Anatomy of a Power Grid game, Benelux map, OrcCon 2020
By Chris Mills
Over the last 25 years or so a lot of great board games have come out of Germany. Apparently the Germans are really into games. We have been fortunate in the U.S. that many of these games have been translated into English language versions and shipped here or (more likely) licensed to American distributors. The per capita number of boardgame players in the US is smaller than that of Germany, but because there are so many people in the US the German game developers have chosen not to ignore the US and British markets.
One of the best games out of Germany that was released in 2004 was called Funkenschlag in German and Power Grid in the US and Britain. The object of the game is to build a power network using power plant cards, fuel resources to power the plants, and a map where you build your network using colored markers to show which cities you powered. When the end of the game is triggered (by reaching a certain number of powered cities in any one network) the player who has the most cities powered is the winner (cash is the tie breaker when multiple players power the same number of cities, which happens most of the time).
The game has developed a bit of a cult following. There is a certain amount of luck involved in how the power plant cards come into the market, but other than that most of your success in the game is predicated on your skill in the following areas: how well you handle the plant auctions, where you have to bid for plants against other players; how efficiently you build your network (taking care to squeeze the other players when you can); and taking advantage of turn order to buy fuel resources more cheaply than the other players (and in some cases buying out all the fuel they need which reduces their earnings for that turn, or causes them to lose the game if it happens in the last round).
My wife and I have been playing the game since the year after it came out, so we have been familiar with it for 15 years now. Some of our friends learned it before us, others not long after, and we have also helped people learn it at game gatherings and game conventions since we joined the cult.
The original game came with a two sided map with Germany on one side and the US on the other side. The original map was fine but the German publisher started coming out with new maps every year or so, and the US distributor, Rio Grande Games, duly published them in the US as they came out. The earlier maps were France/Italy, Benelux/Central Europe, China/Korea, and Brazil/Iberia. More maps followed; Russia/Japan, Quebec/Baden-Wurttemburg, Northern Europe/UK & Ireland, Australia/Indian subcontinent, Middle East/South Africa. In 2014 for the 10th anniversary of the original game Power Grid Deluxe was released, which had a map of Western Europe on one side and North America on the other side. This version had some rule changes, most of which were eventually incorporated into a second version of Power Grid called Power Grid: Recharged which was released in 2019.
In addition to the map expansions (which have kept the game being played quite often as there are now so many variants) there have been several other expansions. An alternate power plant deck set was added several years after the original game was released. The Robots expansion allows the players to add artificial players which can be used to bump the number of players up to make the game more interesting. There have been several cards which could be added to the power plant deck to create some other interesting interactions. There is a stock companies variant which works like some of the railroad stock company games. There is also a Power Grid Fabled expansion which I have never played as I am not familiar with the Fabled game system.
One of the places we play Power Grid at is the OrcCon game convention, which is the February convention for Strategicon in Los Angeles. There is usually a Power Grid tournament (which I sometimes run) and a tournament called the Power Grid World Tour, which is run by Lisa Burola and Shane Sauby. The World Tour cycles through all the maps that have been released so 12 maps are played each year, one for each day of each convention (Strategicon has two other conventions which are also four days, Gamex and Gateway). World Tour does not use the original Germany and US maps as those are run in the base Power Grid tournaments. That still leaves 18 other maps to play, so it can now take a year and a half to cycle through all the map expansions.
The map sets that were chosen for the 2020 OrcCon were China/Korea and Central Europe/Benelux (it makes more logistical sense to play the four sides of two boards for each con so people don't have to schlep around more game components than they need to). Those are all good boards, some people dislike the China board because it takes longer to set up and play than the other boards, but it's not bad. (I am starting to really loathe the India board because it is so slow, but I guess I can live with it). The Benelux board is particularly fast to play because one of the wrinkles is that at the end of every turn the lowest plant in the market which has not been sold is removed from play. This cycles the power plants faster and speeds up the game.
The Benelux game was played at 9:00 am on Monday the 17th of February. The Power Grid game is probably the only reason I show up at the con on the last Monday, there is not that much going on. I was feeling pretty good going into the game, I had two second place finishes and a fourth place finish in the three prior games, which is not bad considering how competitive the Power Grid tournaments are these days.
Lisa B. introduced a new wrinkle to the World Tour at this convention. Previously seating arrangements were randomized so you would just sit with whomever drew a card with your table. In theory this would work fine but in practice you would often get a strong player against several weaker players so you would get players who were ranked higher than they should be because they were not playing other people in their class. Lisa took the time to arrange the seating order to group people together who were ranked closely to each other. Unranked players start out at the bottom and either move up if they win or stay at the bottom if they keep losing. I had known this was coming and was all for it as it is just more interesting to play people who are at the same skill level.
