#44/52. A Game That was Originally Published in a Different Language - Power Grid

Yesterday was a game day at the Carmichael, CA Public Library. I had been looking forward to that game day all month. It turns out that I couldn't go. Not because I didn't have the time or had other obligations, but because I have a cold. I didn't think it would be nice of me to share my miserable cold with the rest of the gaming community, so Mark and I stayed away. First we went out to Folsom to check out a board game store we'd heard about but never seen called The Game Getaway (more on that in a different post) where I picked up a copy of Codenames, and then we came home and played a couple of games in the evening.

One of those games was Power Grid. This game was designed and published by Friedemann Friese, a German board game designer. It's German name is Funkenschlag and the game was originally published in German. Friedmann Friese is known for designing games with odd themes. Building and running a power grid certainly sounds like a dry theme, but the game works and is compellingly fun and competitive. In fact, the Meeple League runs tournaments around this game!

In this game players are competing to build the largest and most robust power grid in a particular market. The different markets can affect how the game is played. In some markets some resources are quite scarce while others are abundant. In other markets, the resources market is regulated or rigged.

In the Australia map it is illegal to build a nuclear power plant. On other maps, nuclear is illegal in some parts of the map, but not in others. As the game's popularity took off, the company published more market maps. The current list includes:

• Australia & Indian Subcontinent
• Benelux/Central Europe
• Brazil/Spain & Portugal
• China/Korea
• France/Italy (the only one we don't currently own)
• Germany/United States (the map that comes with the base game)
• Northern Europe/United Kingdom & Ireland
• Québec/Baden-Württemberg 
• Russia/Japan

There are three phases to each turn. First you buy power plants. There are several resources available to power these plants. Coal, oil, garbage, and uranium will all cost you money to purchase in the next phase of the turn. There are also wind powered plants and, later in the game, even more advanced plants that cost nothing to run, but are very expensive to purchase. They become even more expensive because they are purchased at auction and your fellow players can drive up the cost of a plant by bidding on it. A player can have three plants in front of him/her at a time. When you buy a larger or more efficient plant, you discard one of your older or less efficient plants out of the game.

In the second phase of the turn you buy your resources. Coal and oil are always more abundant in the early part of the game. They are, of course, more polluting and the cards depicting the power plants show that in their representations. You are limited to buying only double what your plants need to power your towns. However, this does still allow you to drive up the price of resources for your competition if you are able to snatch up all the cheap coal and oil early in this phase each turn. The refresh rate for resources fluctuates during the game, so some resources that were once abundant can suddenly become quite scarce.

The third phase of the game is building houses in towns. Each town has three areas (usually). In stage one of the game you can only build in the area that cost $10. In stage two you can build in the $15 and in stage three you can build in the $20 area. Except, here's the rub, you cannot build in a $15 or $20 area where you have already built in that city. You have to move on to other cities in the market. So it pays to be the first person to get into a city cheaply and then to spread out from there. Between the cities there are connection costs that also must be paid. After all, you must connect new cities to your existing power grid. Once everyone is done with this, it's time to power everything. Players get paid based on how many of the houses they built that can be powered by the plants that they have. It is possible to have more houses on the board than you have the capacity to power. That's ok. 

The game ends when the number of houses built goal for the game has been reached. This varies based on the number of players. The winner is the player with the most number of POWERED houses. NOT the most houses. If there is a tie, money on hand is the tie breaker. 

Mark and I played a really competitive game last night. It was neck-and-neck until I made a tactical error at the very end. I bid too much for one of the largest power plants and then didn't have enough left to buy resources for my remaining garbage plant. Mark ended up winning the game. It was a very good and fun game however. 

One final note... this play also counts as one of my 10 x 10 plays because I have Power Grid listed as one of the games on that list as well. I've made some pretty good progress on both that list and the 2016 52 Game Challenge. I'll post another Tale of the Tape here soon.