Power Grid (2004)

How to Play Power Grid

In Power Grid, the aim is extending your power network such that you power more cities than other players. The game board depicts a country divided into six zones differentiated by color codes. The cities on the map will have three spaces on which each player places his/her colored wooden houses to depict the control of a city. The game has several rounds/turns, with each comprising five phases. Players take specific actions during these phases before a game progresses to another round. Here are the phases:

Determine Player Order

When starting the game, you will draw lots to get the playing order. After the first round, the number of cities controlled by a player determines his/her playing order. The first player will be the one with the most cities in his/her network. If two players have the same number of cities in their networks, the first will be the one with the larger-numbered power plant. The house of the first player is placed in the first position on your player order area. The other player positions follow the same criterion.

Auction power plants

Here, the cards depicting power plants are spread out, and the first player bids on the plants. These plants generate different power amounts and need different resources to work. A player can make the lowest bid amount on a power plant (this is symbolized in the plant’s number). The other players will then try to surpass the bid or opt out. The one with the highest bid pays his/her Elektro to the bank then takes the power plant.

When starting the game, the plants might not be as efficient, but the most advanced are placed on auction as the game progresses. Players must buy a plant in the first round but can pass a purchase in subsequent rounds.

Purchase resources to power the plants

Once you have a power plant, remember that you need resources to get it going. The power grid has four resource options for powering a plant. These include coal, garbage, uranium and oil. Players can only buy resources for the plants they own.

When buying resources, this is done in reverse player order, meaning the last player is the first to buy resources. As people buy resources, the remaining will cost more, an effective depiction of the supply and demand model. You can only buy resources that your power plant uses. For instance, you only buy coal for a coal power plant.

There are ecological power plants like wind-powered plants that need no resources bought and eco-friendly ones like those using garbage. These might be expensive to buy but cheaper to run.

Building Cities

Remember that the winner in Power Grid is the one with the highest number of powered cities. You thus should balance your resources and networks to get these cities then connect them to power. You start your network by choosing any city not picked by another player in the game’s playing areas.

To symbolize your network, you place one of your wooden houses in the city. To add your network, you connect your new acquisition to one of the cities you already have. This means paying a connection cost indicated on the map and the lowest empty space’s value to the bank. To save cash, you chose the cheapest connection route between your existing city and the new city.

Bureaucracy

In this step, you spend the resources you used to power your cities. Your number of cities will determine how much money you can earn to use in the next phase of auctions, building cities, and buying resources. In bureaucracy, there is also a clean-up. This entails removing some power plants that no one wants from the auction market so that the market keeps moving with new technologies.

How to win Power Grid

The Power Grid game end in phase 4 when a player has not less than seventeen cities in his/her network. At this point, no one can buy power plants or resources. Even so, the winner is not the player with the highest number of cities but rather the one who can supply power to the highest number of cities in his/her network based on his/her resources and power plants. If there is a tie, the winner becomes the player with a higher amount of remaining Elektro.

Power Grid Review

“I was totally caught off guard when I realized how much I enjoyed playing Power Grid. It is one of those games that, if you spend some time learning its intricacies you will be greatly rewarded. If you enjoy Euro games, give Power Grid a try, you might be pleasantly surprised at what you find.

The game took some time to teach, but after the initial play through players grasped the mechanics quite quickly. I was surprised by how much strategic depth the game had. I loved the fact that each choice I made carried weight, and that players were rewarded by planning ahead.”

Deville Louw, fortressofsolitude.co.za

“Power Grid was the first game I had ever purchased that I hadn’t already been taught by someone else. It was a steep dive into gaming as I learned the rules on my own for the first time, and then attempted to teach others. But it quickly became a favorite of my local gaming friends.”

Joseph, artofboardgaming.com

“I love analyzing every move and determining when to make which moves myself. Which power plants should I buy? And since they’re bought at auction, how high am I willing to pay for them? Or how high should I run the price up on my competitors when I know they want a particular plant? Or when should I pass on buying another power plant altogether?

…So much to think of the whole game – awesome! And since I’m actively engaged the whole time with each phase, each stage, and the decisions of the other players, I hardly know that 2 hours have gone by.”

theboardgamefamily.com

The content of this article is originally from Board Game Geek and howdoyouplayit.com. For more information and a better understanding of the game, you can watch the videos below.