Tuesday 22nd November - Power Grid/France
I have played Power Grid only a couple of times but it is a game that I really like, so as it was my choice this week I thought we'd give one of the new maps a run out. France looked like a good bet with the extra nuclear power and slightly different set-up of resources. The triple city of Paris with no connection charges looks a good place to start for the first player to build, but as they warn in the set-up rules this could be a drawback as they will be last to buy resources and build next turn. Anyway Steve went first and snapped up two of the Paris locations and built a third city so did indeed end up last next turn. I started building just to the south west of Paris, Garry to the west and Richard further down south east. This map does give you space to build and nobody got really stuffed. Whereas the Italian map looks really crowded, be interesting to see if that is the case when we do play it. Considering that more uranium is in the initial set-up of resources and a nuclear power plant is the first one off of the deck it seems slightly strange that the uranium is not given more when you re-stock each turn.What was interesting was Richard building cities all over the map but for most of the game, up until the penultimate turn I think, only supplying 5. The right power plants just didn't turn up and there was quite a lot of passing. I think we had 2 rounds where everybody passed and no power plants were bought at all. Actually in the game the nuclear power plants didn't feature much, I had one for a time, Garry had a couple but I don't think Steve or Richard had any. I know I made a couple of mistakes but didn't think I was doing too bad. Nearing the end game Steve, Garry and I could all supply 15 cities and Richard had finally got the one he wanted and went up to 18. I made a big mistake which cost me dear in the end, as I failed to notice the coal resource gradually drying up and when Steve bought it all on the last turn it shut down my power plant that could supply 6 cities. So Richard finally got the win, the first game of Power Grid he had won he told us.
Final Scores (Money is the tie-break)
Richard 18, Steve 15 (60 money), Garry 15 (22 money), Colin 9
posted by Colin @ 12:25 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Just to clarify colin's comments on me only supplying onky 5 cities for most on the game.
I initially concentrated on building cities on the eastern side of France - and supplying power with a 3 for 2 coal power station. Eventually I supplemented this with a 3 for 5 power station.
However as Steve continued to buy up the coal - and therefore make it expensive to purchase resources when it came to my turn (As I had the most cities I was always purchasing resources last) - I only ever ran the 3 for 5 station as it was uneconomical to run the 3 for 2 (Generally I would have spent 19 on resouces to get 18 income!!).
So up until about 2/3rds of the way throigh the game I was only supplying 5 cities. This however gave me enough cash to expand my cities upto around 12.
My biggest problem was that I needed to get another large power plant and as I was always picking first there was never anything worth picking (ie a power station that could supplying at least 4 more cities) - so I continualy passed and just concentrated on expanding my cities for a time when I would be able to supply them.
Once we entered phase 3 - I was able to pick up an Oil Powered 2 for 6 power station (Though Garry did make me up the cost a bit - but as I had a lot of spare cash this was never a problem).
For the last few turns I was therefore generating power for 11 cities - and I was looking to move my cities to over 17 and be able to supply them.
Once again however I had to wait a few turns for the correct station to turn up (Though as colin now had 15 cities he was being forced to choose first rather than me - so I had a lttle more choice).
Eventually I picked up the 3 for 7 coal power station - was able to expand my cities to 18. A bit of forward planning on part (I puchased all the coal I needed the previous round) prevented steve's buying all the coal plan from stuffing me (though it did get Colin in the cross fire!!).
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