 minutes ago?"

Each time you build in a new city, you pay the city cost, plus the closest cost of connecting to it from one of your other cities. Period.

The reason you might leapfrog is that it gets you out of a corner when someone tried to cut you off from expanding easily, etc.

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: My Rules Questions

rkuehl — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:10:31 +0000

by rkuehl

I beg to differ on this one. I'm pretty sure you don't have to pay that connection cost twice. I don't have the rule book right in front of me but I think I remember reading that. It doesn't make sense to have to build a new connection when you already paid it. Otherwise there is absolutely no reason to leapfrog in the first place if it is going to end up wasting money in the long run.

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: My Rules Questions

russ — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 23:14:48 +0000

by russ

PETz wrote:
New question.

I leapfrog to another city. I pay 14 + 12 the connection cost + 10 for the city.

CITY --14-- EMPTY CITY -- 12 -- NEW CITY

How much it's going to cost me to build on the EMPTY CITY? Just 10 or 12+10?

12+10. There is no memory of paying for a particular connection in the past. Each time you build a city using a particular connection, you pay the connection cost.

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: My Rules Questions

PETz — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 22:56:18 +0000

by PETz

New question.

I leapfrog to another city. I pay 14 + 12 the connection cost + 10 for the city.

CITY --14-- EMPTY CITY -- 12 -- NEW CITY

How much it's going to cost me to build on the EMPTY CITY? Just 10 or 12+10?

New Image for Power Grid

nastycleavage — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:14:48 +0000

by nastycleavage

7 Player Variant Monopoly hotels turn 6 & 14 markers, and 7th player h...

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Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: My Rules Questions

russ — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:49:12 +0000

by russ

PETz wrote:
Well, this is not a question but I have to say that the manual for this game is simply HORRIBLE.

Yet almost all your questions are very clearly answered in the rules! I recommend seeing the Power Grid FAQ if you find the manual difficult. I think all of your questions have been answered many times in the forums and are also in the FAQ.

Very hard to understand the game even that the overal game experience seems simple. I don't think I'v read somewhere in the manual that we have to put the STEP 3 card on the bottom, the 13 Plant on the top and shuffle the middle plants. Pretty chaotic manual.

Rules page 2 - Preparation - Power Plants wrote:
Remove the »Step 3« card, the ecological power plant number 13, and the summary cards from the card deck, shuffle the remaining power plant cards, and place them face down as a supply stack near the board. Place the »Step 3« card face down under the stack and the ecological power plant number 13 face down on top of the stack. Distribute the summary cards to the players.

1. I have 3 power plants. One plant has coal on it. I but another coal plant and I want to replace my current coal plant (Which has coal on it). The coal on the "destroyed" power plant, where does it go? Can I put my coal on the NEW coal plant that I bought? I can't move my coal to the other plants I have because they are not coal plants.

Rules page 3 - Auction Power Plants wrote:
When a player buys a fourth plant, he must discard one of his other power plants. The player may move resources from the discarded power plant to his remaining three power plants, if they match the resources used by one or more of the retained power plants.

2. A player just bought a plant. I have do draw a new PLANT right? Can that new plant go directly to the "Actual Market"? Basically we have 2 markets. Actual contains the "lower" plants and Future contains the plants in the future that will come, basically it's like a big array of numbers in ascendent order. Right?

Rules page 3 - Auction Power Plants wrote:
Players then immediately draw a new card to replace the card sold and place the new card in the market. They rearrange the power plants in ascending order: the four lowest in the actual market, the four highest in the future market.

4. AT the start of the game, we randomly select the "starting order". In this order everyone of us chooses an area on the map. After that, respecting the same order, we start to auction for plants. After each of us has a plant, we do the "Determine Player Order". Right? Only for the first round ofc.

Determine the areas you will use by any mutually agreeable method. There is no concept of "one area per player". Note that in the 2-player game there are 3 areas, and in the 6-player game there are 5 areas. It is simply a starting configuration.

5. On Determine Player Order. If there is a tie on the houses, do we do a SUM of plants or we just pick the highes plant? Until now we did a sum of the plants.

Rules page 3 - Phase 1: Determine player order wrote:
If two or more players are tied for the most cities, the first player is the player among them with the largest-numbered power plant.

6. I am the player to initiante an auction. I initiate one but I lost it. Can I IMEDIATLY initiate another auction or I'm up for the last? Can I ... let's say as a strategy, Initiate a weak plant, the others buy while I pass, and then I will initiate another auction on another plant?

Rules page 3 - Auction power plants wrote:
When a player other than the player who started the auction wins the auction, the auctioning player may choose a new plant to auction from the actual market.

7. Building - THe first building only costs 10 since there is no "network", right? After that, if I want to do another city, I pay the "connection" cost + the price for the house (10 if I'm the first). I'v read something about "leapfrog" something like that. What is this?

Yes. And leapfrogging would be paying several connection costs to build in a city several cities away from one of yours, instead of an adjacent city.

8. I can build as many cities I can per round, right?

Last sentence of page 4 - Building wrote:
A player may connect to any number of new cities in a round, as long as he can pay the building and connecting costs.

9. Can a player build more than the "ending cities limit"? For example in a 5 players game, can a player build 17 cities and then ... Electrify all of them for a greater score?

Sure. Except in the 2 player game, since the "ending cities limit" equals the total number of cities in play.

Reply: Power Grid - Korea/China:: Reviews:: Re: Power Grid Korea/China - Nice twists on an already great game

UnknownParkerBrother — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:46:03 +0000

by UnknownParkerBrother

That's in the "choosing which areas will not be used in the game" section of the rules.

Reply: Power Grid - Korea/China:: Reviews:: Re: Power Grid Korea/China - Nice twists on an already great game

lengthtoavoid — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:52:07 +0000

by lengthtoavoid

Werbaer wrote:
There's no requirement that each player starts in a different region.

or maybe I was correct:

Under "Preparation" -

"The players choose one area per player"

this does change under the exceptions when you have 6 players it seems, where it states that you play in 5 areas only.

Reply: Power Grid - Korea/China:: Reviews:: Re: Power Grid Korea/China - Nice twists on an already great game

lengthtoavoid — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:42:25 +0000

by lengthtoavoid

really? well I suppose I have been playing power grid wrong for years! Everything is indeed a trade off..at least in applying strategy. What I mean is that if you take the same region you are are in direct competition for quite a while, at least until someone has 7 cities. I usually play PG with 3, and none of us have ever chosen the same area.

food for thought.

Reply: Power Grid - Korea/China:: Reviews:: Re: Power Grid Korea/China - Nice twists on an already great game

Werbaer — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:23:40 +0000

by Werbaer

There's no requirement that each player starts in a different region.

Reply: Power Grid - Korea/China:: Reviews:: Re: Power Grid Korea/China - Nice twists on an already great game

lengthtoavoid — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:02:30 +0000

by lengthtoavoid

because if they choose that's all that's left. I doubt they would "choose" it freely. My statement is applicable to a full table.

Reply: Power Grid - Korea/China:: Reviews:: Re: Power Grid Korea/China - Nice twists on an already great game

Werbaer — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:06:01 +0000

by Werbaer

lengthtoavoid wrote:
This is not the result of the board being anything different that usual for power grid: easy to start up huge builds in one or two regions, mediocre in others, and grueling in at least one for the final player to take.

Why should the final player start in that region?

Reply: Power Grid - Korea/China:: Reviews:: Re: Power Grid Korea/China - Nice twists on an already great game

lengthtoavoid — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:16:04 +0000

by lengthtoavoid

From what I recall, China wasn't balanced in terms of cost at all. It had a bleak end of the board to the far east that was riddled with expensive connections all around.

