Beginner Power Grid strategy

Question

Tonight I'll be playing Power Grid for the second time with my game group. It's the second time for all of us.

What key strategy or tactic should I focus on to give me the best chance of winning?

Answer 1

There really isn't a set strategy here, but a number of tips I've found useful from playing Power Grid, and I hope they can help you, too:

1. Look at what everyone is buying -- if you're playing 3rd in a 5 player game, and the first two players bought coal plants, consider going with a different fuel source, as coal could get expensive quickly if everyone is buying it. Pay attention to how quickly fuel sources will replenish at the end of the turn as well.

2. If you are first to buy resources, consider buying the maximum amount. It may cost you a little extra to buy them, but anyone else needing those resources is going to have to pay that much more. Feel free to put the squeeze on people this way.

3. Don't overpay for Enrvironmental plants -- the environmental plants (the wind plants) are definitely a good buy, and everyone knows that. If you get lucky and can buy one at the end of the round for face value, go for it. If the #37 shows up and it gets bid up to $60 or $70 quickly, think very hard about how much you'll be saving if you buy it. They're good, but don't overpay for them.

4. Beware the East coast -- there are lots of cheap connections in the East coast, which is great for expanding quickly, but if you buy lots of houses quickly, you'll be in first position, which means you'll be going last lots of the time. Also, with cheap connections, people might crowd around you and block you in, meaning you may have to expand two or three hubs away, and pay some steep connection costs. I personally like moving into the East coast during phase 2.

5. Nuclear plants are great later on -- early on, nuclear fuel is very expensive. Within a few turns, however, the fuel can get down to $7 or $8 for a single piece. Compared to how much coal and oil may end up costing, nuclear plants are good for mid- to -late game.

6. Time when you buy cities -- sometimes there may be a good plant on the table coming up, and you want first shot at it. If everyone else is buying cities, consider staying at a lesser amount of cities so you have a better chance at going first.

7. Don't buy plants for the sake of buying plants -- If a good plant comes up, feel free to bid on it, but don't feel like you have to bid every turn. Try to buy as few plants as possible.

8. Have a long-term strategy -- if the game will end when someone has built their 14th house, figure out what combination of plants will best get you to 14, such as a 4/4/6 setup, 4/5/5 setup, 3/5/6 setup, whatever. There are some fantastic plants mid-game that you can use for the rest of the game.

If I think of anything else, I'll add them here.

Answer 2

The best advice I can offer is

don't buy a city unless you can fire it up

This is especially important in the early game, when turn order hinges on a single city. If you do, then all you are doing is sacrificing turn order. Even if it makes no difference because you have the highest value plant, it may make a difference next turn.

When bartering for a power plant, consider a few things

• how much will you save in terms of raw materials by having this plant
• even if you are the only person buying garbage, coal, oil etc, how long is that really likely to last
• how much is it worth to your opponents

Try to think as long term as you can with all of your decisions. If you base your decisions on the current status, it will change within a round or two and your decision may quickly look unwise.

Green powerplants

I rarely have found these to be worth it. At cost price they can be, but often they are a hindrance and quickly replaced anyway. It of course depends on how much other resources are costing, but do not overbid as it will cost you in the long term.

Answer 3

• Try to minimize the number of plants you buy.
• Aim to end up with enough plants to power the endgame # of houses
  • Don't buy more than one four plant unless it's great deal
• Look carefully at the resource costs and double buy if it looks like a resource is in demand
• A simple strategy is to alternate being first and being last
• Don't think that $1 doesn't matter
• Don't always take the cheapest cities, sometimes you need to block others
• Place your first houses where the connections are cheap
• Try to bid up other power plants, carefully
• Hide your money, don't let others make accurate calculations

Answer 4

I would add a single advice:

Plan your turn before the auctions start.

