Session Summary – 1 October 2008

We had 8 people this week.
Paul, Steve Hilton, Steve Perkins and I played Power Grid, this being our first game with the new expansion, which I picked up in the afternoon. We played using the China side of the board and eliminated the purple area to the west together with the pink North Eastern region.
This was more of a new Power Grid experience than any of the previous expansions as I expected that it would be (and expect Korea will also when we get round to trying that one) with the sequential appearance of the power plants making a big difference to the way the game was played. In the normal way of play we have tended to try and minimise the number of plants bought throughout the game, which has resulted in quite a few of the lower value plants going unbought because better ones drop into the market. In this game pretty well all the plants were bought to keep up with the rate of city growth, even if a plant failed to sell on its first being available, it would be picked up the following round and I don't recall that we were ever in the position of discarding low value plants in phase 5. Whether this pattern will be repeated with further plays as we get used to it I don't know, I suspect not but the fact that someone must miss out on a plant each turn is also a factor here.
Another interesting feature was the increased competition in the Auctions, with quite a few plants being bought for a lot over face value, I recall that #50 went for 71 and I think #30 went for 66 at a time in the game when trash was cheap. It was also interesting to note the battle for plant #6 that I had with Paul in the first round; this plant is certainly a much better prospect on this board, with both Coal and Oil having a starting price of 5 (that said, it needs to be as someone must buy it).
The board play did not seem to be too different from normal (other than the change in geography), with Steve P (despite only having 1 capacity) taking the zero linked cities of Tangshan and Tianjin, Paul took Beijing and I took 2 cities (I think Shijiazhuang and Jinan. Steve H had the 8 plant to power 2 cities, but because Steve P had driven up the coal price, he could not afford to build 2 cities (and buy fuel) so he elected not to buy fuel or build and waited until turn 2 to place, starting in the east with Shanghai and Nanjing. This is a strategy I've thought of in the past, but I don't recall ever seeing it done, I suspect that on this board it will be more common as the high fuel prices make it uneconomic to run the initial 2 capacity plants at less than full capacity. (Note, looking back now, I'm not quite sure Steve had his maths right as I'm sure he got the plant at face value, which should have left 25 available for city buying and there were places on the board where it was possible to get 2 for this).
From this point on the game proceeded a bit slower than I would expect a normal game to go, Step 2 started the turn before step 3 and there were enough turns after that so we actually ran out of the plants in the market. Steve H came unstuck the turn before the end, he had been running very economically with a combination of nuclear (cheap fuel) plants and wind plants, but he was lagging in capacity and bought the 36 plant powering 7 for 3 coal, unfortunately there were already 3 other coal plants running and Steve P chose to stock his up for 2 turns, totally depleting the coal supply before Steve H could buy. In the final turn there were 4 coal available and Steve P was to buy first, Steve H chose to scrap the 36 (buying the 37 (4 wind)) on the assumption that Steve P would buy enough coal to prevent the 36 operation despite not needing it himself and that powering 14 cities was better than powering 10. Paul ended up the winner on 18 cities, having managed his plants very well, with Steve P and I on 17 (he won the tie break 14 to 7) with Steve H on 14 with plenty of money but no point spending it.
So that was our first visit to China, the game came in a fraction under 2 hours after rules explanation which seemed quicker that I thought it might be. I'm sure that we made a lot of mistakes and this board certainly needs more play. The one thing I wonder about is the "what if" situation where Steve H chose to stick with the 36 at the end, because if Steve P had decided to buy the coal he would have been 15 poorer and could not have built 17 cities dropping him behind me. If he hadn't bought the coal that would have left Steve H with 17 capacity and I suspect with enough money to build 17 and beat both of us in the tie break. Paul would still have won however.
Next Stop Korea.

Power Grid 120 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Paul	1	18
Steve Pe	2	17+
Dave D	3	17
Steve H	4	14

Over on the other table another 4 player game was in progress, this was In the Year of the Dragon. I haven't played this but I thought it had been played at the club before, I can't find the record however, so unless it got recorded under the wrong name, I am wrong in that. May be someone will fill me in a little on how this game went.
Congratulations to Andy on his first win at the club.

In the Year of the Dragon 120 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Andy	1	75
Steve P	2	73
Gordon	3	71
Mike	4	68

Following these games, both of which finished at about the same time, Steve H had to go, but the rest of us gathered together for a 7 player game of Tsuro, which Gordon went on to win. I think it was Mike who was responsible for taking out Paul and me, together with himself.

Tsuro 15 mins
Player	Posn.
Gordon	1
Steve P	2
Steve Pe	3
Dave D	4=
Mike	4=
Paul	4=
Andy	7