Power Grid - 2 May 2012

Another great game of Power Grid, this time the Russia map - the Eastern steppes occupied by Kieron and Stu, the Western lands far more compressed and host to James, Adrian, Andy and Orhan.  The gameplay was incredibly close with some players expanding steadily, others holding back then surging.  It all went down to the wire: with three players able to power 14 cities the tie-breaker was our cash holdings, and Andy came out triumphant. Final scores: Andy 14 cities 63 dollars, Adrian 14 cities 8 dollars, Kieron 14 cities 5 dollars, James 12 cities 28 dollars, Stu 12 cities 2 dollars, and Orhan 11 cities.

Power Grid - 30 November 2011

A cracking game of Power Grid with the original German map.  James built first and ended up with Kieron right next to him.  Orhan took the East, Stuart the West, and David attempted to take the North, but he hadn't counted on Andy.

Trying to emulate a previous win for Lynne, Andy's strategy was to build only a few towns and then sit on them for a few turns spending no money.  He could have done this anywhere but to force himself to keep to the strategy he built in the three towns that David had blockaded hoping to build them later.  This meant David's first few builds were more expensive that anticipated, and Andy couldn't build at all until Stage 2 of the game.

Incredibly in the final round, James, Stuart and Orhan all managed to build and power 14 towns, with David, Andy and Kieron building and powering 12.  So it was the money that separated the two groups, with James just pipping Stuart with 53 Elektros against 50, and Orhan on 32.  Then David clearly at the top of the second group with 100, and Andy's strategy giving him the extra one he needed to beat Kieron into last place, 15 against 14.

Power Grid - 6th July

James had poisoned himself with his cooking and Adrian was on special duties so Stu was drafted in for a rare summer appearance. An old favourite was the evening's choice and it was to be another win for Orhan (3 in a row - surely a record?) We played France which has cheaper nuclear power but Orhan stayed clear of this whilst Deej and Kieron argued over the 'benefits' of buying up resources and stock-piling them making them cost more per turn for everyone including the deejious stock-piler! Andy decided to no-bid almost every turn including being frugal on the resource buying which stunted his expansion a little. Stu bid on almost everything in order to bump up the price. This worked and there were at least two 'doh' moments when Orhan and Deej spent over the odds for a power station only to see an equivalent (cheaper) one appear straight away.

A relaxed evening with a great game which once again ended in a nail-biting finish. Step 3 came up just in time for Orhan to buy a decent station and take the win with 17 powered cities. Kieron was second with 16 (and 23 electros), Deej also on 16 had no money left, Stu had 15 and Andy 12

Power Grid - 16 December 2009

A good turnout this week with 6 rivals braving the cold weather in the last session before the Christmas. So it was Power Grid again!
We played on the Korea map and decided to create a bottle neck by blanking off the central purple sector. We also played with the top 6 power cards added to the basic power station stack to hopefully create some tempting high value buys later in the game.
Deej decided to set up camp in the expensive North with Adrian. James decided to do the dirty on Andy in the tight central section and Kieron and Stuart had a cosy arrangement in the south. Andy became blocked in due to various dastardly moves but managed to accumulate tonnes of money and control resources by stocking up. He had enough breathing space to expand slowly though. Phase 2 of the game lasted for ages as a combination of nuclear and rubbish stations blocked the top row. By the time the good stations arrived, panic set in and we realised that Andy and James were close to winning. More dastardly moves bocked James' final expansion but Andy had managed to break into South Korea and could power 14 cities for the victory.
Andy 14 powered cities, Stuart 12, Deej 11(w*), Kieron 11, Adrian 11, James 9(w*)

*wet/sloshed

Power Grid - 9 December 2009

Five of us settled down for old favourite Powergrid with one of the original boards: America. Orhan started in the North East corner shielding cities he could link to later, Andy did similar in the South East. Kieron started nearby but David and James both started in the mid-West and Kieron ended up encircled.

Some differences from previous game: no ludicrously high bidding wars (missed you, Stu), fewer replacement power stations bought, and the final position saw three players all able to power the most cities. So it all came down to money, and the three revealed note by note until James just pipped David to take first place.

Scores: James 14 cities and 248 elektros, David 14 and 230, Andy 14 and 196 (he had to spend more to reach the 15 cities built that ended the game), then Orhan with 13 cities and Kieron with 12.

Power Grid - 22 April 2009

Ni Hao!
This game never fails to impress and this week was no exception as the rivals, numbering 6, took on the Chinese Challenge. The Chinese map also comes with an altered set of rules meaning that power stations come out in strict order and players can only bid on what is there as power stations in the market only become replenished once the bidding round is over.

