Now that everything has calmed down from the weekend I can again focus on the subject matter of this blog: games. Our weekly games were planned to be Power Grid and Puerto Rico, yet because of time constraints PR became Guillotine. In the future we have decided we might just do a single heavy game with a garnish of lighter fare.
Power Grid is a game of planning. The numbers are small and relatively easy to manage, but deciding how to allocate them is crucial. Each turn you will be given one opportunity to purchase a new plant, one opportunity to buy resources to power your plants and one opportunity to expand your network. The game ends when one players network contains 17 (in 4 players) cities, and whoever powers the most on that turn reigns victorious.
Its crucial to determine when to buy which plants. In my first game I made the mistake of being too efficient. My plants were producing power at an exceptional rate, yet in the end I never had enough money to expand my network far enough, and I also could not power enough cities. This time I didnt worry about efficiency except on one of my plants. I was lucky to get the 20 (3 coal powers 5 cities) plant very early in the game, and could then go crazy expanding my network each turn. I led the game every turn but two. Alas, one of them was the final, victory, turn.
In the last turn everyone was sure I would win. In fact, they were so sure that some players wanted to give it up. But we soldiered on, and with everyone against me another player snuck in and snatched the victory from me by buying all of the garbage (I had made the mistake of bidding on the wrong 6 city power plant). I could only power two of my plants, and after leading the whole game I ended up powering only 11 cities and barely missing last place, even though I had almost 100 Elektro banked.
This could be the first time in history that someone was whining because there wasnt enough garbage.
The good: Auctions. I like bidding on stuff.
Strategy/planning. Its a long-range thinking game. Given how deterministic things are, it rewards planning and budgeting.
The Bad: Replayability. Without expansion cards I think the game would lose its luster relatively quickly. If you like buying more cards, which are available, this can be mitigated.
The Verdict: This game is a solid player. I recommend having access to it.
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One of the things I like about The GRID over other Euros is that it's less deterministic. Considderable leads can be crushed with a well-timed turn-around. The mechanics are expecially good at helping stragglers stay in the game rather than spending the whole game chasing the lead player around the victory track.
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