Uploaded January 2019 | Updated September 2026, 2 days ago
Another strong 4P game here, this time on probably the most expensive 4P config for France...feel free to skip ahead a few minutes when you see the game stuck on Holt's turn for a while!
Felt like i started strong with the 11 in a bad market followed by 22 at cost, particularly with some of the unusual plant purchases made by other players. Where i went wrong was in building to 6 cities...should've stayed at 4 and used my turn-order advantage later. Had thought Holt would build to 6 cities even if i did, but they stalled below me instead. That hurt my builds way too much for me to have any chance of winning. This stage of the game does show where you sometimes want to run a less efficient plant to hurt others (08 instead of 11 here), which is a tricky concept to understand.
Meanwhile Holt made one of the classic mistakes of Power Grid: buying two 6-capacity plants early. 30/31/32 are all highly inefficient and bad for your turn order, and i usually tend to stay away from them before Step 2 at the earliest. Even then i'd only go for them if i had no good "sidekick" plant (green plant or efficient 4-cap), or if trash is cheap for the 30. Their strategy *almost* worked out though...
Soledad did the triple-Paris build after starting with 03, which is a popular play among some top players. Personally i prefer to stay low in the turn order with 03, and in this game Soledad was eventually forced to settle for a mediocre plant after being stuck at or near the top of the turn order long enough. Amitss made out the best of any of us in the early game, landing the 29 followed by a serious market stall. Did my best to bid up the 29, but the market made it a beast at any price!
What probably swung this game more than anything else was the auction for 21, though. There were a bunch of duds left in the deck at that point, so i was willing to pay a decent amount for it. Amitss let me have it fairly cheap...then the 26 came out of nowhere and Amitss got it at cost. Could've potentially won this myself had i gotten that deal instead, but no regrets - the odds were drastically against a better deal than 21 arriving.
The ending was a close one, as Soledad landed the 25 at a good price earlier and made a lot of money off of that. He was stuck at the top of the turn order and couldn't get to 17 capacity, though, and Amitss was able to power 17 without an elektro to spare! Soledad likely would've ended the game had Amitss not, while Holt already had 18 capacity and would've won had the game lasted another turn.
If you'd like to learn more about Power Grid, please check my blog for strategy articles on each power plant as well as a guide to 2-player games:
maninmotiongoingnowhere.wordpress.com/power-grid-strategy-individual-plant-articles
Another strong 4P game here, this time on probably the most expensive 4P config for France...feel free to skip ahead a few minutes when you see the game stuck on Holt's turn for a while!
Felt like i started strong with the 11 in a bad market followed by 22 at cost, particularly with some of the unusual plant purchases made by other players. Where i went wrong was in building to 6 cities...should've stayed at 4 and used my turn-order advantage later. Had thought Holt would build to 6 cities even if i did, but they stalled below me instead. That hurt my builds way too much for me to have any chance of winning. This stage of the game does show where you sometimes want to run a less efficient plant to hurt others (08 instead of 11 here), which is a tricky concept to understand.
Meanwhile Holt made one of the classic mistakes of Power Grid: buying two 6-capacity plants early. 30/31/32 are all highly inefficient and bad for your turn order, and i usually tend to stay away from them before Step 2 at the earliest. Even then i'd only go for them if i had no good "sidekick" plant (green plant or efficient 4-cap), or if trash is cheap for the 30. Their strategy *almost* worked out though...
Soledad did the triple-Paris build after starting with 03, which is a popular play among some top players. Personally i prefer to stay low in the turn order with 03, and in this game Soledad was eventually forced to settle for a mediocre plant after being stuck at or near the top of the turn order long enough. Amitss made out the best of any of us in the early game, landing the 29 followed by a serious market stall. Did my best to bid up the 29, but the market made it a beast at any price!
What probably swung this game more than anything else was the auction for 21, though. There were a bunch of duds left in the deck at that point, so i was willing to pay a decent amount for it. Amitss let me have it fairly cheap...then the 26 came out of nowhere and Amitss got it at cost. Could've potentially won this myself had i gotten that deal instead, but no regrets - the odds were drastically against a better deal than 21 arriving.
The ending was a close one, as Soledad landed the 25 at a good price earlier and made a lot of money off of that. He was stuck at the top of the turn order and couldn't get to 17 capacity, though, and Amitss was able to power 17 without an elektro to spare! Soledad likely would've ended the game had Amitss not, while Holt already had 18 capacity and would've won had the game lasted another turn.
If you'd like to learn more about Power Grid, please check my blog for strategy articles on each power plant as well as a guide to 2-player games:
maninmotiongoingnowhere.wordpress.com/power-grid-strategy-individual-plant-articles
