Power Grid: France Map

Mark and I did an inventory of our Power Grid board game the other day and compared it to the list of maps on BoardGameGeek.com and discovered that we were only missing one expansion map: France/Italy. It just so happens that one of our favorite FLGSs, Viking Hobby, had that map in stock and would hold it for us until Saturday. While Mark went to get our friend Frank, I drove over to Viking Hobby and picked up the map. We met at Great Escape and, after a game of Pandemic, we were joined by our friends, David, Cale, and Melinda for a game of Power Grid on the France side of the board.

This was a tricky board! One of the things about Power Grid is that you have to buy spots in the cities on the map, but you also have to pay the connection costs between each of the cities. On the France map these connection costs were really high. On most maps there are usually two or three cities that have 2-3 sections where there are no connection costs and the connection costs between those mega-cities and their nearest smaller cities are quite low - $3-5 each. Not on the France map! Paris was the only mega city in the sections we
were playing with and most of the connection costs were between $10-19 each. On top of this, one of the other special rules about the France map was that nuclear fuel is cheap and nuclear power plants start off plentiful. However, just because they are plentiful does not mean they are cheap.

With a six-player game the competition was fierce. Only Melinda was a newbie at this game and even she caught onto it very quickly and became competitive. We all stayed pretty closely clumped together on the scoring track throughout the whole game and when we came to the end, it was a photo finish. Mark won the game by being able to power two more houses than Frank and David and had a grand total of $8 left over. It was a very good game!