This sounds more or less like the game this user played had players progressing pretty relative to each other. This seems like it can happen if players play it safe and slowly obtain plants and don't progress quickly with building/expanding.

This is not the result of the board being anything different that usual for power grid: easy to start up huge builds in one or two regions, mediocre in others, and grueling in at least one for the final player to take. I wouldn't say China was my favorite board but it was not totally unsatisfying.

Plus: you can't get Korea without it! :p

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: My Rules Questions

rkuehl — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 07:07:23 +0000

by rkuehl

1.You can move around resources how you wish so long as you don't go over the 2x limit on a given powerplant. ie plant that burns 3 coal can only hold 6 coal

2. There is a natural movement of powerplants from the pile to the future market to the actual market. Since they are shuffled there is not ascendant order per se, but since the largest powerplant on the bottom row is removed when auction is finished there are times when really big powerplants get to the top row to stay. This process keeps things ascending in a particular way for the most part but definitely not the norm.

3.Reread the auction section about the plants. Just think of the auction as having 8 positions 1-8. 1-4 are the actual plants you can buy and pick from when putting something up for bid. When something is removed, everything slides over one position and the new plant goes on the end.

4. Correct. Soon afterwards though it is based on number of cities with the highest powerplant being the deciding tie breaking factor.

5. It is solely a matter of the single highest plant. If I have a 23 adna 12 and my friend (enemy #1) has an 18 and a 17, I would be behind him in buying resources, and behind him in building new "houses". I would be before him in powering plants and before him in initiating auctions.

6.When you initiate you aren't passing and obviously can't pass. You place the initial bid. If someone else buys, though you do initiate another one like you said. Just be careful though. Definitely don't assume that someone will buy the weak plant because if you think it's weak why would someone else want to buy it. It's all about risk assesment. You have to plan for the fact that someone may not buy it and you'll be stuck with it. In that case you will wish you hadn't picked a weak power plant.

7.Leapfrogging is bypassing a city to get to another. In that case you would pay 2 connection costs and then the 10 or more for the city. You are not required to build in that middle city and later on you won't have to pay that connection cost again.

8. As many as you want but slow and steady is generally better. The money you spend up front for a couple more cities and their connection cost is money you can't spend on a fancy new powerplant the next round. Chances are if you have enough to buy a lot more cities you have passed on a power plant that round and should just save that money to get the plant you want the next round.

9.Obviously being able to power more is better but the thing to keep an eye on is how much everybody is able to power and what resources they are using. Remember, since you are reaching that city limit first and obviously have more cities than everyone else, you will be going last in purchasing resources. If you spent too much trying to buy more cities and then get to where there may not be enough resources available, or they cost more than you have, you fall victim to your own power hunger and will lose the game. Money management affects your decisions a ton in this game. Keep it simple.

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: Quick auction Q:

rkuehl — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 06:39:11 +0000

by rkuehl

Yeah, and when you're the very first person putting something on auction and the plant that you really want won't be on that top row for at least 2 purchases you really might be biting a bullet putting something on auction. Lots of "risk assessment" going on with the auction process.

Reply: Power Grid - Korea/China:: Reviews:: Re: Power Grid China – A Different Experience

Tossy — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 03:07:47 +0000

by Tossy

hancock.tom wrote:
This is just like Friedeman's decision not to power the 51st state of Canada on the US map, since they all live like eskimos up there with no running water or electricity. No one got up in arms about that.

It's the PG "USA Map", not PG "North America Map"... which is probably why Canada wasn't included.

Reply: Power Grid - Korea/China:: Reviews:: Re: Power Grid Korea/China - Nice twists on an already great game

Tossy — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 03:01:33 +0000

by Tossy

gregor1863 wrote:

It is kind of neat how the designer emulated a socialist society, as throughout the game if things play out as they should everyone should be just about equal in terms of play capacity, cities owned, and cash.

If this is true, that sounds like it would make a terrible game.

Can anyone else comment on whether this is how China tends to play out?

Reply: Power Grid:: General:: Re: Screens to hide money?

Tossy — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 02:13:15 +0000

by Tossy

I didn't realize people played with secret money! We've already played with open money. Not just visible to others, but you could ask another player how much money they had (and they'd tell you) so you could plan appropriately. Definitely allows for more planning and analysis.

Secret money would be totally different, and yes, probably make games go a bit faster. I'll definitely have to try it!

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: Quick auction Q:

gopher37 — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 21:37:39 +0000

by gopher37

mark_biggar wrote:
This happens all the time. The problem with being the plant chooser in the auction is that you have to make an initial bid when you choose. Assume a 4 player game and suppose that there are two bad plants on the market, two middlish plants and the lowest plant in the futures market is a really good one. Either middlish plant would be okay for you but not as good as the really good one. So you put one of the middlish plants up for auction with a minimum bid hoping someone else will buy it and the really good plant will fall into the available market and you can get it next. But, a lower value bad plant is drawn. So you try again with the other middlish plant. and again a bad lower value plant is drawn. Now you pass because if you put up one of the four bad plants the other player will stick you with it and will likely reap the windfall of that really good plant for cost. Oh and if they decide to stick you with one of the middlish plants, you get an okay plant for your minimum bid.

This is one of the hardest things to know what to do in Power Grid, knowing when to put a plant up for bid hoping another player bids on it, allowing you to possibly get a chance at a great plant falling from the future market.

Sometimes it happens, other times it doesn't. So I've learned that if you put a bid on a plant, you better be okay with taking if if no one else bids. Otherwise, better to just wait a round and try for one next round.

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: Quick auction Q:

mark_biggar — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:07:12 +0000

by mark_biggar

This happens all the time. The problem with being the plant chooser in the auction is that you have to make an initial bid when you choose. Assume a 4 player game and suppose that there are two bad plants on the market, two middlish plants and the lowest plant in the futures market is a really good one. Either middlish plant would be okay for you but not as good as the really good one. So you put one of the middlish plants up for auction with a minimum bid hoping someone else will buy it and the really good plant will fall into the available market and you can get it next. But, a lower value bad plant is drawn. So you try again with the other middlish plant. and again a bad lower value plant is drawn. Now you pass because if you put up one of the four bad plants the other player will stick you with it and will likely reap the windfall of that really good plant for cost. Oh and if they decide to stick you with one of the middlish plants, you get an okay plant for your minimum bid.

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: Quick auction Q:

asmiles — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:01:00 +0000

by asmiles

It's fine as long as it isn't the first auction of the game. On the first turn, everyone is required to buy a power plant.

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: Quick auction Q:

Preacher — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:58:16 +0000

by Preacher

Thanks, all. I thought that was ok, but wanted to make absolutely sure.

Ricky

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: Quick auction Q:

cferejohn — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:55:45 +0000

by cferejohn

Yep, that's fine. Of course, now the first player will not be getting a new plant during this auction round...

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: Quick auction Q:

solove — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:46:36 +0000

by solove

Yes, that is absolutely fine.

Thread: Power Grid:: Rules:: Quick auction Q:

Preacher — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:37:01 +0000

by Preacher

Hi, all. I was just thinking about this one...Let's say that the first player puts up a plant for auction and another player buys it. So, the first player puts up another plant for auction, and again, another player buys it. After that purchase, instead of putting up another plant for auction (or buying one outright in a 3p situation), the first player decides to pass. I assume that that is ok...?

Thanks in advance,
Ricky

Reply: Power Grid:: Sessions:: Re: 4 player session - 3rd time playing

gopher37 — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:09:24 +0000

by gopher37

Now that you guys mention it, you are all correct, I should have stayed lower with less cities and let the game go one more round.

