Power Grid

Power Grid

The multi award winning Power Grid sees players as owners of a power company with the aim of trying to supply as many cities with power as possible. The game comes with a double sided board featuring Germany or the USA.

Each turn starts with players bidding in an auction for different power plants, each plant will use a certain fuel to power up to a specific number of cities each turn. Players will also need to buy fuel (unless you have a renewable energy plant) to burn in their plant. However the prices of fuel will go up as more players demand it, which will affect which power plants you want to buy. At the end of the turn the fuel market will get replenished and the least popular fuels will become available at cheaper prices. As the game goes on players will also have to replace their power plants with the more efficient ones that will become available.

You will also have to juggle where on the map you are expanding, the first city you claim the contract for costs you money and expanding across the map requires an additional connection fee. Early in the game only a single player can be in each city so you need to be careful not to get blocked off and pay larger connection fees to go further across the map.

However the turn order is dictated by the number of cities you have control of and the player with the most is at a disadvantage in the following turn phases of the auction, fuel purchasing and building connections.  The end of every turn will see players powering up their power plants as they choose and getting paid a sum of money based on how many cities they provided power.

The game ends when someone builds into the target number of cities (which changes based on the number of players) and the player who powers the most cities at the end of that turn will be the winner. Can you juggle all the phases of the game and create the most profitable company?

Power Grid is a long time favourite among gamers and can be expanded with many more maps to vary game play.