Power Grid Italy with New Plants!

I picked up the Italy/France map just this day, and played the Italy portion in the evening with Harry and Li Zhen. And we used the new power plants. It's a double expansion game! We played the higher-cost lower three regions, together with the higher resource costs, it should have been a game where money was tight...unfortunately, not so with the efficient power plants! So money was almost never an issue, which kind of took a bit of fun out of the game. But in any case, we proceeded as usual, this time I actually built more houses than Harry sometimes! Initially I was blocked in by both of them, but I rammed north to take a stake there (with enough money to do that...heh).

The power plants were mostly balanced, so we couldn't get a lasting plant early in the game, which is good. Step 3 auctions were kind of lame, though, since we were all trying to bet if the next plant is going to be one of those giant ones. So instead of bidding high for a plant, there was almost no bidding. In the end, I was the only one with 19 capacity while both Harry and Li Zhen had 18 capacity. I had just enough money to build to 19 cities, so I won. Harry had less money than Li Zhen, so Li Zhen got second place. But the trick is, had Li Zhen bought one more plant in the last round to raise his capacity to 19, there was a possibility that he might have won...heh. But for now, I win for the first time in a while.

About the new power plants...I think the way we play them sort of ruins part of the fun. The giant plants that are above 50 messes things up quite a bit. Maybe that's why for a few games now, we had enough capacity to finish the game way before we had enough cities on the board. That slowed the tension by quite a bit. So in the future, we should either play with the old plants or play only the new plants up to 50, like what the rules said...heh.

Final scores:
Li Zhen: 18 capacity and cities, 53 dollars left.
Harry: 18 capacity and cities, 36 dollars left.
Me: 19 capacity and cities, 36 dollars left.

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.

What? I won at Power Grid?

We still had time, so played a bit of Power Grid Benelux, the supposed faster game among the maps. We picked three sort-of-elongated region this time. Li Zhen picked the south, I picked the north, and Harry was squeezed in the middle, meaning Harry couldn't expand much. Li Zhen was slow in the power plants. I hit step 2, and step 3 came soon afterwards. In the second last round, both Harry and I had capacity 17, but neither of us had enough money to build up to 17 cities. This gave Li Zhen a chance to build up his power plants. I decided to only power 12 cities that turn, hoping to conserve some money with the resources. For the final round, I was last in turn order. Only one 6-plant on the board, the rest 5 or lower, and no more plants were available. Harry passed on the power plants, I decided to put the 6-plant up for auction. If I won that, I would have 18 capacity (and Harry was regretting it now), but if Li Zhen won that, he would have 17 capacity, and we would all go into a tie-breaker. Turns out that Li Zhen wanted that more than I did, so I let him have it. We all built up to 17 cities with 17 capacity, and it was time to reveal the money... Li Zhen had just 2 dollars left... Harry had 73... and I had 94...so even with low power in the second last round, I still won! Yay! That was an interesting game.

3-player Power Grid Central Europe

Li Zhen joined Harry and I for the Central Europe game. I noted initially that oil is scarce in Central Europe, but apparently they weren't listening...heh. We picked eastern Poland, Slovakia and Austria for yet another elongated play area. This time, the bottleneck is at Wien and Bratislava, and Li Zhen took that one out of the gate. And that had a great impact on the rest of the game. Harry and I were stuck in the north, and later Li Zhen even moved northward as well, so it's infeasible for neither Harry nor I to go down to Austria. That means Li Zhen had control over when step 2 starts...

...but, we had an awful power plant market. All of us have capacity for 5 or 6 already, but for the longest time, the power plants for sale all have capacities 2 or 3. So for many many rounds, all of us were simply gathering up money, while Li Zhen refuses to go into step 2 until he buys a better plant. Meanwhile, both Harry and I needed oil for our plants while Li Zhen only needed coal and very cheap uranium. Oil was running dry, and our costs for oil went higher and higher.

Eventually, Li Zhen sees another uranium plant on the market and bought it. In that round, he finally broke into step 2 with the building, but Harry and I still couldn't build because we have to wait until the next round. At the end of the round, after placing the highest power plant under the deck, the replacement card was the step 3 card! So this is the round where both step 2 and 3 happened! This has never happened before...