BTW, it's a fair amount of work to set up the tables according to the player rankings, much more so than randomly assigning people to tables, so I applaud Lisa for taking the time to do it and making the tournament more fun for the rest of us.
The table I was on for the Benelux board included Christine Marciniak, John Byun, and Reid Barkell. We were all experienced players and I figured it would be an interesting game as we were all not just experienced players but good players.
For a four player game the end of the game is triggered by building 17 cities. The challenge is to get to that many cities and have enough capacity on three different power plant cards in your plant deck to power 17 cities or as close to 17 as you can get (more is better, so if you can power 18 or even 19 cities more power to you!).
For the region selection we ended up leaving out the green area to the northeast (upper right) and played the rest of the map.
The plant auction went a bit differently than usual because oil and coal are reversed on the Benelux map, it starts oil all the way down to 1 cost and coal is more expensive, only going down to 3 cost. So in our starting auction the oil plants were more popular, in fact none of the coal plants were bought.
In the initial plant auction Reid took the 3 plant (2 oil powers 1 city), John took the 5 plant (2 hybrid oil or coal powers 1 city), I got the 7 plant (3 oil powers 2 cities) and Christine got the 9 plant (1 oil powers 1 city). This left me at a turn order disadvantage as I was now third to buy fuel and cities, but oil started out really cheap and Benelux is such a cheap board to build on I wasn't worried about finding places to connect cities.
Reid started out in one of the two Brussels and only built one city. John took 1 city in the Amsterdam/Leiden/Utrecht area towards the north of the map. Since Reid had only taken one city I took the other Brussels and then Leuven to the east. Christine went in the middle between the rest of us, building one city in (I believe) Breda.
We powered and then went to round 2. A treat was in store as the 27 plant came up and was biddable because of the special Benelux rules (if there is a wind plant in the futures market directly above the highest plant in the regular market, the wind plant can be bid on). There is no way you can go wrong getting the 27 in the second round (0 fuel powers 3 cities). It hurts you in turn order but it's well worth it at this stage in the game. Every once in a while I have managed to take that plant all the way into the last round of the game.
I was in the lead (from building two cities the turn before) so I put the 27 up for bid. I know Christine bid up at least once, I don't remember if John bid up or not. Reid upped the bid and I kept going up. Christine dropped out, and if John was in he dropped out as well, so it was down to Reid and to me. I went up to 37 and Reid let me have it at that price.
I was so stunned from getting the 27 plant that early that I wasn't paying attention to the rest of the auction. I believe Christine got the 10 plant (2 coal powers 2 cities) and I think John and Reid both got plants as well. I think John got the fifteen (2 coal powers 3 cities) and I don't remember what Reid got but it must have powered at least two cities because he subsequently built two cities. But I was clearly the big winner from that plant auction.
Unfortunately I spent so much money on the plant that now I couldn't build another city, even though I didn't need to buy fuel. John and Reid both built two cities to go up to three cities, and I believe Christine built one city to go to two. So my turn order improved as I dropped to third place from first.
The next plant auction I sat out as I needed to concentrate on cities now. I think John got the 12 plant (2 hybrid oil or coal powers 2 cities). I think the market stalled out and I don't remember if Christine or Reid bought any plants or not.
Since my turn order had improved from not building a city, I was able to buy 3 oil in the fuel round and still had enough money to buy two cities, Charleroi and Namur. Christine kept expanding east-west in a band from Middleburg in the west to Eindhoven in the east. John continued consolidating in the north, which has dirt cheap connectors. Reid kept going west of Brussels, I think he got Brugge and Kortrijk.
I believe Reid went into the lead at this point and I went into second place. We powered our cities and then went into the next auction round. At this point the 30 plant had dropped into the market (3 garbage powers 6 cities).
Reid put it up and I passed on it. I don't remember if anyone else bid him up or not but he ended up getting the plant, either way. I didn't want to touch it at this stage of the game because garbage was still going for four electros a pop, I believe, and it was only replenishing at two pieces a turn. Once Reid had bought the 30 plant the 29 came into the markett (or it was already there and he just hadn't put it up). I decided the 29 was worth bidding on (hybrid 1 oil or coal powers 4 cities). By now it was late in step 1 but the 29 plant is so efficient it can save you a lot of money and if you can hold it into step 3 it can save you an awful lot of money on fuel. I think I got it for face value so with my plant combinations I could now power nine cities.
Either this turn or two turns later (I think this turn), Christine got the 20 plant (3 coal powers 5 cities) and I think John may have also gotten a plant as well.
