How could I resist a German game? My boyfriend recently bought Powergrid, a resource-oriented game in which players build cities and provide power to them through different means. Each player can have four power plants at one time, and each power plant requires a certain amount of resources to power cities. More advanced power plants can power more cities on fewer resources; these come as the game progresses.
Our two main regions with cities
The resources are coal, oil, garbage and uranium. You have to have these to provide power to your cities via your power plants. The resources are stocked at different rates, which means that the costs for resources fluctuate as the game progresses. An interesting dynamic is created as resources become more scarce, leading to the need for a new power plant that uses a different type of fuel.
You can choose to play either on a map of Germany or a map of America. Each player chooses a region (they must be adjacent) and one additional adjacent region is also added. This gives you 21 cities to power in all for a 2-player game. The game is over when one player has built and can power 17 cities.
A closeup of the board and a city. The board art is very detailed, which I appreciate.
One note: this game requires a lot of addition during the course of the game. So, if you’re like me and not that good at math, keep either a calculator or (preferably) a boyfriend with a math minor on hand. Some games are made much more enjoyable with the addition of alcohol; Powergrid is not one of them. Once you understand it, it’s easy enough to play and more simple to explain to others. It’s fun, and well worth the puzzling rules.
My power plants, with resources. The black pieces are oil and the brown are coal- which is very confusing to me- coal should be black.
gameable 