Manny, Richard, Nora, and myself met last night to play Power Grid, ranked the 3rd best game in the world by the members of boardgamegeek.com.
It was only my second session of PG, and it turned into my second loss. Hopefully, my mistakes will help you learn what not to do.
In my first game of Power Grid, I narrowly lost due to not having enough capacity on the final turn to power as many cities as my opponent. The lesson learned in that loss severely colored my play in this game, much to my detriment.
Here are some of the questions that I have about my play last night:
- I let Manny and Nora outbid me for Plants 04 and 05, leaving me with Plant 08 and last in line to place my first house.
- Nora, going first, selected the Pacific Northwest. Manny then took control of the valuable East Coast followed by Richard taking the Central Region. My decision was to fight it out with Manny or to claim an area for my own. I decided to take the expensive West Coast. This left no one to contest Manny for the east, giving him a tremendous advantage. I probably should have played it differently.
- With the highest numbered plant, I would remain the leader for 2nd round if I bought a house like everyone else the first turn. I decided not to. I’m pretty sure that this was the correct decision since it let me be first in buying resources and placing houses. Also, it only cost me 10 Elektros, which would have almost been completely consumed by what I paid for the resources. The problem was that I started paying way too much consideration to placing myself in a good position as far as the leader track. The disadvantages to being in the lead aren’t nearly severe enough to make staying back too far attractive. In the end, letting Manny pull ahead too far is what killed me.
- Later in the game, I really, really wanted a plant that was next up in the future market. With both Richard and me left to buy a plant, I took a chance and hoped Richard would outbid me for the one that I nominated. He didn’t. This blunder left me with a suboptimal plant that made me way to dependent on getting massive quantities of coal. In contrast, Manny bought much more efficient hybrid plants that allowed him not to be nearly as concerned with resources.
- Near the end, I had much more plant capacity than anyone but very few cities. Instead of concentrating on catching up in cities, I spent all my money on resources when it wasn’t necessary. Huge mistake. Manny raced ahead to 17 cities even though he could only power 15. I had capacity for 20 but only had 11. Manny won.
In contrast to all my mistakes, Manny, overall, played an extremely good game. He took an early lead, selected plants well, and managed his strategy to perfection. Maybe he should be writing this article…