If I had done it over again (if it was earlier in the night and I didn't want to go home), I would have stayed at 14 cities on the last turn and not built any, so that the only person I would be in front of would be Matt, since I have the higher power plant number with the 50 plant.

Keijiro would then be in the 1st position, John in 2nd, me in 3rd, Matt in 4th.

Then entering the auction phase the money situation would look something like this:
Me - $239, 14 cities
Keijiro - $193, 16 cities
John - $134, 15 cities
Matt - $149, 14 cities

So I was in the best shape in terms of money and turn order it seems like.

I would pick the 7 cap coal plant, since I am buying resources 2nd I would be able to buy resources for it. I don't think Keijiro would be able to buy this plant, because since he is buying resources last likely the coal would be completely bought out by then (Matt and John would buy it out I think). I would have had $97 to bid on this plant, I think this would have been enough to get it.

I did the calc this way:
estimated $42 for resources (3 oil at 7, 3 coal at 7)
estimated $100 for 4 cities (it would likely have been even cheaper than this, unless Matt built over onto where I was going to build).
$97 left over for bidding on plants

This would get me to 18 cities, and the victory, since no one else would be able to get above 17 cities because of the max capacity available for auction would be the 35 plant. I guess now I know to look out for more possibilites coming to the end game.

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: My Rules Questions

Barticus88 — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 07:11:38 +0000

by Barticus88

PETz wrote:
6. I am the player to initiante an auction. I initiate one but I lost it. Can I IMEDIATLY initiate another auction or I'm up for the last?

It is on the same player to initiate another auction.

PETz wrote:
Can I ... let's say as a strategy, Initiate a weak plant, the others buy while I pass, and then I will initiate another auction on another plant?

Yes, but you start the auction by bidding the plant number or higher. If your opponents are smart they will leave you with the weak plant.

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: My Rules Questions

PETz — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 04:14:15 +0000

by PETz

Thanks guys for your help.

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: My Rules Questions

herendil66 — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:00:04 +0000

by herendil66

I'm pretty much a newcomer to Power Grid as well, but my best recollection is that:

1. If you have no other Coal/Mixed resource plant to shift your coal resources to before the new plant is placed then you lose them.

2-3. Yes, if the new plant drawn is a lower number than the current Plants in the Futures market, it slots into the Actual market, e.g., 17 between 14 and 22 in your example.

4. Correct. The remainder of the 1st round is played using only the Power Plant ranking to determinine Player order.

5. I believe highest plant is the tie-break after number of cities.

6. Yes, if you auction a plant and do not win it, then you auction the next plant, unless you pass the right to AUCTION. If you pass on offering an auction, then you you are done for the Plant auctions that round.

7. If you cannot build in a city due to Phase/Number of buildings, then you can pay connection costs to that city plus the connection cost to the next available city to 'leapfrog' build there. But if you leapfrog, and then wish to return to the skipped city, you pay the connection costs back a 2nd time.

8. I believe so. E.g., I won my 2nd game with a 7-city build as last player, to finish 1-powered city ahead of the others (I only powered 12 cities, but they only had 11 cities).

9. The round in which at least one player builds the limit number of cities there is no (5) Beaurocracy - instead each player completes (4) building what they wish to, and then all players compare to see who can power the most cities, but they do not collect the cash for doing so. Cash in hand is the next tie-breaker, so it is possible for two players to be tied on cities powered, and the one who got there with the most cash left over would win in that case. (Which is how I won my 1st game of Power Grid) I think most cities in network is the 2nd tiebreak if players also have the same amount of money.

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: My Rules Questions

coolpapa — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 02:57:55 +0000

by coolpapa

To clarify on 6:

If it is your turn to start an auction and you pass, you are out of the auction and can't buy a power plant this turn.

If it is your to to start an auction and someone else ends up winning the plant you bid on, it is your turn to start another auction, and you either do that or pass immediately. The person who bought the plant already is out of the auction this turn.

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: My Rules Questions

sbauer9 — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 02:53:44 +0000

by sbauer9

1. Resources can be transferred to the plant just bought or any other plant that can hold it, capacity is twice there cost to power. If there is excess it is lost.

2. After a plant is bought a replacement plant is drawn and placed in numeric order so it can go in either the current market or the future market depending on it's value. So if the lower row contained 12-14-22 and the 17 got drawn the new row would be 12-14-17-22.

3. Yes, same as above.

4. Yes, you use the random order until every player had purchased a plant and then the turn order is redone. In future rounds the turn order is determined at the end of the previous round and hold for the rest of the round.

5. Highest plant

6. Yes, you can and you must either start a new auction or pass and not buy a plant this turn. To be clear the replacement plant is drawn before you start your second auction. You can place something up for bidding hopping you lose and get to bid on a different plant but if no one else bids you will be stuck with it. It can also happen the a plant you want even less gets drawn to replace the one just bought.

7. Yes, first is 10. Other are the connection cost plus the city cost (10 for first plant in the city). Leap frogging is bypassing one city to connect into a farther city usual because the closer city is full but it is not required to be full. For example you are connecting into New York an Buffalo is already full by opponents plants. You could pay to connect into Detroit by paying 8(New York to Buffalo) + 7 (Buffalo to Detroit) plus 10 for connection cost.

8. Yes, as many as you can afford

9. Yes you can build as many as you can, the winner is the player who powers the most cities on the final turn so if you can build more than anyone else and can still power them you can win. Generally you should not build more than you can power as it will cost you money which is the tie breaker. If it can stop a rival from building more cities than you that they can power though it could be worth it. It is also possible to build to the victory condition not being able to power them all but able to power more cities than anyone else to win.

Glad to help, enjoy the game.

I am way to slow.

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: My Rules Questions

ColtsFan76 — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 02:52:10 +0000

by ColtsFan76

1. If there is room for it, yes you can transfer it between plants.

2. It goes in order so it might go in the current market or it might go to the future market.

3. Goes after the 14 and the 31 goes up to the future market.

4. Right, first turn you adjust things because everyone is tied at that point.

5. Highest single plant.

6. Yes.

7. Yes, the first house is just 10. The next one is the connection cost and then 10. "Leapfrogging" is paying two or more connection costs to place a house in a city that is not-adjacent to your current city. There is no such thing as "blocking" in PG but you may be able to price them out and prevent them from placing another city becuase they would have to string together too many connections that cost more than they have.

8. If you have the money, yes.

9. Yes.

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: My Rules Questions

ed95005 — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 02:50:49 +0000

by ed95005

Regarding 6, the answer is yes. If you lose the auction, you can select another plant and put it up for auction.

Regarding 7, if there are three adjacent cities A-B-C, you can bypass B and connect A to C by paying the A-B connection cost + the B-C connection cost + the building cost.

Enjoy!

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: My Rules Questions

mcbs — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 02:48:25 +0000

by mcbs

I use this guide by zefquaavius

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/file/download/1ndb7jh9rx/Power_...

It really helped with all the rule questions we had.

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: My Rules Questions

Born-of-Ashes — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 02:45:27 +0000

by Born-of-Ashes

1. Yes, you may move resources as long as the receiving plant has enough room and they are the matching type/

2/3. A new plant goes wherever it falls in the order whether that be the current or future market.

4. That is correct.

5. No, just whoever has the highest single plant.

6. No, if you pass on initiating an auction you cannot bid or purchase a plant that turn. The active player may continue initiating auctions until they have one or pass.

7. Yes. "leapfrogging" means you don't have to connect to a city that is adjacent to one you have a house in. As log as you pay the connection and building fee, you can build wherever you want (still following the limits for the current step of course)

8. Yes, as many as you can afford.

9. yes

Thread: Power Grid:: Rules:: My Rules Questions

PETz — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 02:28:52 +0000

by PETz

Hello,

I bought Power Grid for a friend and ... today we had the second play.

