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Power Grid

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Power Grid

(115 customer reviews)

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AmzToysGames0168

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WARNING:

CHOKING HAZARD -- Small parts. Not for children under 3 yrs.

A game of strategy and foresight, Power Grid from Rio Grande Games requires patience and skill. The object of Power Grid is to supply the most cities with power once ones network gains a predetermined size. In this new edition, players mark pre-existing routes between cities for connection, and then bid against one another to purchase the power plants used to power their cities. However, as plants are purchased, newer more efficient plants become available. By purchasing at all, each player potentially allows others access to superior equipment. Additionally, players must acquire the raw materials, like coal, oil, garbage, or uranium, to power said plants (except for the highly valuable renewable energy wind/solar plants). The game is a constant struggle to upgrade your plants for maximum efficiency, while retaining enough wealth to quickly expand your network along the cheapest routes.

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Product Details

Product Length:	14.0 inches
Product Width:	8.0 inches
Product Height:	2.0 inches
Product Weight:	2.65 pounds
Package Length:	14.0 inches
Package Width:	10.0 inches
Package Height:	2.0 inches
Package Weight:	2.82 pounds
Average Customer Rating:	based on 115 reviews

Features

For 2-6 players
Strategy game
Lots of replay value
Players bid against one another to purchase power plants
More efficient power plants become available, players must decide whether to purchase/allow the opportunity to acquire superior equipment

Customer Reviews

Average Customer Review: 5.0

( 115 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

124 of 126 found the following review helpful:

Very unique game, highly recommended Jan 01, 2007 By B. Sites "plexiglass_designs"
Short Version:

This game is great. You build cities on a map of Germany or the US, connecting adjacent cities to each other along power lines. Then, you buy power plants of various sorts (coal, oil, nuclear, wind, fusion, garbage) that power a certain number of your cities for a resource cost (coal, oil, etc.). Finally, you pay resources (which you also buy) to use your power plant (or power plants, you can have up to 3) and get paid based on how many cities you have that are receiving power. You repeat this progression (though not in the order described -read below for full details).

Basically, this game is sort of a blend of Settlers of Catan and Ticket to Ride, with some added twists. It plays with 2 to 6 players, with the game adapting somewhat with more or fewer players. I'd guess it's not for kids younger than 10, but it is hard to say. The game is somewhat complex in strategy, but pretty basic in number of rules. It plays in about 2 hours. The board looks great, the pieces are of excellent quality, and there is quite a lot of room for strategy (no die rolling, so not much depends on chance). This is my favorite Rio Grande Game and pretty close to my favorite game of all (Pirate's Cove might still be the top).

Longer Version:

Each turn, you first bid with other players for different power plants. Each plant has advantages: they cost less in their initial bid, they power more cities (from 1 to 7 cities), they cost fewer resources to power cities, they use a resource that other players aren't using, or they take no resources at all to power cities (wind power and fusion power -there is only one fusion power, the most expensive plant in the game). After every player has had a chance to initiate bidding on a power plant, you move on to the next step of the turn.

Next, you buy resources that you will use to feed your power plants. There are six resources types: uranium, garbage, coal, oil. Wind-based power plants and the one fusion-based power plant cost no resources. The cost of resources varies on a sliding scale depending how many were purchased by players in prior turns. The resources also regenerate from turn to turn.

Next, you build cities using money (called Elektro). The cities cost a set amount, and you pay both for the cost to build in a city and for the cost to build power lines to that city. There are no actual power line pieces, you just look at the connecting line on the board between cities and it tells you what it costs to connect those two cities.

Finally, you fuel your power plants with resources, which generates power for your cities. Based on how many cities are receiving power, you get Elektro. After all players have built cities, the turn now ends.

That's the overview, but there are several nuances to Powergrid that add a lot of strategy. First, the more cities you build the lower in turn order you go each round. So if you have the most cities, the other players have a chance to take actions before you. They might build cities where you wanted to build them. Or they might buy resources, which causes them to be more scarce on your chance to buy them (thus you pay more for them).

Second, you don't want to build too fast or you won't be able to outbid other players when buying new and improved power plants, which can be very expensive depending on bidding.

