New Power Plants!
It was a Sunday night, and everyone was bored. I bought the new Power Grid Power Plant Deck, and enticed people to play for two days, and finally Li Zhen Harry Forest took the bait. We played at Li Zhen's place. First of all, a note about the quality of the new plants...they're ok, I guess, but not as good as the original. The new plants are suffering from a little warping already, and it spins a lot on the table. Also, it seems that the printing was coming off pretty easily...anyway, these are just small complaints...on we go with the games!
Harry and Li Zhen decided to have a drink of alcohol, Li Zhen doesn't seem to be affected, but Harry was louder than usual...heh. Anyway, we played on the US map with NE and South-Central excluded, forming an arch type shape for our game. Initially I accidentally put up the wrong restock chart, gaining protest from Harry for buying oil plant that could end up costing him more than he thought. But we proceeded anyway, since we don't want Harry to win. I tried the garbage approach again. The three of them battle for the east while I tried a new approach by settling alone in the west coast.
Surprisingly I was the one triggering step 2, and things started to go bizarre. The power plant market stalled. All the plants in the market only powered 3 or 4 cities, and we wanted to upgrade to large ones. So for three or four turns, nobody bought any power plants. Meanwhile, I was stuck with capacity 9, and the other three had higher capacities (10 or 11). Not only that, my resources were costing more than the other three, so obviously my cash reserve after this stall was low. Meanwhile, the three of them kept on expanding their cities, but I kept back, only having the necessary 9 cities and not building.
Finally, a barely buyable plant came up, and it powers 5 cities. I was aggressivly pushing to buy this one, and got it, pushing my capacity to 12. Unfortunately, the step 3 card appeared right after, meaning that good plants were being pushed up to the market one at a time. Li Zhen got one next, pushing his capacity to 14. Forest didn't get one. So Harry got to buy one at face value, and it just happens to be one that has capacity 7, pushing his capacity to 17. At this point, we figured it's pretty much over, and we were right, since Harry simply used his massive reserve to build up to 17 cities, and he won.
But...this felt like quite an unsatisfying end, so Forest Li Zhen and I kept on playing as a 3-player game. We wanted to have an opportunity to play the big plants. In the next round, all three of us got a plant (I got the fusion plant for 6, used to cost 50, now only 44), and at that point both Li Zhen and I had capacity 16, while Forest was below that. So now if either Li Zhen or I build to 17 cities, the game would be over and the two of us will compare money for the secondary winner. I knew that I would have less money, so I only built to 16 cities. Li Zhen was afraid that I have more money than him, so he didn't trigger the end game and built to 16 cities as well. Forest was just happy to be still in the game.
Then the final round came. Coal was running short. I only have supplies for one coal plants, and was sure to have no more coal available to me this turn since I'm first in turn order after having bought that fusion plant. Only two plants remain in the deck, and one coal plant that powers 7 came out, which was the only plant in the market that would improve my capacity. I cannot pass, so I picked that one, hoping that there's a slim chance that Li Zhen would get it so that I would have the other big plant available. Well, Li Zhen was smart, so he passed. I replaced this new plant with my original coal plant and increased my capacity by 2. If I had replaced another plant, my capacity would increase by 3, but I would not have enough coal to power it all. So now I have capacity 18.
Li Zhen obviously picked the one that came out next, which was the big 50 plant where 2 uranium powers 8! Forest and Li Zhen went to a bidding war for this one, since whoever wins this one would have the highest capacity. The bidding ended when Forest jumped the price from around 70 to 100! Li Zhen thought that's too much for him (foreshadowing!), so he let Forest have it. Now Forest has capacity 19! Li Zhen picked up a nuclear plant that powers 6 to bring his capacity total to 18, hoping to drive the price of uranium up, but it didn't work so well.
Now Forest built up to 19 cities, so he won the secondary game. Li Zhen and I both built up to 18 cities, and we compared our money, which of course Li Zhen had way more than me, so he ended in third place while I was dead last. Now, a couple of analysis...
(a) If Li Zhen knew that I had very little money in the second last round and ended the game at that round, he would have won the secondary game! But I guess he was insecure, or he wanted to play more!
(b) Forest had only 8 dollars left at the end of the game! So if Li Zhen had pushed the price up by at least 9 dollars, Forest would not be able to afford his 19th city, and he would had to compare money with both Li Zhen and I, for which he would definitely lose. That's why it's very important to keep the money secret, or people would overanalyze this so much!
Ok, I enjoyed this game greatly, even though I ended up last. Well, maybe not for the stalling in step 2, but otherwise it was fun.
First stage scores:
Forest: 11 capacity, 16 cities.
Harry: 17 capacity, 17 cities, 93 dollars left.
Li Zhen: 14 capacity, 14 cities.
Me: 12 capacity, 13 cities.
