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Dec. 26th, 2005
Power Grid
Dec. 26th, 2005 11:58 pmI played a 6-player game of power-grid today. It was the second time I'd managed a break-away win in step 2 while everyone else was jockeying for step 3 position. The difference is that this time I was up against some decent players (Albert, Eric H, Jessie M, Erica, and Bill). If I have time I'll explore the boundaries of when this strategy fails, and see if I can use the opposite of that as a criteria for choosing when to use it. It's deadly effective when the opportunity arises.
The key steps involve early capacity, a huge resource buy in the middle game (but not too early), and an all-at-once jump to the final goal from about 5-6 cities back. Basically I run on two big power plants and save up cash in the middle game, using the cheap resources in place of the extra 1-2 run rate. I maximize my moves for access rather than price in the late stages of the early game, then take the cheap ones in the middle game to free cash for the resource buy. The end game become the cash buildup followed by a lightning strike.
The obvious counter is not to let big plants go cheap early, but the group keeps letting me get away with that part. After that they need to either limit my ability to place cities for access, or else double-buy resources so the big buy in the middle game doesn't work.
The key steps involve early capacity, a huge resource buy in the middle game (but not too early), and an all-at-once jump to the final goal from about 5-6 cities back. Basically I run on two big power plants and save up cash in the middle game, using the cheap resources in place of the extra 1-2 run rate. I maximize my moves for access rather than price in the late stages of the early game, then take the cheap ones in the middle game to free cash for the resource buy. The end game become the cash buildup followed by a lightning strike.
The obvious counter is not to let big plants go cheap early, but the group keeps letting me get away with that part. After that they need to either limit my ability to place cities for access, or else double-buy resources so the big buy in the middle game doesn't work.