We did some mistakes on the frist play and I still have some questions.

Well, this is not a question but I have to say that the manual for this game is simply HORRIBLE. Very hard to understand the game even that the overal game experience seems simple. I don't think I'v read somewhere in the manual that we have to put the STEP 3 card on the bottom, the 13 Plant on the top and shuffle the middle plants. Pretty chaotic manual. Anyway...

These are my questions. I hope I can remember all our problems.

1. I have 3 power plants. One plant has coal on it. I but another coal plant and I want to replace my current coal plant (Which has coal on it). The coal on the "destroyed" power plant, where does it go? Can I put my coal on the NEW coal plant that I bought? I can't move my coal to the other plants I have because they are not coal plants.

2. A player just bought a plant. I have do draw a new PLANT right? Can that new plant go directly to the "Actual Market"? Basically we have 2 markets. Actual contains the "lower" plants and Future contains the plants in the future that will come, basically it's like a big array of numbers in ascendent order. Right?

3. For example, The round ends and the Highest Plant (the 4th plant on the future market) get's putted on the END of the draw pile. The new plant that I draw is a 17 let's say. On the Actual Market I have: 12-14-22-31. Does that 17 go after 14 or it goes in the Future Market?

4. AT the start of the game, we randomly select the "starting order". In this order everyone of us chooses an area on the map. After that, respecting the same order, we start to auction for plants. After each of us has a plant, we do the "Determine Player Order". Right? Only for the first round ofc.

5. On Determine Player Order. If there is a tie on the houses, do we do a SUM of plants or we just pick the highes plant? Until now we did a sum of the plants.

6. I am the player to initiante an auction. I initiate one but I lost it. Can I IMEDIATLY initiate another auction or I'm up for the last? Can I ... let's say as a strategy, Initiate a weak plant, the others buy while I pass, and then I will initiate another auction on another plant?

7. Building - THe first building only costs 10 since there is no "network", right? After that, if I want to do another city, I pay the "connection" cost + the price for the house (10 if I'm the first). I'v read something about "leapfrog" something like that. What is this?

8. I can build as many cities I can per round, right?

9. Can a player build more than the "ending cities limit"? For example in a 5 players game, can a player build 17 cities and then ... Electrify all of them for a greater score?

THanks

New Image for Power Grid - Power Plant Deck 2

jsper — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 22:47:19 +0000

by jsper

Spanish edition by Edge

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Reply: Power Grid:: Sessions:: Re: 4 player session - 3rd time playing

gopher37 — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:41:40 +0000

by gopher37

Thanks for all the tips everyone!

I was thinking about buying the 09 plant as my first plant, I guess the only reason I didn't buy it is that I would be placing last. But like you say, that could be a good thing because then I get to see where everyone else places their city. I might consider buying this one next time. I really only powered the 03 plant once, so it did serve it's purpose by letting me place first on the board. (and it allowed me to be 2nd to last on the 2nd turn as well, because Matt didn't buy a city on the first build phase).

Glad to hear that my 15 plant purchase was an okay purchase, I wasn't sure about that one.

If it had been earlier in the night, I likely would have not built to 17 cities, and waited until next turn to try to get to 18 or so (buy buying the 5 cap oil plant or the 7 cap coal plant). It does seem that I would have had a good chance of getting either first or 2nd if it had gone 1 more turn because of what you guys said about being more efficient with resources using the 50 plant. I only would have had to buy 3 oil, and potentially 1 oil or 3 coal for one of the other plants that I would have bidded on at auction.

I guess I am always learning, really appreciate the tips here!

Reply: Power Grid:: Sessions:: Re: 4 player session - 3rd time playing

Karian — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:32:49 +0000

by Karian

I'm wondering why you didn't take plant 9 in stead of plant 3 when buying your first plant. There are offcourse some advantages and disadvantages for both,

I'm not an experienced player, so I'm not saying it was the wrong choice, but my feeling is that taking the 9 is the better option. I don't see any problems with buying the resources for it, The only negative part I see is that you are last with starting your city, but on the other hand, you have a clear view about the intentions of the other players, and can choose accordingly. At thaty time, you can also influence the turn order for next turn.

Reply: Power Grid:: Sessions:: Re: 4 player session - 3rd time playing

agius1520 — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:27:32 +0000

by agius1520

I've played over 100 games of powergrid and usually do fairly well, most of what you did seemed fine.

Buying the 15 coal seemed fine to me for a third plant, it really depends on the coal market at that point and other possible plants, you rarely get a 5 capacity plant early (except for the 20) and buying the 30 too early will kill you off.

Also, since your second plant was the 21, the market started high so was likely to fissle out and lots of low plants come out so better to get the best one and ride out the turns while lots of low plants stay in the market that no-one wants.

gopher37 wrote:

Thoughts for next time/questions:
After playing 3 times now, I’m starting to see some strategy tips emerge:
-always try to buy power plants that are increasing in capacity number (did this in most regards, except for the 15 plant)

Not always, if in your example where high plants come out early, it can sometimes be necessary to then buy a lower plant to keep you going through to step 2 on economical plants.

gopher37 wrote:

-better to have less cities and a better turn order if at all possible as long as the building route that you want to take likely will stay open (otherwise you might want to just take that route)

thats mostly true, depends what fuel you need and how in demand it is as you don't want to miss powering or overpaying for fuel compared to others. If you have all the fuel and plants you need for the moment, rushing ahead and buying up cheaper cities and powering more cities than others is good.

gopher37 wrote:

-if at all possible try to build first for the stage 2 land rush (I did accomplish this)

Thats the option i prefer but you need to assess the situation, if theres lots of cheap land and you can comfortably survive being in the lead and making good profit then forcing step 2 can work for you, or if other people are running plants at a better profit than you and have no intention of starting step 2 then you need to force it or other players will let you slowly decay from increasing fuel costs and worse profit each turn.

If you are in a comfortable 5/6 city position and have small efficient plants, it can be better riding out step 1 with a low city count, then when step 2 hits, you rush out.

gopher37 wrote:

-don’t build cities you can’t power, only hurts you for turn order

Early in the game your money is better spent on new plants and buying up resources when they are cheap so avoid over buying cities except on the very first turn to get a few cheap locations to get your foot on the board if you own a plant that only powers 1 city (except if that plant is the 9 as you'll have probably built last). Never buy the 6, except with Italy where garbage is cheaper.

Later in the game, you may want to grab some key/cheap cities, especially if lots of lower power plants are coming out while you have more money and then when better plants come out you only need to worry about them and you would have hopefully got cheaper cities and a better network as a result

Also, many a game has been won by an early finish with more cities than you can power if you can still power more than anyone else, i've seen this done with even only 11 or 12 cities powered finishing at 17 in step 2. But it's risky to buy more than one or two more than you need to finish the game or you could easily lose on money.

gopher37 wrote:

Did I make the right move by placing in the North (I started at Hamburg)? If the whole board is open (you are first to place), is there an optimal city location to start with for the Germany or US map?

As long as you have some cheap areas to build in that seem secure (people can always jump in them but usually at a high price to them and screw you both up), also you need some long term cheap buildings to get to, most maps are relatively balanced but depending on the areas you keep in the game, some areas of the board can be connected by just one plant and you can easily get blocked from getting to another area without a high cost so bear that in mind.

On USA, just avoid the far west as a starting position, building in the middle and expanding north west works, i like to build between the middle and the East and leave yourself with lots of cheap options for the start and later in the game on both sides.

gopher37 wrote:

Anyone have any other thoughts on what I could have done better to further improve my position this game? I was happy with 2nd place, and it just came down to strategy of building the 16th or 17th city between me and Keijiro at the end.

