Power Grid
I was introduced to Power Grid on Friday. Chris and Janice and Christopher and Celine had played it a couple of times already and I was keen to try it out. It's ranked very high at Boardgamegeek and my tastes usually coincide pretty well with the popular views there.
First problem was that I missed most of the set up due to taking a phone call. This meant that by the time I got back to the table, there was an array of bits all over the place. I didn't have a lot of time to familiarise myself with all this and we were into the game. It seemed very much like a series of steps which didn't really interrelate or flow particularly smoothly. This is to some extent inevitable when you are learning a game that other players already know. Usually I get my hands on the rulebook when we're trying a new game, but this time it was a question of listening to the other players and following their instructions and hints.
It began to make sense but at some point when we all had around 5 or 6 cities, we decided, for reasons of time, to reduce the end of game goal to 10 cities instead of 15. This inevitably skewed the game, as it meant that different combinations of power stations were going to have an advantage against players' original plans. Chris and Janice both reached a potential maximum of 13 shortly after this and duly took the top two spots.
I found the game somewhat mechanical - too much do this, then do this, then do this. But I'll certainly play it again.
First problem was that I missed most of the set up due to taking a phone call. This meant that by the time I got back to the table, there was an array of bits all over the place. I didn't have a lot of time to familiarise myself with all this and we were into the game. It seemed very much like a series of steps which didn't really interrelate or flow particularly smoothly. This is to some extent inevitable when you are learning a game that other players already know. Usually I get my hands on the rulebook when we're trying a new game, but this time it was a question of listening to the other players and following their instructions and hints.
It began to make sense but at some point when we all had around 5 or 6 cities, we decided, for reasons of time, to reduce the end of game goal to 10 cities instead of 15. This inevitably skewed the game, as it meant that different combinations of power stations were going to have an advantage against players' original plans. Chris and Janice both reached a potential maximum of 13 shortly after this and duly took the top two spots.
I found the game somewhat mechanical - too much do this, then do this, then do this. But I'll certainly play it again.
posted by Tim Synge at 8:13 am
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