Uploaded November 2018 | Updated September 2026, 3 days ago
A lot of games today, whew!
This one again shows the pitfalls of plants like the 20 when you build in a corner and aren't guaranteed good options for Step 2. My plants were quite cheap and i only bought four the entire game, with only 30 being above list price and not by too much. But since i was stuck at a low number of cities in Step 2, i couldn't make the best use of those big plants. That also made my overall builds more expensive than my opponents', which is definitely what cost me the win.
Meanwhile, amitss was given a gift with the 18 drop at a time when i felt the player above them should have passed on plants. They then landed both 31 and 32 at cost, and had an interesting decision in step 3: whether to keep both of those big plants and just buy one more to go for 18 cities, or take an efficient plant on the first turn of Step 3 then replace one of the guzzlers with a 7-cap. Not sure their choice was the correct one but it feels close either way to me. Great finish to this one!
Think the moral of the story is to build in a more central area when going first, so you don't risk the kind of blockage i've experienced in my last couple 4P's. Also wonder if i should have bid on the 13 instead of fishing for the 20, since 03 + 13 is quite a good early combo. 20 is just so damn difficult to manage a lot of the time, as you don't want a stall in Step 1 but you risk building problems if you trigger Step 2 yourself. The more i think about it, the better it sounds to skip the 20 that early!
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
A lot of games today, whew!
This one again shows the pitfalls of plants like the 20 when you build in a corner and aren't guaranteed good options for Step 2. My plants were quite cheap and i only bought four the entire game, with only 30 being above list price and not by too much. But since i was stuck at a low number of cities in Step 2, i couldn't make the best use of those big plants. That also made my overall builds more expensive than my opponents', which is definitely what cost me the win.
Meanwhile, amitss was given a gift with the 18 drop at a time when i felt the player above them should have passed on plants. They then landed both 31 and 32 at cost, and had an interesting decision in step 3: whether to keep both of those big plants and just buy one more to go for 18 cities, or take an efficient plant on the first turn of Step 3 then replace one of the guzzlers with a 7-cap. Not sure their choice was the correct one but it feels close either way to me. Great finish to this one!
Think the moral of the story is to build in a more central area when going first, so you don't risk the kind of blockage i've experienced in my last couple 4P's. Also wonder if i should have bid on the 13 instead of fishing for the 20, since 03 + 13 is quite a good early combo. 20 is just so damn difficult to manage a lot of the time, as you don't want a stall in Step 1 but you risk building problems if you trigger Step 2 yourself. The more i think about it, the better it sounds to skip the 20 that early!
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
