Well, I'm nearly complete my custom Power Grid map for Canada:
http://boardgamegeek.com/image/152096

I've got to figure out the connection costs and touch it up with some final details.


The rules that I've got for the custom map so far:

Export Cities
- 6 cities representing areas to export power to the neigbouring USA
- these cities cannot be connected on the first turn
- they do NOT count towards your city count for turn order or for winning conditions
- they may be powered up for income as per regular cities
- they are not limited in the number of players that can connect to these cities, but the cost still increases each time someone connects to them
- the connections to these cities are one-way, and cannot be used to link other cities back in Canada

Hydro Power
- 5 cities on the map are hydro sites (Banff, Winnipeg, Niagara Falls, Sept-Iles and Labrador)
- only if a player has connected to one of these cities they may bid on the hydro plants during a special auction phase that occurs at the start of the 2nd and 3rd steps
- one hydro plant (#24 a replacement for a garbage plant) will be auctioned at the start of the first bidding phase of step 2
- the other plant (#48 a new plant) will be auctioned at the start of the first bidding phase of step 3

The map is only a five player map, as there are just too few cities in Canada to accomodate a sixth player. I had to make some liberal addition with cities already and couldn't possibly fit more cities in.

The map will be available for download once I've playtested it a bit. It is the standard map size, same as the other expansion maps.

Any comments are welcome.

That looks cool. If i'd made it, I'd have included a couple of long connections up to Moosebutt, Middla-Nowhere but that's just my personal aesthetic edging in- your way probably plays better.

I like the idea of export cities and the hydros. Have you played with them? How did it work out? It hurts me a little to lose a garbage plant, though. I love burning the garbage.

I have to say, you're responsible for making me hound my group to pull Power Grid out again. I'm sure they'll be in touch to thank you.

I think an India board would be really cool. Have you thought about doing any others?

Now you've got the basic look spot on new maps shouldn't be a major problem!

Its trying to find interesting ways to monkey around with the connection costs that interest me know.

Anyone any thoughts for the Canada connections!

Any chance of power pipelines going up into the wastes and the down into the extreme sections - cost of 20+ but would help to link map zones.

eg Moosenee to Edmonton (23)
Labrador to Prince Rupert (27)

Or just have a relay station or an arctic research station where lots of the northern most cities branch into a central point where you can't build houses but you can pay the relay cost out to other portions of the map!

Also, if you're playing three players you may have to limit the sections they play on if they don't directly touch - or just enforce a 15 point connection fee across dead area on the map! If no one goes in yellow/purple you could have a problem.

3 maps used - exclude red+yellow or red+green
4 maps used - exclude red, orange or green

In games where there are 'dead' zones - could players use the export cities to traverse the continent?

With east coast North America (USA) needing more power, could the connections there be cheaper/more expensive to the export cities.

As suggested by bluebehir (damien browne) look for low zones where players can afford to intially place and then spread before they hit a cash limit barrier. With the UK map I tried to identify at least 5 good spots, but not necessarily in different zones, you want to encourage some congestions. Look at the west coast zone on the USA map - if you leave someone in it they clean up - but it's rife for a hot contest for blocking other players in!

Are you going to mock uo the hydroelectric plants?

CHRIS

I would add James Bay and replace Sept-Iles by Manicouagan.

95% of Quebec electricity is hydro, so I would say that any player connected to a city in Quebec or Winipeg, Banff, Niagara Falls and Labrador could bid for the hydro plant.

EDIT: I forgot to say that I like the map !!

It looks good, but if it's the size i think it its, There's a LOT of empty space. I'd maybe try to zoom in on the actual populated area where the cities are. Unless of course you wanna have the entire power plant market, plus all the spare resources, on the board itself. Generally, though, i like it

Really nice map, I like the emptiness!

Curious how your altered rules work out.

Quite snazzy, I like the sounds of your new rules, they certainly are more original than the ones that are being packaged with the official Power Grid expansions.

I'll definitely download and print out this map (and the new plants!) when you're finished with it

Some comments:

- Most of the population of Canada is limited to an area very close to the border, but I had to add in some of the cities, just so that areas didn't get congested with one long connection going east-west. The Winnipeg corridor was really bad for this. I figured gameplay was more important to reality here.

- Yes, the map does have large areas to the north with nothing in it, but hey, that's Canada. If I tried to zoom in to the populated areas, the map would have been too long for the standard size in the end. That was my initial thinking too, to try and zoom in as much as possible, and I have done that nearly as much as I could.

- Canada doesn't burn much garbage, relatively speaking, so that's why the garbage plant had to go.

- No idea on the connection costs.. I'll start to look at them in more detail in the next couple of days.