Now we can go on a shopping spree for power plants. I first set my eyes on the 3 hybrid -> 7 cities plant, and Harry wanted that too. The bidding went crazy...eventually I bought it for 75 bucks! Yikes. Then Harry set his eyes on a 2 oil -> 6 cities plant, but (wisely) decided against it since oil was running dry. That round, though, I bought all the oil, so while Li Zhen and I both powered around 10 cities, Harry only powered 2, so he must be low on money. Next round, Harry and Li Zhen went on a bidding war over the 3 coals -> 7 cities plant, which Harry won for 80 bucks! Harry was not expecting that, I think... Li Zhen picked up a 3 trash -> 7 cities one, while I picked up the 2 oil -> 6 cities one, which I can afford since I was first to buy resources. But, unfortunately for me, I don't have enough money to build up to 17 cities, which means I need another round to win. But I don't have another round, unfortunately, as Li Zhen has a ton of money (who knew) and builds up to 18 cities to win. Meanwhile, Harry still had one oil plant that he couldn't power, so his score is pretty low. That was a very intense end game, I think. Quite enjoyable, too, if not brain burning...

Final scores:
Harry: 17 capacity, 12 resources, 13 cities, $70 left.
Li Zhen: 18 capacity, 18 resources, 18 cities, $157 left.
Me: 18 capacity, 18 resources, 15 cities, $21 left.

2-player Power Grid Benelux

Harry and I played on the Benelux map using three elongated regions from top to bottom, with a bottleneck at Maastricht. Harry took that city initially, but I managed to cut him off from the north, though. Somehow I was always low on cash, behind on the city building, and that hurt me at the end. I was the first to have capacity 21 while Harry have around 14, but I couldn't build up to 21 in that round. Next round, Harry gets up to capacity 20, but I still couldn't build up to 21 cities. Instead, he built up to 21 cities, winning the game by powering 20 while I only powered 18. Oops. Anyway, it's a very quick game, I think.

Final scores:
Harry: 20 capacity, 21 cities, $4 left.
Me: 21 capacity, 18 cities, $11 left.

More (fun and) games with John and Tim (1/3)

As if I didn't have enough torture, I went back to play games with John and Tim... Why did I do that? I don't know. Anyway, Tim and I played a game to start, and the choice of game: Power Grid! Yay...finally. This is the first time I've ever played the 2-player version, and it's not that bad...

We chose the three central regions of the US for this game. The auctions were generally not too exciting, going up by at most 4 from the base price. I somehow decided that I would use garbage and uranium, while Tim used primarily coal and oil. So of course my resources were a lot more costly than his. We were both neck-and-neck in terms of getting capacity and building cities, though somehow Tim was one city ahead of me. But we got to a point where none of the power plants on the market was good to buy, so we passed on buying one for several terms, amassing a lot of money. This was where an interesting thing happened...

Tim bought a nuclear plant, and then we were both tied for plant capacity (11). He bought two uraniums, hence driving up the price to 12 for me. I had two uranium plants, and thinking that uranium is too expensive, I bought only one uranium. And then we were off to city building. This is where the massive money that Tim accumulated from the previous rounds came into play: seeing that I didn't have the resources to power more cities than him, he decided to build (from 8) up to the game-ending 21 cities, and ended the game right there. That was a very clever move! Nice one. So even though he could only power 11 of his 21 cities, he still won...heh. So in the end, my timing was off by just a step, and lost the game. Still a fun game for 2 players here. Only got to step 2...heh.

Final scores:

Tim: 11 capacity, 21 cities, 11 powered, 54 dollars left.
Me: 11 capacity, 9 cities, 9 powered, 192 dollars left.

First 5-player game of Power Grid

Saturday night, and for the first time we played a 5-player version of Power Grid. I have to say off the top, though, that I didn't like it...maybe I was playing with the wrong people, or maybe having 5 players is simply too much for this game, which lacks the tension of a close game among all players. In any case, we played the US map with the SW region excluded. The players are Ed John Harry Brian and I. Ed and John were newbies. And the game starts...

...with step 1 taking a long time...heh. I built at the gateway to the NW which had access to the cheap cities in central US and have a first crack at the expensive NW. Brian and John occupied the east coast, Ed started in the south while Harry was somewhere in the middle. Step 1 didn't end until most of the board was filled up except for the NW...heh. Brian could have triggered step 2 if he had built a connection that crisscrosses at least 4 other cities...heh. But he didn't, and John did.

Meanwhile, the power plant market was really bizarre. Even at step 2, there were some pretty useless plants still on the market. Because of that, I was way behind in getting the plants, since I only want to cycle the plants only once. I had two garbage plants and one wind plant powering a total of 6 cities for a long time, even after I've built past 6 cities. The others all had pretty steady growth in plant capacities while I lagged behind. I was called the garbage man, since I was the only one with garbage plants (which is a good strategy if I want to have resources, except garbage was never cheap). Ed was in a hurry to go home (since it was late), so there was one round where he built up to 12 cities from 7 or 8, and then we all tried to play catch up...heh.