What happened next was funny, but not altogether unexpected. Everyone got the fuel they needed and we built cities. We all went to six cities. I built two (Namur and Liege), I think Reid got Oostende, Christine kept going in that east/west band, and John continued consolidating in the north.
Everybody powered up after that and got paid for their cities, then we went to the next round. The plant market got clogged up pretty badly, there was just nothing worth buying. Everybody passed and the lowest plant was removed.
I know I wasn't in the lead at this point since Reid had the 30 plant and I had the 29 plant, I think I was ahead of Christine and John in the turn order though. In any event, Reid didn't buy a city so it was then my turn to build. I decided to trigger step 2 and built three cities, taking me to nine cities total; Mons, Arlon and Luxembourg. The threshold for step 2 in a four player game is seven cities, so building to nine cities handily triggered step 2.
I guess everyone else breathed a sigh of relief that they didn't have to trigger step 2, we got rid of the lowest power plant (and then the next one at the end of the turn), we powered our cities and got our money and then we were actually in step 2.
The first plant auction in step 2 was a lot more interesting because dropping the low plants out of the market was immensely helpful. The 31 plant came into the market (3 coal powers 6 cities) and I think I put it up but as soon as Reid bid up on it I dropped out (As I said earlier, I believe Christine already had bought the 20 plant and between those two they burn a lot of coal, and on this map coal is not as plentiful as it is in most of the other maps). Reid ended up getting the 31 for a small premium and I was still in the auction.
The 32 plant came into the market next (3 oil powers 6 cities). The oil market looked a lot healthier than the coal market to me so I put up the 32 plant at this point. Either Christine or John bid me up some and I think it went all the way to 39, but I prevailed and got the plant. I don't remember what Christine did in that auction but the 33 plant came out after the 32 and John ended up getting it at face value, at this point in the game it wasn't a particularly good plant but it was better than nothing and of course requires no fuel (0 fuel powers four cities).
I dumped my original 7 plant when I bought the 32 (because of the three power plant per player limit in the game) so I could now power 13 cities. Once it was my turn to buy fuel I double stocked the oil on the 32 plant to make sure nobody could stick it to me on fuel any time soon.
Of course since we were now in step 2 everyone could expand their networks again because of being able to build the second spot in a city for the step 2 premium. After buying the plant and the extra fuel I think I was only able to buy two additional cities, but I was also biding my time for the turns to come. Reid could also power 13 cities but Christine and John were both hurting, I think they could each only power nine cities at this point.
We all powered up again and got paid. By now a problem had manifested itself in the coal market. Reid had the 31 plant which took 3 coal, Christine had the 20 plant which took 3 coal, and John was still holding onto the 15 plant which took 2 coal. The price had started going up because only four coal a turn had been coming in but more than four coal was being burned every turn. At some point somebody got spooked and everybody started double stocking the coal, which caused the price to go even higher. Coal was getting more and more expensive and getting close to being run out.
Garbage was still expensive but wasn't getting squeezed, and the oil price wasn't spiking yet. Nukes were in the middle also, they had gotten cheap but a few nuke plants had gotten bought so what was coming into the resource market was being bought every turn.
We had another plant auction. I think I was firmly stuck in the lead at this point, but as long as I wasn't in the coal market it didn't particularly bother me.
I think everyone got a plant this round. Reid ended up with the 40 plant (2 oil powers 6 cities). I got the 34 plant (1 nuke powers 5 cities). Whatever John got, I think it put him up to 12 or 13 cities, and Christine got somewhere in that range as well. And then, during or at the end of the auction, the step 3 card came out and triggered step 3.
When I got the 34 plant I retired the 27, so I could now power 15 cities (5 from the 34, 6 from the 32, and 4 from the 29 plant). The 29 took one coal or oil and the 34 one nuke, between the two of them. From a fuel standpoint, the only plant that could cause me a problem was the 32, but that was the one that powered the most cities. However, Reid could now power 18 cities. His total fuel cost was 3 coal, 3 garbage and 2 oil. He was going to be able to get the garbage and oil but the coal might be problematic. He was also at least one or two cities behind me.
We bought fuel again, and once more I double stocked the 32 plant. I can't remember if Reid double stocked the 31 or not. I'm pretty sure Christine double stocked the 20. When it was all over the coal was completely out of the market, and only five coal were going to come in at the end of the round. The 36 plant was going to be in the market for the next plant auction (3 coal powers 7 cities) but at least two of us weren't going to be able to buy it because the other players would buy up all the remaining coal so the plant couldn't be run.
Again, I wasn't in coal, but with those prospects I wasn't likely to get into it either. I had stayed out of the coal market for the entire game and I was doing just fine, thank you. Reid could now power more than I could but I was still well positioned. I was sure Reid wasn't going to be able to end the game this turn. If he had I would have taken second place but it didn't seem likely.