I usually plan my turn backwards:

1. How many cities can I connect to with the money I have?
2. How much will I (likely) need to pay for resources for my current plants?
3. Now how much is there left for auctions? (counting both the plant price and its resources for at least 1 turn)

After this initial calculation I can adjust the numbers:

• If I don't have enough to pay for resources, build 1 fewer city unless there's an obvious new plant that would use cheaper resources or replace an expensive one.
• Only bid on power plants that help reach at least the new number of cities, ideally more.
• Sometimes it can be worth throwing this plan out the window if there is a really juicy plant, especially if you can get it at face value and you won't have to replace it for a long time, or even ever.

I recognise that this could potentially engender some analysis paralysis, so unless everybody does it, please be nice and move on quickly, keep it fun! Or practice to do it faster; I'm slow at mental calcs so I just split the money on my lap.

Answer 5

Regarding some previous comments about hiding your money. Your cash is the ONLY thing that is private. The rules allow this, and it is a critical aspect of the game. Not knowing if someone can win or not on the next turn makes it exciting, sees if you were paying attention, makes you guess, second guess, triple guess. If I was the one who could win this turn I would never in a million years want that advertised. Long story short - do keep your money private, any rule otherwise I believe is just silly and frankly a little juvenile.

Answer 6

If you have a very expensive plant that only powers one or two cities, consider not powering them as the fuel cost may exceed the extra money you will get in bureaucracy. The game is pretty close because of the auto handicapping done by puting the leading player in the worse position when buying plants, resources, houses so very much hangs on the last turn. Even if you played badly, your chances of being in contention ae high. Consider ditching the balanced play strategy here, as playing a fast one can make you the winner faster than anyone else thinks. If you see a juicy plant that looks like it will be up for bidding soon, don't make plans including it, unles you know all the other cheaper plants are already discarded. Chances are high that as new plants are drawn your desired plant, will get farther and farther from the auction or even be discarded alltogether.

Answer 7

Here's another tip: don't be afraid to pay a little more for a plant you really need. I have lost many a game by not spending enough money on plants in the midgame. I often have the money and the ability to build the cities but not the power capacity.

Also, if there are two desirable plants with the same capacity in the current market, the first one will often go for less than the second one, so bid that first one up a bit more. Of course, take fuel costs into consideration when bidding.

Answer 8

My advice isn't too different from the accepted answer, but there's a few points I want to emphasize that can be confusing for beginners and should be kept in mind.

Divide your thinking into roughly the three phases.

First off, your goal in phase 1 is to save money. To accomplish this,

1. expand slowly but not lethargically -- don't lose 10s but don't expand too much for expansion sake (the marginal benefits for powering on each new city are moderately low and get lower).

2. don't get tricked by the shiny new plants. First, you pay too much if you fight a lot in the auctions. Second, better power plants mean that you move up on the leaderboard -- which in turn means higher expenses for resources and later expansion.

3. do keep track of the resource market. If you are competing for resources, buy up as long as you can still do everything else you wanted on the turn. If you are not competing, keep track of that.

4. figure out your price point for green power plants and never go over it (think about how many rounds you're going to keep that single-city wind turbine and how much it will save in resources and don't pay more than that). Also realize that going green helps other people buy resources more cheaply.

5. In the first part of the game, don't ever fight over buying nuclear power plants. They are too expensive for the value due to the resource situation right now. Also, garbage is largely a bad deal unless other resources are highly competitive -- but since you're not expanding aggressively, that expensive is felt by someone else (unless 3 players are going for the same type).

In phase 2,

1. expand more aggressively but try not to become 1st place. This gives you better chances of getting good deals on better power plants. Here, you're making a trade off between expansibility and position on that board.
2. consider nuclear or trash but only if you don't see a lot of competition. Again, price in the fuel cost when considering nuclear.
3. in phase 2, it's somewhat acceptable to make bids that are not perfect for you but might convince someone else to genuinely overbid.

In phase 3,

1. stop worrying about place on the board and worry about expanding to win.

2. still keep track of power plant value but especially keep track of what others need. In many cases, someone will need a 7 or 6 to have a chance at powering up and winning, keep this in mind when betting.

N.b. -- the phases here are how far into the game you are -- not necessarily the game's phases