Sunday 22 January 2023

Power Grid Game - Euro Game

It just goes to show that you make a game out of anything, including the US Power Industry which must make it kind of the ultimate resource management game. No panzer tank but plenty of cut-throat competition (see below, the USA with the "potential" power infrastructure shown, each player starting up their budding empire with a "state-sized" company in search of lucrative markets):



Coal, oil and nuclear are the opening options with more greener variants emerging later in the day (see below, energy wattage of power consumes resources, some non-renewable which creates a conflict sensible resource management versus profits - a dirty, cut-throat bidding war can easily emerge):  


One interesting feature is a fixed hand of assets (three power plants) which can be upgraded but you have to decommission one to bring a new one on and you can get locked into markets which will ultimately run out of natural feeder resources (see below, the expansion phase is about to leap into action, routes to population centres and careful financial planning required as you easily go boom and bust): 


A trial run of the game was attempted in Covid, now post Covid real world energy struggles are all in the news, albeit in the national actor arena. Maybe time for another run!

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