Power Grid: Halfway through GotM and What Do I Think?
Well, mostly what I think is that I don't understand why it's number 2 at BGG.
I'll give you that it's a deep, complex, and interesting game. I'll admit that it's well-designed and relatively efficient. It is, by almost any estimation, a quality game design deserving of respect. What I don't quite get from it, however, is a lot of fun.
Some minor criticisms of the game include that it is profoundly fiddly, with lots of manipulation of the Power Plant auction, resource market, and the whole "Monopoly Money" thing. It's also very repetitive, because you're essentiually doing the exact same thing over and over every turn. And, of course, it's really mathy and can lead into serious Analysis Paralysis, especially in the last few turns.
Now, I'm not saying that it's a terrible game or anything, and I certainly see that most of these problems are both pretty innate to the very nature of the game and are still better solutions than others that had been done before (in crayon rail games, for instance). It strikes a nice balance between advanced planning and remaining flexible each round, though, and in general I guess it feels like you're accomplishing something as you put together your network.
Like I said, however, I keep asking myself "Where's the fun?"
I guess I've got two more weeks to find it...
To be fair, I think most of us sort of knew this heading into choosing this as GotM. We wanted to give the game a fair shot, but I don't see it making the tables too often -- if ever -- after the move.
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Actually, I didn't predict my dissatisfaction with the game at all. Heck, based on its reputation and how muich I assumed I'd like it, I went and bought an expansion map and the second power plant deck. In general, I enjoy networking games and like games that are a little more on the heavy side, so I thought it would be a home run. But, again after last night's game, Power Grid keeps coming up short for me.
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I didn't say "you." I said "most of us".
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Yea, gotta say, I gave my copy of Power Grid away. Good idea in practice. Amazingly fiddly implementation. Both in niggly rules and in pushing wood around endlessly. And at the end of the day, just not that fun.
For economic/mathy games, I'm currently enthralled with Brass, but Railroad Tycoon is a great alternative. It's actually fun to build your network in RRT and watch your little cubes fly along your track.
In power grid, it's usually more the "well I need roughly $12 for resources, but that's more a $10-$15 range, and I need somewhere between $25-35 to build 2 new cities, so I probably shouldn't spend more than $60 for this plant, but maybe it would be worth passing on the cities...
And so on into boredom, until the other players have gone to sleep.
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I was really all about this game the first time we cracked it out, but more and more i was having trouble getting excited about it. I wasn't sure why I didn't like it all that much, but you seem to have hit it on the head. Regardless, always good to see an update!
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