Third, as you build more cities, the game changes somewhat, moving from "stage 1" to "stage 2" and finally to "stage 3." In each stage, resources regenerate faster (or slower), players are able to share cities (so instead of one player controlling a city, in stage 2 two players can control one, and three players can in stage 3).

This game also changes based on the number of players. With 2, you use less of the map, whereas with 6 you use the whole board. The victory conditions also change (the number of cities you have built triggers the end of the game, with various factors affecting who actually wins).

In sum, this is a great game. Very much like Ticket to Ride in general feel, but with the added resources idea of Settlers of Catan plus the bidding aspect of games like High Society or Cleopatra. It's an excellent game, and very well made.

35 of 38 found the following review helpful:

Excellent game, but very long Sep 18, 2007 By Amanda Hamm "writer"
This is a great game. It is fairly long and has a steep learning curve so it will likely take you at least three hours the first time. Don't be discouraged, it'll go faster once you get the hang of it. I recommend assigning jobs for players based on where they sit; one to restock the resources, one to reset the turn order and so on. This will go faster than trying to remember and do everything as a group. And the time to play will fly by, I highly recommended it.

26 of 30 found the following review helpful:

I would like to call this game Enron... Aug 02, 2005 By D. Levy "student of the world"
But alas someone would probably sue. It's a simple enought concept of a game.. connect towns in your power grid, power them..(if you feel like it).. get paid for the ones you power, buy resources and available power plants... rinse repeate.

However.. the fact that there are limited resources and limited plants that you can buy... and the fact that you get to bid for things and try to cut people out of certain area's of the map... make it a fantastically interesting and challenging game. It's very well tuned to avoid one person getting a compelling lead and using it to snowball to winning later on, but that doesn't mean that if one person plays well and gets a lead early on that they can't maintain it throught hard work. Beware getting locked into one resource and getting stuck in one area of the map... getting out of that will be expensive...

26 of 32 found the following review helpful:

Probably not for newbies Jun 21, 2009 By Sherry Chen
Me and my family are relatively new to the whole Eurogame thing so maybe we just started jumping off the deep end way too soon. This was the second game I bought after being introduced to the genre by Catan and out of the ten or so times we've played it, I can safely say we've never had a thrilling, suspenseful or really just an exciting session playing it. We've played it generally with the same four people but have also played the two and three players version.

Maybe it's the group dynamics and the fact that all of us aren't really cutthroat players. We don't go out of our way to cut off people in the board or buy more resources in an attempt to screw other people so there's no real sense of urgency in the game. The auction sessions are pretty lackluster as well as we don't overbid and once a bidding "war" starts, it generally resolves with it being only a few elektros more. And the one time we ran out of one resource was probably the only time it got somewhat interesting so maybe if we had played it with more players, it might get a bit better.

I'm convinced we either don't have the best group for this game or we're just not strategic enough for the game and we just don't know how to play it correctly but for our family, this game is a bit of a miss. We like spending time playing it but we don't seem to have as much fun with it as we do other games that we've bought since Power Grid.

5 of 5 found the following review helpful:

great game Dec 30, 2009 By J. Daniel
Once you figure this game out, it is super fun! I recommend playing the "First Time Rules" found in the instruction manual. Great economical building game from Rio Grande. I also own Carcassonne, Bohnanza, Citadels, Settlers of Catan, and San Juan. This game ranks up with all of them IMO. The thing that i enjoy about this game is the lack of a trading system. Many times my family gets upset when they don't get to make a trade. But in this game the only player interaction is an auction system and building area and the rest is up to you, so you get a sense of being able to control your own destiny. The resource market system in this game is genius and wouldn't doubt if other games copied it.

The basic premise of the game is to 1) expand your power infrastructure and 2) supply that infrastructure with power from your power plants using resources that you buy from the market. first you auction plants, then you buy resources, then you build, then you get paid and repeat. Game ends when someone builds X number of cities and the winner is the one who can supply the most cities.

Overall i'd give it an 8.5/10. It still needs a little balancing on its rule set but the game itself is super fun. Also this game tends to be a little on the long side. With 6 non-experienced players, give yourself about 2-3 hours to finish. After playing it once, my family is able to play a game in an hour and a half. Also the learning curve to this game can be a little steep if you're not used to complicated games. Learning strategies can take 3-4 games as well and longer to master. A good thing IMO.

I'd definitely recommend this game to anyone who likes economical building.

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