Step 3 being triggered opened up some more building opportunities and since we were on the Benelux board nothing was too expensive. I ended up going to 15 cities (which I could now power), Reid went to 13, I think Christine was also at 13, and John was at 12 or 13. When the dust settled John had the back hand, and I was still in the lead.
I was convinced the next round was going to be the last one, but since I had double stocked my oil on the 32 I didn't bother saving the fuel, I just went ahead and ran the plant. I didn't hold onto the oil on the 29 plant either, I was going to have to replace the plant so I burned that oil as well and powered all 15 cities, which got me a payout I don't usually see, 134 electros.
Everybody finished turning in their fuel and got paid, and we went into what was almost certainly going to be the last auction round. If I had the wherewithal I would have ended the game the turn before and won powering 15 cities, but I didn't have enough money to buy the last two cities. Reid didn't need another plant but Christine and John and I all needed another plant.
I was in the lead, and I needed a six city plant to have any chance of winning or even finishing second. There were only two six city plants in the market, the 42 (2 coal powers six cities) and the 50 (fusion, 0 fuel powers six cities). I put up the 50 plant. Christine and John both passed because they needed a plant that powered seven cities, and Reid passed because he didn't need a plant since he could already power 18 cities. So I got the 50 at face value, which amazed me.
Reid passed on the auction since as we discussed earlier he needed no plant. Christine ended up with the 38 (3 garbage powers 7 cities) and John got the 36 (3 coal powers 7 cities). Everyone proceeded to buy fuel, but some people were spending more than others. I just had to buy 1 nuke for seven electros. I think Reid didn't need coal because he had stockpiled it but Christine got garbage before him and raised his price on that commodity.
After everyone had their plants and their fuel the picture was a lot clearer. Reid could still win if he could get to 18 cities. But he would have to buy five cities. John and I could both power 17 cities but I only needed to buy two cities to get there, John needed either 3 or 4 cities to get to 17. Christine had fallen victim to the plant market, she could only power 16 cities even after upgrading with the 38 plant.
Christine built to 16 cities (I believe, I think she had enough money to do that). John was able to get to 17 cities, which he could power. At this point I think he was just amazed that he was able to pull it off and get the plant and buy the cities. Reid bought next but he only had enough money to buy to 17 cities, so I still had a chance at winning.
I was able to find two cities to build since step 3 had happened so I also got to 17 cities.
We revealed our cash (as I mentioned earlier, cash is the tie breaker when multiple people power the same number of cities). I had 44 electros left over, John had 12 electros, and Reid had 8 electros. Christine was out of the running because of her plant shortfall, so she was finishing last, unfortunately. So I won, John came in second, Reid third, and Christine in fourth.
My instincts about the coal market had been dead on. Of course, I've played that map quite a lot, probably over a hundred times by now. I was fortunate that I was in a position to get the 32 plant, in conjunction with the other plants I had that only burned 1 fuel apiece, it gave me enough flexibility to power a lot of cities without spending a fortune on fuel.
I had paid premiums to get the 27 and the 32 plants since they were bid up, but the premiums for those plants were small potatoes compared to what I would have spent on fuel if I had bought some of the other plants. So, all in all, I thought I had done OK.
We filled out the score sheet and handed it in to Lisa, whose game had ended already so she was on her laptop computer updating the rankings spreadsheet. There were still two tables playing but because those were the tables for the lower ranked players (the higher ranked players had already finished up) Lisa was able to calculate who was going to get the top three spots in the tournament for the convention, which did have dealer dollar payouts. A few minutes later I found out the standings of the top four players in the tournament for the con, here was the order:
1. Gilbert Quinonez, 26 points
2. Mike Munson, 22 points
3. TIE - Lisa Burola, 19 points; Chris Mills, 19 points
Just to show how tight things were, John, who finished second in the game at the table I was on, was right behind Lisa and I with 18 points, Reid was at 16 points, Drew Kitty (who was at another table) was at 17 points. I didn't see the final updated spreadsheet with all the scores from the last game, but someone else might have snuck into that range who was playing at one of the other tables.
The payout for third place was five dealer dollars, but since there is no way to split them (there are no dealer half dollars or dealer quarters at the con), they added a dollar so they could make the result divisible by two and Lisa and I each got three dealer dollars. Not a whole lot of money, but something at least.
So ended the Power Grid World Tour tournament for the con. Can't wait for Memorial Day weekend so we can do it all again!
Dedicated to the memory of Randall Bart, the first person I ever saw buy 12 coal in a single turn
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