The biggest mistake was ending the game early, you had the 50 plant, if you're going to buy that, you need to use it in as many turns as possible as you will make a lot more profit than anyone else and less likely to be bought out of fuel on the other plants.

Don't feel bad, i often do badly late at night as i can't be bothered anymore and would rather sleep than compete.

You should have stuck on 16. You were still likely to be in the top 2 if you got to power 17 cities on the next turn as it sounds like not many power plants were left for everyone to improve on 16 and with a better money and city position than most players, you could afford to bid higher for the plant you needed.

And considering you've not played that many games, i think your strategy built up so far is good.

Reply: Power Grid:: Sessions:: Re: 4 player session - 3rd time playing

Striker511 — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 11:39:38 +0000

by Striker511

Nice sessions report - glad you had fun!

gopher37 wrote:
Interesting way to block off regions not in use:
You guys on here probably already do this, but Matt came up with the idea of using another color’s houses to block off the connection number to the regions not in play (instead of the actual cities not in play). That way you can’t even see the connection number, and don’t even think about trying to connect there. It worked well, something we will do in future games.

We usually do this as it makes sense and also helps to eliminate lines of 'is that in this zone or that one..'

Cheers!

Reply: Power Grid:: Sessions:: Re: 4 player session - 3rd time playing

JeVo — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 11:21:52 +0000

by JeVo

three times played and already a Power Grid microbadge.
way to Go !!!

JeVo

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: How secretive should Power Grid be?

tongalad — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 09:30:12 +0000

by tongalad

Freudian slip? Is that worn under the Freudian Skirt?

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: How secretive should Power Grid be?

Weloi Avala — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 08:47:23 +0000

by Weloi Avala

Heya,

Cheers! So... secret money it is!

-M.

Session: Power Grid:: Sessions:: 4 player session - 3rd time playing

gopher37 — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 06:43:25 +0000

by gopher37

We played Power Grid for the 3rd time on Sunday night, the 4 players being Me, Matt, John, and Keijiro. It was Keijiro’s first time playing, and the rest of us had played it twice before. After going through all the rules with Keijiro, he seemed to catch on quick (way quicker than the rest of us caught on). Generally they say that you should only go to 7 cities if it’s someone’s first time playing, but we just played right through to 17 cities and everything turned out fine.

Map selection:
We played the Germany map, since we had played the US map twice before. We all noticed how much higher the connection costs are on the Germany map as compared to the US map. We took out the Southeast and South regions of the board (the one’s with the highest connection costs it seemed like).

Interesting way to block off regions not in use:
You guys on here probably already do this, but Matt came up with the idea of using another color’s houses to block off the connection number to the regions not in play (instead of the actual cities not in play). That way you can’t even see the connection number, and don’t even think about trying to connect there. It worked well, something we will do in future games.

Opening power plants:
Me – 03 (got it for 3) – built 1 city, started in Hamburg (north)
Keijiro – 04 (got it for 9) – built 2 cities, started in Dortmund (west)
John – 05 (got it for 7) – built 1 city, started in Essen (west)
Matt – 08 (got it for 9) – built 0 cities, started in Lubeck (north)

Initial city building:
I built first in the North, to try to be centrally located and by average cost connections, thinking that no one else would place there. Keijiro then built in the west by the cheap connections. John followed right by Keijiro to try to take advantage of cheap connections. Matt then didn’t build a city so that he could be first to place next round. He then built in the North close to me so that “I didn’t run wild up there” as he said, haha.

The first big capacity plant to come out was the 21 plant (2 hybrid, 4 capacity), and I got it for 28 I think. So I was in good shape early on.

Early plants:
We kept going on building at the normal rate, I next was up to pick a plant for auction, and I picked the 15 plant, thinking that other people would bid on it, since it seemed like a good plant (to try to get a plant to drop down into the actual market). But no one else bid, so I was stuck with it. Looking back, probably not the best idea to buy this, because I then went backwards in terms of power plant buying capacity. I should have simply held out for a 5 or 6 capacity plant to come out later, saving my money for more cities and future auctions. Though I did use it a decent amount – 2 or 3 turns, so I think it did serve a purpose.

Some of the bigger capacity plants came down at various times, and I never seemed to be able to bid high enough to get them, by this time Matt and John have 5 or 6 capacity plants, and my max capacity is 4. Keijiro was around where I was with a 4 max capacity plant. Even though John and Matt had big capacity, they didn’t seem to have as much money as I did for building cities, so I took advantage and generally built more. Keijiro was always ahead of me in terms of cities as well, he took advantage of the cheap connections where he was located in the west. (it seemed like the turn order was always – Keijiro, Me, Matt, John)

As things progressed, I was generating a lot of money per round, because overall I was usually in the lead in terms of number of cities powered. So I was ahead in this regard.

My power plant progression:
03 (2 oil, 1 cap)
21 (2 hybrid, 4 cap)
15 (2 coal, 3 cap)
28 (1 uranium, 4 cap)
32 (3 oil, 6 cap)
50 (fusion, 6 cap)
I think I did a pretty good job of buying plants by only buying 6 of them, though do you think I messed up by buying the 15 plant instead of holding out for a 5 or higher capacity to keep going in the right direction? I wasn’t sure – I think I might have made a mistake by buying this one.

End game plants:
Keijiro – 46 (7 cap), 34 (5 cap), 24 (4 cap) – 16 total capacity
Me – 50 (6 cap), 32 (6 cap), 28 (4 cap) – 16 total capacity
John – 36 (7 cap), 25 (5 cap), 37 (4 cap) – 16 total capacity
Matt – 42 (6 cap), 44 (5 cap), 26 (5 cap) – 16 total capacity

So while Matt and John jumped out to big capacity leads at the beginning of the game, we all ended up maxing out at 16 capacity, because the only plants left on the board to increase capacity were of coal, which was extremely scarce in this game. Turns out that 2 big capacity garbage plants were pulled when we randomnly removed 4 plants at the beginning. So that’s why we all maxed out at 16 capacity, which seemed really odd to me.

End game scenario:
I was saving up a lot of money by not having to buy as many power plants during the game, so I had a lot of money for building cities. Starting from 11 cities, I almost made it to 17 cities to end the game, but I came up $10 short. So I reduced my city buying down to 14 to try to have better turn order. No one else passed me, so unfortunately I was in first position entering the final round anyways.

Next building round turn Keijiro could have built to 17 cities and ended the game, but since he only had capacity for 16 cities he only built to 16, forcing me to make the decision of whether to build to 17 cities and end the game, or to stop at 16 and let the game go one more round. If he hadn’t thought about this strategy and instead built to 17 cities, I could have only built to 16 cities and won on the money tiebreaker vs Keijiro.

John had just enough money to build to 15 cities ($0 left over), and Matt had enough money to get to 14 cities.

By this time it was getting late (past midnight), and we had to work on Monday. So even though I thought that I would lose by like $10 to Keijiro based on the money tiebreaker, I decided to build to 17 and end the game.

Final tally of cities:
Keijiro – 16 cities powered, +13 money advantage (1st game, 1st victory!)
Me – 16 cities powered, -13 money disadvantage
John – 15 cities powered
Matt – 14 cities powered

Extending the game:
I thought about extending the game 1 more round, but the fact that it was getting late, and also the fact that by extending the game it opens the game up for John and Matt to get back into it, means that I might end up dropping from potentially 1st or 2nd to 3rd or 4th. The remaining plants that were useful that would have been up for auction were the 35 plant (1 oil, 5 cap), and the 31 (3 coal, 6 cap). So my thinking was that if I could have gotten the 35 plant I likely could have won the game with 17 cities powered since my plants didn’t require that much resources as compared to everyone else. The 31 plant was dangerous, because coal was in such short supply that someone could have bought out coal, and since I was in the lead with 16 cities, I would have purchased resources last.