- As for the Hydro sites. I think that Sept-Iles is just the nearest city I have to the Manicouagan site on my map. The hydro sites are just my way of handling the fact that you really can't build a hydro plant anywhere, so I made these as sort of control points in the game, specific areas that give you a bonus when you control them, or have a connection to them in this case. Having said that, the hydro plants come into play at specific times, and you might already have better plants when they come into play and may not even choose to bid on them.

- The export cities are a way of investing in the future. Sure, they don't add to your winning or turn order conditions, but they can also help you power more cities and stay behind the leader for bidding. You'll have to weigh their value carefully because if you are the last to enter an export city (cost 30 plus connection), that probably won't be much value to you. And, in one way, I think that simulates the competitive nature of the export market well, as entering the market late costs you more.

Interesting, very good looking map. i think that with much shorter connection areas will result in the turn order being a huge tactic and thus make for a different kind of strategy. keep us abreast of your progress.

Great idea! I will definitely download this map when you are done with it.

I like the idea of the hydro-electric power bias as Canada is one of if not the world leader in hydroelectric. The provinces of BC, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, and Newfoundland & Labrador all have hydro electric power as their main producers. The only quibble I would have with the cities that are hydro sites is Banff. Banff is technically in Alberta, isn't it? I might consider changing that to a BC city or make it any BC city (Prince Rupert, Prince George, Victoria, Vancouver) as generation in BC is over 90% hydro. Also connection costs through BC would tend to be more expensive than the praries and central canada just due to the mountainous terrain (only cheaper one would be Vancouver-Victoria IMO), so it would be a little bonus for connecting there.

Usually geography/distance are the main consideration for connection costs, right? So keeping that in mind the west coast connections should be higher priced (except for Van-Victoria), with connections east of Banff coming down in value as you hit the prairies. Through the canadian shield they should pick up a bit, getting cheap in souther ontario. In general the costs would be similar to the USA map. Cheaper in central and eastern, more expensive in the west.
Population of the cities should also factor in, I think the small towns should cost a bit more to connect to, since they are more "remote". I think there are some threads on here where the designer of power grid mentioned the guidelines they used when setting costs.


The export cities is a cool idea as well. Let us know how the playtesting goes. If it goes well, maybe it will get picked up as part of an official expansion.

All this work done on the UK and Canada maps makes me want to pick up where I left off in an Australia map.

Finding a good map was my problem. Google, here I come.

How about Churchill, Manitoba as another link that is towards the north? It's not huge, but it's not insignificant.

Canada has more then five cities or are these individual people's last names?

Seriously though, very nice map.

I'm not loving the Hydo rules. I think it might be better to just ditch garbage entirely and replace with hydro power. I'd like it to be more substantial.

Export cities are a great rule though.

What were your thoughts on the north when you made this? I mean, Fort McMurray is discussing a nuclear plant to power the oil industry so while the population isn't up there the industry, and its power requirements, are. You could do something with this. And some NWT/Yukon/Nunavut involvement I think is perhaps mandatory to make this truly Canadian.

Further thoughts:

Make export cities look different. Way different. Just five slots for houses and a power icon or something. Think the out of country connections in TTR Marklin. It will be easier to include a different shape to some rules rather than exclude the same shape from some rules, if that makes any sense.

You have 4 regions. You'll need 5 if you want this to seat 5.

I never knew Yellowknife wasn't on the grid with the rest of Canada.

Look closer at the Toronto region...

-MMM

Yep there are 5 zones but I had to do a double take to spot the green zone first time round.

Could the colour be bolder to make it more visible? Or should people just pay more attention?

CHRIS

I wouldn't mind playtesting this. Canada's reliance on hydro power and its export make this a very interesting map.

Are the two Hydro plants exactly like the plants they replace in terms of capacity? I assume they need no resources, other than the hydro city you must buy into.

Well perhaps it is easier to see in person than on a computer monitor, but personally, I think it is a poor choice to put blue and purple so close.

Actually, there is some significant hydro production in Alberta and, indeed, much of it is near Banff (Kananaskis and Ghost Dams).

I'm the only one bothered by this rather arbitrary special Hydro plant auction?

Nope; I am bothered too. I get the impression it will only occur in the later stages of the game (when there is likely to be some competition for it); I feel it ought to come out earlier (be numbered lower), replace one or two green cards (the two lowest) and provide power for less cities (1 and 2 cities respectfully). This critique is based on the assumption that the special hydro auction is only going to occur when the hydro plants have been drawn.

I think the map is great, however.

The Hydro plants are obviously not in the draw stack.

I think theres too much mechanic reliance on when and where the Hydro plants come out - You don't really need to have them out in specific zones or at a specific time, I'd just replace paying garbage with guranteed eco-like hydro - maybe they require some cash costs to maintain or use/ activate each round as a way to make them different

Maybe they're dice roll based in their ability to power to represent the variation in rain fall and dam levels

e.g. 1d3+1, 1d2+1, 1d4+2....you get the idea though I feel too much of this adds complications just for the sake of it!

CHRIS