We played Power Grid on the Brazil board, this being only the third time that this board has appeared at Halesowen and it seemed appropriate bearing in mind a certain event currently in progress over there. There was much scanning the map and recognition of various locations that perhaps would not have been recognised on previous occasions. Another variation we used was the big deck adding in the higher value power plants from deck 2, also meaning that for the 5 players that we had, the whole board except for 2 cities was in use. We eliminated 2 in the North West, meaning that Manaus was left up there on the North Western border.
In the game, I thought towards the end that I was doing alright, but I unfortunately I had fallen into the capacity trap and ended up with capacity of 16, I attempted to up this, but was foiled by the wrong plants dropping at the wrong times. This was particularly apparent in the final round, when I dropped out of a auction for plant #60 (powering 8 for free) expecting that something decent would drop, knowing that were several 8 capacity plants and a 9 capacity plant available which would take me up to 19 or 20. Unfortunately I was left with a market that had a maximum plant capacity of 4, which did for me as it was my turn to choose one for auction. I'm not sure that I could have won a tie break with Mike, but I could have got second. The final result could have been worse as to my surprise, Bob, who also had higher capacity could not afford to build beyond 16 cities ( I had near 200 left in money so won the tie break).
Despite all this, the game played very well, not being that much longer, despite the use of the larger plant deck, we must try that again soon (although perhaps not on the India or Australia boards.
Of the other games played I think Lewis & Clark was brought by Steve Pe and seems to be a sort of euro race game (although I have seen the comment that the race is really another type of VP accumulation) Chris has posted his comments on the games he played on his blog here.
Games details follow.
| 02/07/2014 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Power Grid - 150 Mins. | ||
| Posn. | Player | Score |
| 1 | Mike | 19 |
| 2 | Jonathan M | 17 |
| 3 | Dave D | 16 |
| 4 | Bob | 16 |
| 5 | Steve H | 13 |
| Lewis & Clark - 160 Mins. | ||
| Posn. | Player | Score |
| 1 | Scott | - |
| 2 | Dave G | - |
| 3 | Andy S | - |
| 4 | Steve Pe | - |
| Among the Stars - 90 Mins. | ||
| Posn. | Player | Score |
| 1 | Mark W | 101 |
| 2 | Chris S | 91 |
| 3 | Steve W | 81 |
| 4 | Stan | 76 |
| Arctic Scavengers - 60 Mins. | ||
| Posn. | Player | Score |
| 1 | Chris S | 29 |
| 2 | Mark W | 27 |
| 3 | Steve W | 19 |
| 4 | Stan | 14 |
Lewis & Clark is only a race game in the sense that the winner is the first player to reach a certain point on the "VP track". Thematically, the track represents geographical position, and it helps to think in terms of the theme because it is more complex than merely a VP score. Each player has two markers on the track. A meeple represents the theoretical position on the track. A player's actual position, marked by a camp, is only determined when the player "makes camp" during one of his turns. At that point, the position of the camp is calculated by subtracting cards in hand and boat usage (marked on the player's board) from the position of the meeple. This mechanism makes the game tricky to play and gives it a puzzle-like aspect, modified, naturally, by the fact that you are competing with other players to buy cards and place your indians (the workers in the worker-placement sub-mechanism of the game).
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