Tuesday 28th March - Power Grid - Italy
Rhis week we were playing at my house, Garry was picking me up from the train at Horsham and we were driving over together. Simple plan, destined to go wrong. Two stations before Horsham, just as we were pulling out an almighty bang and grating sound and we ground to a halt and the power went off. Doh! Temporary electrical fault which delayed us by 20 minutes. Anyway finally got there, Richard and Steve had already arrived. It was Garry’s choice and he had chosen the Italy map for Power Grid. I really like this game and this was the final map we had to play. It looks really congested at the northern end of the map and opens out as you get further south towards Sicily. We decided the two northermost regions were out of the game. I thought placing your initial power stations would be vital and thought I had made a mistake when I went for cheapest at the north end of the map. Garry and Steve went slightly to the south of me and I thought I would get hemmed in. Richard went his own way and placed his right on the heel of the map far away from anybody.
Sorry I haven’t given a run through of the game as I am assuming that everybody is familiar with this classic game. Anyway managing your money for buying resources, power stations and fuel is very important and working out what you want to buy before you commit yourself is a good plan. Funny I can do this in Power Grid and enjoy the game but with AoS it just blows my mind. So I managed to find a way out down the western coast before Garry could block me in so I wasn’t too bad. Richard was just doing his own thing down south. Steve did contemplate building in Sicily and paying a huge build through cost just to try to foil Richard’s plans, but decided against it. Although I thought the map looked really tight nobody really got stuffed with nowhere to build. By the time we had reached stage 3 it still pretty tight. At one point Steve bought 12 coal and 3 oil to try and stop Richard from powering his cities. Uranium was getting cheaper and cheaper but not many power stations were on line, I had one that powered 3 but had to get rid of it for a more powerful coal station. As the game neared the end it was so close, I knew I wasn’t going to win because I could only power 16 and if I bought a more powerful station I had no money to buy houses.The final scores were very close needing a tiebreaker between 1st and 2nd and 3rd and 4th.
Final Scores
Steve 17 (13 money), Richard 17 (7 money), Colin 16 (3 money, 17 houses built), Garry 16 (3 money, 16 houses built)
posted by Colin @ 11:09 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Wow - I have to say this was a fun and very tight game!!
Personally the first Power Station I acquired was the 3 for 2 coal staion - allowing me to power 2 towns on the first turn. As everyome else had decided to start 'oop north' - I went for an isolated and tranqil start down on the heel of the Italian boot.
As the game went on I managed to aquire a 3 for 4 oil Power Station (Coal was getting scarce) and by some luck snatch the 0 for 3 wind station from under Steve's nose.
As the game progressed I always seemed to have more 'houses' than the other players so generally had the worse pick of resouces and power station - though my solitary live in the south meant I had the space (ie Sicily) to build houses as and when I wanted to.
As the game entered the half way stage I started bidding 'large' for any 6 or 7 town supplying power stations that became available (Eventually being able to supply 18 houses).
As it looked like I was going to win the game (I had power stations to supply 18 and the money to get to 17+ houses) and non one else was close to be able to power that amount - the other players conspired to purchase 14 coal resouses in one turn - meaning I would not be able to power my 7 for 6 Coal Station (They left only 2 coal - which I still purchased). The game therefore went on for another turn.
For the final turn realising I would never be allowed to get the 1 coal I needed - I purchased another 6 town supplying Oil power station to replace it and built upton 17 houses.
As the scores show it was all very tight at the end - Steve beating me by 6 Electros.
Now if I hadn't purchased those 2 coal for 13 Electro on the penultimate round ...
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