Thoughts for next time/questions:
After playing 3 times now, I’m starting to see some strategy tips emerge:
-always try to buy power plants that are increasing in capacity number (did this in most regards, except for the 15 plant)
-better to have less cities and a better turn order if at all possible as long as the building route that you want to take likely will stay open (otherwise you might want to just take that route)
-if at all possible try to build first for the stage 2 land rush (I did accomplish this)
-don’t build cities you can’t power, only hurts you for turn order

Did I make the right move by placing in the North (I started at Hamburg)? If the whole board is open (you are first to place), is there an optimal city location to start with for the Germany or US map?

Anyone have any other thoughts on what I could have done better to further improve my position this game? I was happy with 2nd place, and it just came down to strategy of building the 16th or 17th city between me and Keijiro at the end.

It was another great game of Power Grid, great times – further cementing why this is my favorite game.

Reply: Power Grid:: Sessions:: Re: Spore Convention

game_boy — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 03:18:10 +0000

by game_boy

msdespondent wrote:
game_boy wrote:
I think I just worked out that "Spore Convention" means "Singapore Convention"? When I first saw the title, I thought it was some metaphor about mould. For the sake of four characters, it could have been a lot clearer...

I think you are mistaken. The convention is called Spore and does represent a type of mould. In fact, the convention's logo is a mushroom.

I was indeed mistaken. But maybe I wouldn't have made that mistake if you had provided that hyperlink in your original post, instead of leaving us all to guess for ourselves what the title meant.

Reply: Power Grid:: Sessions:: Re: Spore Convention

msdespondent — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 10:40:44 +0000

by msdespondent

game_boy wrote:
I think I just worked out that "Spore Convention" means "Singapore Convention"? When I first saw the title, I thought it was some metaphor about mould. For the sake of four characters, it could have been a lot clearer...

I think you are mistaken. The convention is called Spore and does represent a type of mould. In fact, the convention's logo is a mushroom.

Just to enlighten you, the common abbreviations for Singapore are S'pore and Sg.

bluebehir, we did help the poor guy out, both of us whipped out our handphone calculators and the game facilitator brought a big calculator to aid him. :D Even the yellow player (his wife) and the purple player (his daughter) were cajoling him to hurry. However, all that just made him more determined to find a way to build 4 cities with 68 elektros. :shake:

Reply: Power Grid:: Variants:: Re: SoloPlay variant for Power Grid is available

elfrododumbo — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 06:17:50 +0000

by elfrododumbo

Thanks to SOLO I can now play Power Grid :) I ordered the game because I have, at last, found this Solo version.

Many more for solo-ists like me please ! :)

Reply: Power Grid:: Sessions:: Re: Spore Convention

game_boy — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 02:56:44 +0000

by game_boy

I think I just worked out that "Spore Convention" means "Singapore Convention"? When I first saw the title, I thought it was some metaphor about mould. For the sake of four characters, it could have been a lot clearer...

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: How secretive should Power Grid be?

game_boy — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 02:45:32 +0000

by game_boy

tongalad wrote:
Keep your momey secret!

Freudian slip?

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: How secretive should Power Grid be?

tongalad — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 23:41:15 +0000

by tongalad

And the 2nd rule of Power Grid is...Don't tell a soul how much money you have!

Amongst our group of players we find there is much more tension at the end game point if you have only a vague idea of exactly how much money your nearest competitor has. Keep your momey secret!

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: How secretive should Power Grid be?

WonderCinz — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 23:34:24 +0000

by WonderCinz

The first rule of Power Grid is: Don't talk about Power Grid.

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: How secretive should Power Grid be?

DaveD — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 23:00:36 +0000

by DaveD

The official FAQ on the 2F-Spiele site, states that money should be secret.

http://www.2f-spiele.de/spiele/faq/faq_frames_eng.htm

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: How secretive should Power Grid be?

MurrayL — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 22:33:21 +0000

by MurrayL

The official rules say nothing about making the money secret, but it seems generally accepted that it should be.

Personally, we've only thus far played it with money open - but that was mostly for the benefit of new players each time to help ease them into the game, and I can certainly see that having money as a secret commodity would make the game far more interesting in terms of bidding wars etc.

As for everything else, power plants should be displayed in front of you and resources are placed onto them so, as far as I know it should all be completely open.

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: How secretive should Power Grid be?

quatsch — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 22:22:24 +0000

by quatsch

We play with a series of private boards that track only each players cities. Then in the spirt of Battleship we try to figure out which cities are open. With the auctions we each mail our bids to a 3rd party off-site that then determines who gets the Plant. As far as the supplies, we have to physically go out and mine them. :laugh:

No, we just play with the cash being secret.

Edit: Not as funny as I thought it was going to be.

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: How secretive should Power Grid be?

Barticus88 — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 22:10:19 +0000

by Barticus88

Cash is secret, though it is theoretically trackable and some play with it open. The game is subject to analysis paralysis either way, but it's worse with open money.

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: How secretive should Power Grid be?

wmshub — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 22:07:21 +0000

by wmshub

We keep everything open. Some people keep money secret. I hear that in some groups you get a lot of AP when money is open, but for us it has never been a problem.

Thread: Power Grid:: Rules:: How secretive should Power Grid be?

Weloi Avala — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 22:05:28 +0000

by Weloi Avala

Hola,

So, I've only played three games of Power Grid--the first one solo (to learn the rules, though auctioning against myself was a bit schizophrenic) and two more against my girlfriend.

(She's beat me both times--easily. Grrr.)

I'm very impressed at how further layers of depth seem to be opening up with each play and look forward to trying it with more players. But in tonight's loss, which ended with us each powering 16 cities (though she'd built the 21st), it became obvious that knowing the opponent's capacity to build was crucial.

So the question is: how secretive should Power Grid be? Are there any rules as to what must be displayed at what shouldn't be? The Power Plants themselves are on display, and the resources sitting on them; do players generally keep their cash-in-hand secret, or is that out to see as well?

-M.

Reply: Power Grid:: General:: Re: Oooopa ! Compulsive Buyer Could Not Resist Power Grid....but

unixrevolution — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 16:06:07 +0000

by unixrevolution

Power Grid is okay with 2, but great with 3 or more. In fact I rather enjoy the dynamics of the 3-player game.

Reply: Power Grid:: General:: Re: Oooopa ! Compulsive Buyer Could Not Resist Power Grid....but

Eric Brosius — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 11:42:09 +0000

by Eric Brosius

Why do they say it's not their kind of game?

Reply: Power Grid:: General:: Re: Oooopa ! Compulsive Buyer Could Not Resist Power Grid....but

UnknownParkerBrother — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 05:17:27 +0000

by UnknownParkerBrother

The game works fine with 2.

Just had a great game tonight with the wife, where I was all set for victory having bought a 7 plant that allowed me to power 19 cities, and she could only power 18 as there were no more 7's available.

She then bought a lesser plant, *reducing* her ability to power cities. Which had me totally confused, until it came time to buy fuel. Her new plant allowed her to buy up 6 oil, leaving me one short, so one of my plants wasn't able to fire at all, giving her the win when we built our 21st cities.

Gah, I'm still pissed about it. :angry:

Reply: Power Grid:: General:: Re: Oooopa ! Compulsive Buyer Could Not Resist Power Grid....but

wmshub — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 04:17:07 +0000

by wmshub

You don't need 5. I think it's good with 3, great with 4 or more.