There were no chinks in Adrian's plan as he spotted the need to keep his options open by only buying power stations with duel fuel. Andy, however, went crackers and decided on a rubbish option. Orhan was determined not get egg fried rice on his face (no room, what with the beard, chicken sticks and Mr Kipling's pies) as he carefully avoided becoming trapped by setting up in the middle of the country and mixing his fuel options. James' sweet option of waiting for the best power plants went sour as he was continually outbid for these by richer opponents. You can always canton Deej to come up with the best optimisation of the 18 or so variables in front of him and this week was no exception. But, just for a bit of fooyung, this week he also decided to get involved in every bid just to make everyone pay a premium for their power stations. Kieron chopped and changed his plans suey was behind at first, but being cut off in the north meant that he just saved his money and could take away cheap power stations and buy resources cheaply. This left him able to (by keeping out of the red) book his place on the podium. Was this win from Kieron a sino things to come next week?
15 Kieron
14 Ade
13 Deej
12 James/Orhan and
9 for Andy

Power Grid - 9 July 2008

With both Adrian and David sadly suffering from the lurgy, the four remaining Rivals sat down to the Germany board of Power Grid. Andy straight away attempted to box James into his Western starting position with Kieron threatening to complete the job, but fortunately for James, Kieron and Stuart set up in the East and North respectively, providing them both with plenty of Lebensraum, and James an escape route around Andy's cities.

All players made steady and similar progress in building cities and as the game was about to tip into Step 3 (when six powerplants are available to select from each turn) things were very close with Stuart, Andy and James all with the ability to power thirteen cities and Kieron able to power fourteen.

All players were sitting on fair amounts of money at this stage and Kieron was able to easily build from 11 to 17 cities in a single turn, ending the game that turn to win (for the second week in a row). With everyone else able to power their thirteen cities, it was cash in hand that decided the rest of the places - 2nd for Stuart, 3rd James and 4th Andy (trailing James by just 1 credit). As always, a great game.

Power Grid - 12 September 2007

After watching Michael Owen put two goals past the Russians, we stopped watching the England game at half-time reasonably confident of a home win (final score 3-0, Owen 7', 31', Ferdinand 84') and turned to the Italy expansion of Power Grid, one of our favourite games.

Andy and James started next to each other in Tuscany whilst Kieron established a base in Sicily, figuring that the expensive connections would be offset by not having to fight over the towns. With three players however, there was plenty of lebensraum for everyone, and very few towns had more than player connected even at the end.

The game played out very differently to previous times. The expansions were steady and measured, several turns had players not bidding for power plants, or not building to any new cities, and this allowed us to play out different strategies rather than chase the person expanding the most.

We realised that a sudden late surge to build up to 17 cities, even if you could only fuel a dozen of them, could win you a game. Andy was first to try this and unfortunately, although he could fuel the most cities at the time, he fell just a few Electro (the game's currency) short of building the 17th city he needed to win the game.

The following turn there was lots of costly bidding for final power plants, crucially allowing James to secure 5/6/7-sized power plants against Andy's 5/5/7, and so James was able to fuel 18 cities and win the game. Andy's shortage of money meant he couldn't fuel all of his cities and so Kieron, with less cities than Andy but enough fuel for all of them, pipped him into second place. A really fun evening. Top game.

Power Grid - 27 June 2007

With most of the rivals away and some AWOL, Russell was drafted in to join Stuart and Kieron for another cracking game of Power Grid. We played the Benelux countries which have the interesting rule that any ecological power stations immediately become available if they are turned up. The 33 'green for 4' station appeared very early and Russell immediately snatched it for face value as Stu and Kieron had already bought their stations. Stuart's power stations were resource dependent and Kieron had a mixture including a trash burning station that he only used once. Building was fairly rapid in an open board and Stu soon started phase 2 after about 30 minutes. Kieron and Russell had a moment of madness when the 50 'blue for 6' turned up. Kieron eventually won it for 141 Elektro and was cleaned up for the rest of the evening! The game ended before the third phase even began when Kieron helpfully pointed out to Russell that with the money he had left over from not buying the 50 point station he had enough funds to build to 17 cities, end the game and claim victory for being able to power just 10 cities!! Stuart was left being able to power 9 of his 13 and Kieron, although he had stations totalling 14, could only power 9 as he ran out of money to build any cities or buy resources to power the stations! Thus is was 1st Russell (again)10 powered cities, 2nd Stuart (more money than Kieron) 9 powered cities, 3rd Kieron 9 powered cities
What a great game this is.