Power Grid - Korea (Keith won...)

Six of us (me, Peter C, Nasty Nick, David, Richard & Keith) settled down last night to play Power Grid on the Korea map, while the Formula De championship was in progress.

Before I forget, Keith commented on how I had pointed out his 3-week losing streak & that I need to make sure I mentioned that he won (have I already said so?!)

I have played Korea a couple of times before, but it was good to try it out again with the maximum number of players as I was expecting the two resource markets to be heavily contested & possibly run out of coal, oil, garbage or nuclear at some point, but neither North or South did. Which was a little bit surprising, just as Keith's victory was!

In the early game, 5 of us started our connections fairly close to the centre - David deciding to connect 3 in the first or second turn was a bit unusual, but he mentioned something about taking control of the area early or something - while Richard huddled away in the South-East. Richard quickly had plants 13 & 27, both wind farms, so didn't buy many resources & I began to wonder if this might be a strategy to save money on resources? I soon had a nuclear monopoly (2 plants, with a hybrid plant to keep them company) going while Nick, Peter & Keith seemed to be going down the coal & oil route.

Mustn't forget Keith won...

As the game progressed, I worked my way mostly to the south & what building inland I did was an attempt to deliberately block Peter, Nick & David ;-) not sure it worked though! Keith spread up to the North somewhat. Despite us all having different plant type combinations & building connections with varying costs, it didn't feel like there was a stand-out leader... everyone was probably doing a good job of keeping their money hidden from me, especially Keith, who clearly was rolling in it... he won, by the way! We moved up the city connection track as a pack msot of the game.

The penultimately turn, Keith almost ended the game when he got to 13 connections (14 to trigger game end in a 6-player game) & could've had 14 on that turn, had I not had my opportunistic eye on for the cheapest connections for myself! The following turn, I triggered game end, building 3 extra connections to 14 cities. Nick & Richard also got 14, but Keith got to 15 & was able to power them all up, so (no surprises) he won!

Excellent game & a worthy expansion to the Power Grid line with its 2 resource markets.

Final scores:-

1st & winner - Keith, powered 15 cities
joint 2nd - Nasty Nick & Richard, powered 14 cities & 7 Electros left
4th - Matt, powered 14 cities & 2 Electros left
5th - Peter, powered 13 cities?
6th - David, not sure what his position was?

Oh, don't forget -Keith WON!