by Corey
After a year of Charterstone and then starting 2020 off with Euphoria, the group decided to take a break from worker placements. When Donnie and I were at Carnage Con in November 2019, he noticed Power Grid at the flea market at a good price. At least he thought it was Power Grid. Right before he cashed out, we noticed it was actually one of the sequel games and not the original Power Grid like he wanted, so he put it back down.
Fast forward to January 2020, we were at the Eloquent Ogre Mini-Con and he saw the game again, this time the right one, and again at a good price so he quickly scooped it up. It turned out that a couple of the guys in our group have played Power Grid before and enjoyed it so we agreed to play it for our February session. It also supports up to 6 players so it was a great choice because we were going to have 6! At least I thought so. The day had come to play and a few members of the gang decided to grab some food from... lets just it is a popular fast food restaurant chain. One might say they grabbed too much food. So much that one of our players felt ill and had to bail. However, I think it was just an excuse because he became disinterested after watching some overview videos. That's ok, we still had 5.
Power Grid is a bit Monopoly meets Ticket to Ride with some engine building mixed in. The object of the game is to build cities on a map and then power those cities using power plants. Everything costs money. Paper money. The power plants are acquired though an auction, the cities are built on the map over connected routes, and resources for your power plants are bought from a fluctuating market. The more houses you can power with your power plants, the more money you earn back. The satisfying part is getting the perfect mix of power plants to power your cities. In particular, I at one point had 2 power plants that allowed me to power a combined 9 cities with just 2 resources. The downside is you can only hold up to double the resource consumption amount of your power plants. What I didn't realize until late is that you can only consume ONE of those resources, so I guess I may have cheated a few rounds.
After a year of Charterstone and then starting 2020 off with Euphoria, the group decided to take a break from worker placements. When Donnie and I were at Carnage Con in November 2019, he noticed Power Grid at the flea market at a good price. At least he thought it was Power Grid. Right before he cashed out, we noticed it was actually one of the sequel games and not the original Power Grid like he wanted, so he put it back down.
Fast forward to January 2020, we were at the Eloquent Ogre Mini-Con and he saw the game again, this time the right one, and again at a good price so he quickly scooped it up. It turned out that a couple of the guys in our group have played Power Grid before and enjoyed it so we agreed to play it for our February session. It also supports up to 6 players so it was a great choice because we were going to have 6! At least I thought so. The day had come to play and a few members of the gang decided to grab some food from... lets just it is a popular fast food restaurant chain. One might say they grabbed too much food. So much that one of our players felt ill and had to bail. However, I think it was just an excuse because he became disinterested after watching some overview videos. That's ok, we still had 5.
Power Grid is a bit Monopoly meets Ticket to Ride with some engine building mixed in. The object of the game is to build cities on a map and then power those cities using power plants. Everything costs money. Paper money. The power plants are acquired though an auction, the cities are built on the map over connected routes, and resources for your power plants are bought from a fluctuating market. The more houses you can power with your power plants, the more money you earn back. The satisfying part is getting the perfect mix of power plants to power your cities. In particular, I at one point had 2 power plants that allowed me to power a combined 9 cities with just 2 resources. The downside is you can only hold up to double the resource consumption amount of your power plants. What I didn't realize until late is that you can only consume ONE of those resources, so I guess I may have cheated a few rounds.
Ultimately, there will be no asterisk for me because I didn't win. Power Grid is really fun with some interesting choices. Knowing how to work the auction is extremely important. You also don't want to go head to head with too many people on the same types of resources for your power plants so that they don't get too expensive for you in the market. There is a reason why Power Grid, a game from 2004, is still in the BoardGameGeek top 5o. Great game!
What do you like about Power Grid? Should Donnie have bought the sequel as well?
What do you like about Power Grid? Should Donnie have bought the sequel as well?