Step 3 came pretty quickly after step 2, and then the big plants came out (this is where I forgot to perform the rule that says I should shuffle the plants after step 3 card came out...oops). There was a point where both Harry and Ed had capacity 14, the rest of us below that. If one of them built up to 15 cities, then the game would end, and presumably Harry and Ed had to compare money to see who wins. However, the one who builds to 15 would spend the extra money to build to 15, hence reducing his money supply. Harry went before Ed, and Harry built up to 14, but didn't want to build to 15 and take that risk. Wrong move. Ed could only build up to 14 during his turn and ran out of money. Doh for Harry...heh. Then came the final round...

The bidding for power plants was fierce this time around. John first bought a plant to bring his capacity up to 16. Then Harry and Brian bid for a 7-plant, and Harry got it, but at a very costly price. This brings Harry up to capacity 17. Brian bought a plant to bring him up to capacity 16. Then it was Ed's turn. There were two 6-plants on the market, one costing about 35, the other is the fusion plant costing 50, and no 7-plants. Ed needs a 6-plant to get him up to 17, so I could have raise the price with him so that his cost is around 50...but I didn't. Instead, I let him have the 35(?) plant at face value, and I bought the next plant that came up which (fortunately) was a 7-plant, at face value. So in summary, Ed and Harry had capacity 17, while the rest of us had capacity 16.

Fuel supply was plenty for everyone, so that's no problem. I built first, and I got up to 16 cities, which is ok. John was next and he could only build up to 15 cities, so he's out. Ed was next, and he built up to 17 cities and had only 3 dollars left! Doh! So I could have prevented him from building that 17th city and have a chance at winning! Oops... Harry was next, but he didn't have enough money remaining to win, so he decided that he would stop building (which I think is being a bad sport). Brian was last, he didn't have a chance of winning, but he said it best when he wanted to lose in a glorious way...heh. So built up to 17 cities and still had enough money left to keep building...heh. So Ed won during his first game!

In the end, John and Harry complained a lot about this game, and they give a lot of arguments about how bad Power Grid is when those are just reasons why they lost the game...so those are simply excuses for the elements of the game for which they cannot manage well. And I just hate to hear these things from them. It's a really good game!!! Anyway, here are the final scores...

Ed: 17 capacity, 17 cities, 3 dollars left.
John: 16 capacity, 15 cities, 4 dollars left.
Harry: 17 capacity, 14 cities, 46 dollars left.
Brian: 16 capacity, 17 cities, 50 dollars left.
Me: 16 capacity, 16 cities, 12 dollars left.

Monday evening after prayer meeting: With just 3 people left for games, they still picked Power Grid...heh. So it was the first time we played with so few people. And since at least one needs to build to at least 17 out of the 21 available cities, the map was pretty tight as well. We picked the bottom three regions in the Germany map, which meant that expanding costs are high.

It all went pretty smoothly at the start. I was the first one to have capacity 17 for power plants. In the next round (which is the second last one), Li Zhen and I bought up all the oil so Harry couldn't power all of his plants...heh. And if I could just build up to 17 cities, I would win. But, I couldn't, short by about 10 dollars...oops. So I built up to 16, forgetting that I really should have pulled back a couple of cities to go last in the turn order.

Then the last round came. Harry had capacity 17 and Li Zhen had capacity 16. I was the first to buy power plants, and I was afraid that by passing, they could buy power plants to power up to 18 or 19, and I would be out of the running. So I decided to put a 7-plant up for auction. When they saw that I was trying to get up to capacity 19, they were worried and bid as well. Eventually Li Zhen got it, giving him capacity 18. There was only one 7-plant remaining, so I put that up for auction. Harry went to a bidding war with me, since if he doesn't get it, then he could only go up to capacity 18. But he raised prices high enough that even if I win this plant, I could only build up to 17 cities, and I would still lose. So at this point, I was definitely losing this game...

But how to make it fun? I still don't want Harry to win this, so I've decided to raise the price high enough that Harry couldn't both afford the plant and build up to 19 cities (he didn't get enough money from the previous round when oil ran out). And it worked, so I got this plant for a hefty price, I go up to capacity 19, and Harry bought a plant to bring him up to capacity 18. I only had money left to build up to 17 cities, so I was out of running. Li Zhen and Harry both had capacity 18, and built up to 18 cities, so it was a matter of how much money they had left. They refused to be the one to show first...heh...so I decided to go look at their money one at a time...and Li Zhen won! I think I had a hand in helping him win, just as he had a hand in helping me win in a previous game...heh. So that was a fun game that left Harry furious (in a fun way...heh).

Final scores:

Harry: 18 capacity, 18 cities, 40 dollars left.
Li Zhen: 18 capacity, 18 cities, 70 dollars left.
Me: 19 capacity, 17 cities, 12 dollars left.