Session Summary - 25 July 2007

There was a good attendance this week, with Simon and Gordon in attendance and various younger members due to Summer Holidays. Dave, ran a Talislanta game downstairs for the children downstairs and his report is online here. Dave Maybe you could ley me have details of the players?. Meanwhile that left 6 of us and a game of:

Power Grid 120 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Dave D	1	15++
Gordon	2	15+
Mike	3	15
Simon	4	14++
Steve H	5	14+
Richard B	6	14

I don't recall ever playing Power Grid with 6 players before, it's been suggested but rejected in the past on the basis of expected game length. These days everyone in the group, has played the game a fair amount and in this case we also went with the Benelux board with it's low connection costs and an extra rule speeding the cycling of the plants by taking out the lowest every turn so I was confident that game length would not be a problem.

At the beginning, no body paid much if anything over the face value for their plants and this was the general pattern throughout the game. I picked up the #13 wind plant, which put me in the position to build last in the first turn, giving me a chance to look at where everyone else set up. I went with Brussel, just by Steve & Gordon, but with expansion room to the west and south. Mike was next to the north east, while Richard sat in the North of the board near the cheapest connections and Simon, who I think was the only one with a 2 capacity plant, staked out a couple of cities in the east. In the following couple of turns, every one got intermingled, the low connection costs allowing everyone to jump over each other.

From turn 2 the high value plants started coming out, with some over 30 making it into the current market, this caused a bit of thinking (at least it did me) as to whether it was worth buying at this stage as the cost of the plant would severely curtail building in the short term. I eventually bought the #21 hybrid (2 fuel - 4 cities), Richard picked the #34 nuclear (5 cities) and Steve took (I think) the #32 (3 oil - 6 cities).

People expanded over a couple of turns to 5 cities and during this time, I picked up the #30 plant (3 trash - 6 cities) for 42, which I think was the highest premium paid in the game and even so I think it was very good deal. The game did not stall at 5 cities however as Simon immediately took the game into step 2. I did not need to use the #30 immediately and by the time I did, the trash price had reached rock bottom, due to the high refresh rate in a 6 player game in step 2.

The plant market now stalled somewhat as lower plants came out and I competed a little with Steve for #24 (2 trash - 4 cities), before letting him have it, not being too concerned about losing the trash monopoly and hoping something better would replace it. Unfortunately the new plant was #23 (1 nuclear - 3 cities) much to my (and Gordon's disappointment) and everyone passed for the rest of the round.

I was now a bit apprehensive because I was behind on capacity to Steve and Richard, who could power 14, but I was hopeful that Step 3 would turn up when we got to bureaucracy. It didn't and the plants on offer next turn weren't good, but fortunately no one could finish that round and when Step 3 did arrive for the following turn, I was able to pick up #25 (2 coal - 5 cities) giving me 15 capacity, Gordon also went to 15 capacity and Mike was on 16, while the others were on 14. I think Gordon ended the game and the game was decide as it frequently is on the money tie break. I think Mike said he was 8 away from building a 16th. city.

There had been some discussion during the game about the desirability of limiting the number of plants you buy during the game to 5. Thinking afterward, I know that both I & Gordon had only bought 4 during this one, so maybe for 6 players, with a smaller (14) end condition this is the way to go.

Until next week (well that's tomorrow now).