Session – BGN in Puchong (Power Grid)

13th of July 2011

Game(s) Played:
Power Grid



After the “roooo-lling” good times at Boardgame Night (BGN) in Puchong, I had to go back again for some more awesome gaming goodness. Coming to the event, I was actually looking forward to either a rematch of Olympus or trying out Cargo Noir and possibly Fresco if time permitted. This time I brought along Mo (who made us late :P) but we arrived just in time to start a six Player game of Power Grid.

Just as a side note, Power Grid has never made it onto my wishlist due to complexity and game length which I felt was too deep and too long for my gaming group after having read the rulebook (long live the Internet & BGG) plus on a personal note, vying to be the best Tenaga Nasional Berhad just didn’t seem to cut it for me. To put it simply, it will not be an easy thing for me to be able to find enough Players on a regular basis who are willing to invest time in Power Grid to justify the cost of purchasing it, and this is exactly where BGN in Puchong fits the bill! (Free advertising Kareem! :P) or any other reasonably sized meet-up you might have in your area.


Impressions – Power Grid
We started setting up the Japan map and you could sense the excitement in the eyes of Nick, John & Kareem but Nick and John decided to go back to basics with the Germany map as the expansion map included expansion rules which they were not familiar with. In hindsight this was probably a good choice because the Japan map looked really tight (kinda like how Peninsular Malaysia would look lying on its side) which would have really hampered area control.


So we picked our colours and began the process of building our little energy supplying empires. Power Grid can essentially be boiled down into three buy action phases (buy power plants / resources / homes) and one resolution phase (generate energy with resources in power plants to power homes… oh and charge $ for it). I think Power Grid is a busy game in that it has a lot of things going on during any turn. Buying power plants involves an auction mechanic whereby a Player having chosen to buy Power Plant A has to give the other Players an opportunity to bid for Power Plant A as well and the Power Plant eventually goes to the highest bidder. The Player who gets to choose a power plant first is also the Player who buys resources last which can be a bummer because resources operate on a demand scale where less supply = increase cost of resources. And you have to balance all this with buying houses otherwise there will be no one to bill and hence no income to be received. Buying houses is also an incremental cost as the map gets crowded and the cheaper areas are snapped up. In a simple nutshell, you’ve got to balance between improving your power plants (more efficient = less resources to power more houses) and expanding your customer base as these two are the biggest cost factors in expanding your empire. Technically you should start the game by swinging back and forth, improve plants to be able to power more houses then build the houses to generate more income until you reach a level where you can do both on the same turn. Having said that, money can be so tight at times that it feels like you’re trying to balance on a tight rope when you’re an elephant.

Like so…

For those of us from the Monopoly generation (which I think means everybody in existence) it is very similar to improving from houses to hotels and buying up more properties on the board to improve your revenue. The only difference is you receive rent for each of your properties every single turn! Now that’s a very novel idea/house-rule for Monopoly.


I started rather poorly having landed a Garbage Power Plant (means it uses garbage as its resource) and garbage costs twice more than coal / oil at the beginning of the game. Unfortunately for some reason or another I had this concept in my mind that by doing something different from everybody else I’d fare better as a new person to the game. This included me starting my empire in one of the more expensive locations on the board (doh!). Mo was the first to build another house having misunderstood his Coal Power Plant to say “Store 2 coal and 1 coal to power each house” as opposed to “Use 2 coal to power 1 house”. I believe I remember Nick to be the first to foray into Nuclear Power Plants but the rest of us were utilizing Coal / Oil Power Plants to power what few houses that we had. Based on Kareem’s comments I got the feeling that as a group we spent a tad too much time upgrading our power plants as opposed to expanding our customer base, this being the case particularly for Nick, Mo and myself.


As mentioned before money felt very, very tight to the extent that quoting our local Malaysian rock band “One Buck Short” happened a few times, and it’s amazing how each dollar does make a difference in the game. I got caught spending too much money upgrading my power plants but not having the money to build up my customer base to increase revenue. Mo got sandwiched between Samson and Daniel with Daniel actually making incursions into Mo’s area, stifling him somewhat. Unfortunately I don’t remember what everyone did (six Player games are terribly hard to track) but towards the last 15 minutes it was clear that Samson and John were rolling in the money and were more than capable to push the game to the finish line (which is 14 houses built and powered). Nick and Daniel were similarly pushing towards having 9-10 houses whilst I had just managed to turn myself around by having sufficient power to supply 14 houses but needed a whole 2 turns more to expand myself to 14 houses but by then it was too little too late and John took the win by having more money than Samson who tied him for 14 powered houses on the board. In closing John mentioned that by waiting another turn, he would have lost to Samson. I don’t remember the reason why but it was probably because Samson was very much resource independent because of two Wind Power Plants and John probably had to restock on resources if he hadn’t pushed for the finish line that round.

Closing comments:
Power Grid is an intricately designed game which made me feel as if I were playing in a real world economy where you have to balance growth, raw material prices, inventory levels and geographic expansion. To put it very plainly, Mo absolutely loves it and was quite frustrated that his strategy didn’t work. He actually had a very good start location and power plant but expanded just a turn too fast and that’s actually my frustration with the game itself. That sometimes it really can come down to that one single mistake that you made. In this respect it is very similar to Dungeon Lords where each mistake is very punishing. Nevertheless, Power Grid is a great game simply for its game design and replayability even without the expansion maps.


This is just a personal note but these days I’m more into looking for a fun & wacky gaming experience, probably because after a full day at work and the dan lain-lain day to day things I need to do, I just want to relax. So although I wouldn’t mind playing Power Grid anyday, I wouldn’t choose it over another fun game if it was available. It is very much like saying that on most days I would prefer to take out my guitar and just bang away to “The Lazy Song” as opposed to preparing and conducting a Philharmonic Orchestra. Yes, Power Grid like any other serious game does allow Players to try and psych each other out by being wacky and funny but guess what? Samson and John, the two most serious people at our table, were the ones who took the deserving win. Oh and on a very, very, very personal note… most people playing Power Grid succumb to using a calculator (that’s when you know that the end is nigh near), and I unfortunately already see enough of the calculator at office, thank you very much. I should really try Power Grid on a weekend to see if it makes that much of a difference.


Still it was another good round at BGN in Puchong. Only wished I could stay a little longer for Cargo Noir but I had curfew so good things will have to come for me who waits.