Second stage scores:
Forest: 19 capacity, 19 cities, 8 dollars left.
Li Zhen: 18 capacity, 18 cities, 122 dollars left.
Me: 18 capacity, 18 cities, 46 dollars left.
Harry and Li Zhen decided to have a drink of alcohol, Li Zhen doesn't seem to be affected, but Harry was louder than usual...heh. Anyway, we played on the US map with NE and South-Central excluded, forming an arch type shape for our game. Initially I accidentally put up the wrong restock chart, gaining protest from Harry for buying oil plant that could end up costing him more than he thought. But we proceeded anyway, since we don't want Harry to win. I tried the garbage approach again. The three of them battle for the east while I tried a new approach by settling alone in the west coast.
Surprisingly I was the one triggering step 2, and things started to go bizarre. The power plant market stalled. All the plants in the market only powered 3 or 4 cities, and we wanted to upgrade to large ones. So for three or four turns, nobody bought any power plants. Meanwhile, I was stuck with capacity 9, and the other three had higher capacities (10 or 11). Not only that, my resources were costing more than the other three, so obviously my cash reserve after this stall was low. Meanwhile, the three of them kept on expanding their cities, but I kept back, only having the necessary 9 cities and not building.
Finally, a barely buyable plant came up, and it powers 5 cities. I was aggressivly pushing to buy this one, and got it, pushing my capacity to 12. Unfortunately, the step 3 card appeared right after, meaning that good plants were being pushed up to the market one at a time. Li Zhen got one next, pushing his capacity to 14. Forest didn't get one. So Harry got to buy one at face value, and it just happens to be one that has capacity 7, pushing his capacity to 17. At this point, we figured it's pretty much over, and we were right, since Harry simply used his massive reserve to build up to 17 cities, and he won.
But...this felt like quite an unsatisfying end, so Forest Li Zhen and I kept on playing as a 3-player game. We wanted to have an opportunity to play the big plants. In the next round, all three of us got a plant (I got the fusion plant for 6, used to cost 50, now only 44), and at that point both Li Zhen and I had capacity 16, while Forest was below that. So now if either Li Zhen or I build to 17 cities, the game would be over and the two of us will compare money for the secondary winner. I knew that I would have less money, so I only built to 16 cities. Li Zhen was afraid that I have more money than him, so he didn't trigger the end game and built to 16 cities as well. Forest was just happy to be still in the game.
Then the final round came. Coal was running short. I only have supplies for one coal plants, and was sure to have no more coal available to me this turn since I'm first in turn order after having bought that fusion plant. Only two plants remain in the deck, and one coal plant that powers 7 came out, which was the only plant in the market that would improve my capacity. I cannot pass, so I picked that one, hoping that there's a slim chance that Li Zhen would get it so that I would have the other big plant available. Well, Li Zhen was smart, so he passed. I replaced this new plant with my original coal plant and increased my capacity by 2. If I had replaced another plant, my capacity would increase by 3, but I would not have enough coal to power it all. So now I have capacity 18.
Li Zhen obviously picked the one that came out next, which was the big 50 plant where 2 uranium powers 8! Forest and Li Zhen went to a bidding war for this one, since whoever wins this one would have the highest capacity. The bidding ended when Forest jumped the price from around 70 to 100! Li Zhen thought that's too much for him (foreshadowing!), so he let Forest have it. Now Forest has capacity 19! Li Zhen picked up a nuclear plant that powers 6 to bring his capacity total to 18, hoping to drive the price of uranium up, but it didn't work so well.
Now Forest built up to 19 cities, so he won the secondary game. Li Zhen and I both built up to 18 cities, and we compared our money, which of course Li Zhen had way more than me, so he ended in third place while I was dead last. Now, a couple of analysis...
(a) If Li Zhen knew that I had very little money in the second last round and ended the game at that round, he would have won the secondary game! But I guess he was insecure, or he wanted to play more!
(b) Forest had only 8 dollars left at the end of the game! So if Li Zhen had pushed the price up by at least 9 dollars, Forest would not be able to afford his 19th city, and he would had to compare money with both Li Zhen and I, for which he would definitely lose. That's why it's very important to keep the money secret, or people would overanalyze this so much!
Ok, I enjoyed this game greatly, even though I ended up last. Well, maybe not for the stalling in step 2, but otherwise it was fun.
First stage scores:
Forest: 11 capacity, 16 cities.
Harry: 17 capacity, 17 cities, 93 dollars left.
Li Zhen: 14 capacity, 14 cities.
Me: 12 capacity, 13 cities.
Second stage scores:
Forest: 19 capacity, 19 cities, 8 dollars left.
Li Zhen: 18 capacity, 18 cities, 122 dollars left.
Me: 18 capacity, 18 cities, 46 dollars left.
Labels: Power Grid
posted by martin at
3:13 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home