Sadly, I think it's pretty dull with only 2. :( But as Rayito points out, some people like it with 2, so maybe give it a try.

Reply: Power Grid:: General:: Re: Oooopa ! Compulsive Buyer Could Not Resist Power Grid....but

rayito2702 — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 03:59:50 +0000

by rayito2702

Since you already bought it, just play Power Grid with two players. Sure, it's better with more, but it's not like it becomes a bad game with two.

Reply: Power Grid:: General:: Re: Oooopa ! Compulsive Buyer Could Not Resist Power Grid....but

elfrododumbo — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 03:42:40 +0000

by elfrododumbo

:laugh:
This group is made up of players who are into war games and I love Memoir, Alexander the Great, S.P.Q.R etc, but at least I am capable of appreciating a good game even if I do not set out to slaughter an army.
Aaaah, maybe I should electrocute my enemies (be they Barbarians, Romans or Greeks) ! That idea might stir their imaginations :devil:

Reply: Power Grid:: General:: Re: Oooopa ! Compulsive Buyer Could Not Resist Power Grid....but

apecage — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 03:20:36 +0000

by apecage

Find another group.

:D

Thread: Power Grid:: General:: Oooopa ! Compulsive Buyer Could Not Resist Power Grid....but

elfrododumbo — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 03:10:53 +0000

by elfrododumbo

I am fully aware that this game is best played with at least five players, but the game is so attractive that I placed an order just now and I hardly ever play with more than two !
Yes, occasionally, I have a group that comes round BUT when I mentioned PG last week... the answer I got was "not our sort of game" !
Well, I thought maybe two players can play as four . I would very much appreciate any ideas. I need to play this game. I looked up the variants and it looks very gloomy for me !
Thanks.

Reply: Power Grid - Italy/France:: General:: Re: Question - Italy/France & Power Plant Deck 2?

highpriestrsw2 — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 01:59:13 +0000

by highpriestrsw2

Quarashi wrote:
locusshifter wrote:
I will go on to say that you MUST have all the maps and the extra power plant deck :p

I will also add that everything fits in the original box very nicely. Just take out the box insert and it fits like a glove.

I did just that when my copies of everything came in. The only problem is that it makes the box weigh about 12 pounds. :D

Reply: Power Grid:: Reviews:: Re: [Video Review] Basement Boardgamer ep8: Power Grid

J_Young — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 14:23:57 +0000

by J_Young

This is an excellent, excellent! review. Extensive and passionately presented. Can't wait to play it.

Reply: Power Grid:: Sessions:: Re: Spore Convention

bluebehir — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 13:12:38 +0000

by bluebehir

We use poker chips instead of the cash.

You waited 30 minutes? You have got some serious patience!
I would have just worked it out for him...

Glad you enjoyed the game.

Session: Power Grid:: Sessions:: Spore Convention

msdespondent — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 11:22:50 +0000

by msdespondent

When I first read the description of Power Grid on BGG, I thought "Oh so it's like Ticket to Ride with power plants." (I do realise that I might probably get stoned by rabid fans for voicing that thought :shake

I was proven wrong when I was playing the game at the convention. It is so fun and has much more depth than Ticket to Ride can ever ever have.

My boyfriend and I joined a family of 3 to play. Since we were beginners, we decided to team up and double up as the banker too. The first bidding round was a blur. It was only when we started to buy resources and build plants when the I saw the beauty of the game.

During the second phase, renewable energy plants started popping up here and there. Bidding became feirce and one plant went at the whopping cost of 128 Elektros. Our game facilators were also amused at the 1 Elektro uranium that was available.

Third phase was a close fight, green player also stalled for a astounding 30 minutes trying to figure out how he could build enough plants to kick yellow from the first place.

It definitely was fun to find a balance between your plants, resources and supplied cities. We played the korean map, so the raw materials market was separated into 2; one north korean market and one south korean market and you only could purchase from one market during a turn.

The components and artwork were simple and clear. I especially liked how they included korean characters below english for the city names. My only gripe was the paper money. Those pieces of coloured sweat sponges won't last more than 10 or so games.

Reply: Power Grid - Power Plant Deck 2:: Rules:: Re: Question about variant 3

brito — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:18:12 +0000

by brito

crambaza wrote:

"...Because it is possible for a player to supply electricity to more than 20 cities, in the last round, the payment for 20+ supplied cities is always 150 electro."

I think mention to "in the last" round was because in these rules, it ended at 20+ cities. I think it is easliy extended to playing with 24 cities.

I had not noticed this rule. And you're right. I had written to Rio Grande asking the same thing and in the meantime they wrote back confirming your answer.

Thanks!

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: Quick (dumb?) auction Q:

asmiles — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:16:43 +0000

by asmiles

Preacher wrote:
Hi, all. I assume that since the Plants are reordered each time a new one is drawn, that there will be times when a plant moves from the Current market back to the futures market (in cases where a lot of high # plants are coming out before lower numbered ones). Is that correct?

Sorry to be obtuse :)

Ricky

Yes, but that time will never be during an auction. After an auction is won, there are 4 plants in the future market and 3 in the active market. It is possible that the new plant will drop directly into the active market, if it is among the 4 lowest in value.

Plants move backwards during the bureacracy phase when the biggest plant is put under the deck and a replacement is drawn that is lower than the plants in the active market.

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: Quick (dumb?) auction Q:

Preacher — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:15:27 +0000

by Preacher

Thanks, folks.

Ricky

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: Quick (dumb?) auction Q:

godfeather — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:06:49 +0000

by godfeather

Correct

Reply: Power Grid:: Rules:: Re: Quick (dumb?) auction Q:

ColtsFan76 — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:06:24 +0000

by ColtsFan76

Yes, that is correct.

Thread: Power Grid:: Rules:: Quick (dumb?) auction Q:

Preacher — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:00:49 +0000

by Preacher

Hi, all. I assume that since the Plants are reordered each time a new one is drawn, that there will be times when a plant moves from the Current market back to the futures market (in cases where a lot of high # plants are coming out before lower numbered ones). Is that correct?

Sorry to be obtuse

Ricky

Reply: Power Grid:: General:: Re: Question for Experienced Players - Do You Track Step 3 as Part of your Strategy?

Zhab — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:00:06 +0000

by Zhab

dcorban wrote:
I believe that the intent was for players to not have an accurate count of exactly when step 3 would begin. Friese was possibly not experienced enough to forsee the need for further obfuscation.

I think along those line. However, further obfuscation might be slightly more complicated than it seems. The step 3 card mechanic is also obviously intended to reserve highly potent plants for step 3. Which mean that you can't play arround with the step 3 card position so easily because it also serve as a "separator".

But this is probably enough obfuscation in general. As most people here admit that they don't count. Not allowing to count the deck certainly help with this. Acurate count is obviously more presice than "eyeballing".

Reply: Power Grid:: Sessions:: Re: Ok, Power Grid RULES! (half review/session report)

Karlsen — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 05:46:04 +0000

by Karlsen

RDewsbery wrote:
Gosh, if you like it enough to give it 9 as a two-player game, you're going to hit at least 11 when you play it with 4 or 5! FWIW, I think that Power Grid is merely "OK" as a 2-player game - not a complete waste of time, but it's always worth hunting down at least one more player. but with 4 or 5 it is comfortably one of the best games ever produced.

Oooh yeah, what Richard said!

Reply: Power Grid:: Sessions:: Re: Ok, Power Grid RULES! (half review/session report)

jedimusic — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:32:23 +0000

by jedimusic

Thanks for the encouragement. I'm hoping I can talk them into it:)

Reply: Power Grid:: Sessions:: Re: Ok, Power Grid RULES! (half review/session report)

esok — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:20:40 +0000

by esok

jedimusic wrote:
I'd like to get in a 3+ multiplayer, but most of the people I know are casual/social gamers, and I'm afraid it could be a long drawn-out affair.

