Power Grid

Hey Geekshelfers!  Recently, Joy took a bad fall while bouldering and sprained both her ankles.  She's doing fine but she can't walk around and needs to stay off her feet for awhile.  She was feeling a bit low but luckily, we had a few friends come over and play a board game to lift her spirits.  The game was Power Grid!

In the game, players build power stations that supply electricity to houses on a map (we played the Germany map in the pic below).  

 

 Power plants are constantly auctioned off to the highest bidder and resources are purchased at market value.  This power plant, for example, can supply power to 1 house using 2 oil.

 

Here's a close-up of the resource market.  Coal is brown, oil is black, garbage is yellow and uranium is red.  The more players buy a certain resource, the less of it there is and the more expensive it gets.

resources become quite expensive!

 As the game progresses, players can use their money to build houses on the map.  Things can get pretty cutthroat here since you can buy key cities and block other people out.  It's a fine balance of having enough money to buy more houses, power plants or saving up to buy more resources!

You can build houses but can you provide enough power for them all?

 Late in the game, more efficient power plants become available that let you power more houses on the map.

Here's a picture of the map late in the game.  

Powering houses across Germany!

supplying power to 10 houses!

 I really like Power Grid.  It gives you enough time to develop your power factories and it's very satisfying to get money as you supply more and more houses with electricity.  The bidding aspect is quite fun and the route-building element on the map all gel quite nicely to provide enough meat on the game without getting too much brain-burn.

For more information on Power Grid, visit www.boardgamegeek.com

Happy Gaming!