This game is surprisingly accessible for casual gamers. I've introduced it successfully to a number of people. It helps to emphasize the three main points: Buy power plants, buy resources to power the plants, buy cities to power. The goal is to power the most cities when someone builds to 17. (I find that I need to repeat the winning conditions a few times throughout the game, especially at the midpoint when step 1 is ending.) Another idea for casual gamers is to end the game when someone triggers step 2 at 7 cities. It cuts the time to play in about half. You may just find that they want to keep going.

The rest is just details. This game is one of my favorites.

Reply: Power Grid - Power Plant Deck 2:: Rules:: Re: Question about variant 3

crambaza — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:53:34 +0000

by crambaza

brito wrote:
In variant 3, with 2 players the game only ends when 24 cities are acquired. However the payment table for supplying cities only go until 20 cities. How much money do the players receive for supplying 21, 22 and 23 cities with energy? The same as 20 cities?

That's the way I would play.

In the original rules, page 7, in the section about changes for a 2 player game, the last line reads:

"...Because it is possible for a player to supply electricity to more than 20 cities, in the last round, the payment for 20+ supplied cities is always 150 electro."

I think mention to "in the last" round was because in these rules, it ended at 20+ cities. I think it is easliy extended to playing with 24 cities.

Reply: Power Grid:: General:: Re: Is Power Grid three player?

gopher37 — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:33:47 +0000

by gopher37

Eric Brosius wrote:
Petri wrote:
The problem usually occurs (and this happens often) when a big plant comes early (and thus the price will not be high because nobody has enough money to raise it) or if a player is forced to buy a poor plant and the next player in turn order gets a good plant for face value.

What you're saying is that the game can be won by a player who gets a big plant cheap. Sure, this is the case in most auction games. If you get a Jester for 200 florins in The Princes of Florence, that's a big help too. If you get a double Nutmeg cheap on the first turn of Goa, similarly.

The major luck element in Power Grid is the uncertainty in the power plant draw. A player who arranges to be the last one left in the auction round when a new plant comes off the top of the deck may get an opportunity to buy a great plant at list price, or may get a handful of mud. This can be a big random element. It's in fact why I rate Power Grid a '9' instead of a '10'. But oddly enough, the better players seem to win a high percentage of the games.

I think this is why Power Grid is such a great game, because while you can set yourself up to possibly get a great power plant, you never know which plant is going to peel off the top, either pushing that sought after plant into the actual market, or leaving you with what was already on the market. Like you said this is a random element, but every game needs some sort of random element, or else it can become too predictable.

Thread: Power Grid - Power Plant Deck 2:: Rules:: Question about variant 3

brito — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:27:41 +0000

by brito

In variant 3, with 2 players the game only ends when 24 cities are acquired. However the payment table for supplying cities only go until 20 cities. How much money do the players receive for supplying 21, 22 and 23 cities with energy? The same as 20 cities?

Reply: Power Grid - Power Plant Deck 2:: Rules:: Re: Any chance of official guidance on using this deck with the newer maps?

DaveD — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 09:47:27 +0000

by DaveD

The only change is to remove plant 11 when using France. I don't see why any of the other boards, except China should require any changes, although I have not tried Quebec or ENBW.

English rules here

http://www.riograndegames.com/uploads/Game/Game_226_gameRule...

Reply: Funkenschlag - Flux-Generator:: General:: Re: Is this single card really worth $20 to folks?

Stexe — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 08:59:22 +0000

by Stexe

maura wrote:
»AWESOME. I don't suppose you could post the complete, full resolution pic?«

…and somebody print it and sell the cards for 20 bucks?

no, not really.

And what would be wrong with that? It isn't like you're planning to print more and you've already sold the lot you have, right?

Plus, the picture is already on the Geek, so we could always just use that one. Finally, we'd still need a good back and print on special paper to get it to fit with the rest of the deck, so it is very unlikely someone would go to all that trouble for a single card.

Reply: Power Grid:: General:: Re: Question for Experienced Players - Do You Track Step 3 as Part of your Strategy?

crambaza — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:53:39 +0000

by crambaza

I don't track Step 3 at all. I don't track other players' money, as I have a hard enough time tracking mine.

I like to take out Power Grid.

Have a quick and fun game of network building.

Pack it up in less than 90 minutes.

Rejoice in my victory, or rejoice in my defeat.

I love this game, just the way it is, and I don't feel the need to take it to the next level. Now, when the world's conflicts are solely determined by countries sending representatives to play in games of Power Grid, I may change my mind. (Like in Robot Jox, with all the wars being determined by cool robot fights)

Until then, it's fast and furious power gridding for me.

Reply: Power Grid:: General:: Re: Is Power Grid three player?

Eric Brosius — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 22:36:14 +0000

by Eric Brosius

Petri wrote:
The problem usually occurs (and this happens often) when a big plant comes early (and thus the price will not be high because nobody has enough money to raise it) or if a player is forced to buy a poor plant and the next player in turn order gets a good plant for face value.

What you're saying is that the game can be won by a player who gets a big plant cheap. Sure, this is the case in most auction games. If you get a Jester for 200 florins in The Princes of Florence, that's a big help too. If you get a double Nutmeg cheap on the first turn of Goa, similarly.

The major luck element in Power Grid is the uncertainty in the power plant draw. A player who arranges to be the last one left in the auction round when a new plant comes off the top of the deck may get an opportunity to buy a great plant at list price, or may get a handful of mud. This can be a big random element. It's in fact why I rate Power Grid a '9' instead of a '10'. But oddly enough, the better players seem to win a high percentage of the games.

Reply: Power Grid:: General:: Re: Screens to hide money?

pdoherty — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:10:31 +0000

by pdoherty

davey314 wrote:
We play with money completely open. I know lots of people care whether it's open or closed, but I don't see how hiding it improves the game at all.

I like not knowing how much someone has (and them not knowing how much I have). It enables bluffing and guessing about whether someone can really afford to outbid you for that green power plant.

Reply: Power Grid - Korea/China:: Rules:: Re: China : power plant replacements

Ponton — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 19:02:45 +0000

by Ponton

First remove plants, then draw new ones so that you have

2 in 2p
2 in 3p
3 in 4p
4 in 5p or
5 in 6p

This is what the rules say.

Reply: Power Grid:: Reviews:: Re: German Jokes Must Be Really Sad

Tradewinds Ted — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:59:13 +0000

by Tradewinds Ted

agius1520 wrote:
Lastly, why do people need to know why rules are in place, i don't question rules when i start playing a game until i've played it and am in a better position to understand why the designer put it there, or question it if it makes no sense. If you're constantly asking why a mechanic is in a game that wouldn't be there in the real world then thats a very strange predicament.

Why do people need to know why?

- If a rule does tie into the theme it is easier to remember.

- Rules that tie into the theme are more satisfying.

- Maybe people don't really need to know why a rule is in place, but they often ask, so when explaining a game it is helpful to be able to answer.

I always try to see if there is a connection between theme and mechanic, because it can make a game more enjoyable. The connection doesn't have to exist for me to enjoy a good game, but if I don't see a connection I will ask. Not a predicament, just healthy curiousity!

Reply: Power Grid - Power Plant Deck 2:: Rules:: Re: Any chance of official guidance on using this deck with the newer maps?

rmartinc — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:47:34 +0000

by rmartinc

I don't have it with me, but I think there was some mention of France. For the other non-china maps, just use it like you do with the regular map.