Two-Player (Power Grid) Factory Manager

Power Grid: Factory Manager is the latest game from Friedman Friess, a green-haired, goofy, and goofy-looking guy who creates really good board games. Most of his games have two "F"s in their German name, and most of his box covers have a substantial amount of green in them, like his hair.

FM is in the same "world" as Power Grid, his most successful game, although its mechanics have little to do with PG. The artwork and detailing are the same, and there is a plant market with lower valued plants available before higher valued ones. But that's where the similarity ends. No route connections, no buying fuel, no running out the fuel supply, and no auto-balancing mechanism for "last place".

Instead, you have a factory with 14 spaces for machines, 9 workers, and money. Each machine adds or reduces to the energy your factory requires to run, adds or reduces the workers your factory requires to run, or adds to the amount you produce or the amount you can store. Two spaces are allocated to certain types of machines, leaving 12 for your general machines, robots, and storage equipment. And 2 of those 10 spaces cost money to build (like Bohnanza, once you build them, they stick around and you don't have to pay for them again).

Your income at the end of each round is the lesser of your production and storage values x 10, minus your energy cost x the price of energy, which rises sporadically over the game's five turns. It starts at an insignificant 1, but could reach 8 by turn five, in theory.

You have available to you each turn the number of workers that are not busy operating your machines. You bid with these workers for turn order: lower turn order means first crack at plants, but less monetary reduction of the plants' costs. Then, in turn order, you drop as many plants from the supply stacks into the market as you have workers (less the ones you used to bid), and each other player does the same, with the last player able to optionally add a few more plants if he or she wants (not in a two-player game).

Then, in turn order, you buy whatever plants you can afford from the market, but no more than one plant per space you have available in your factory, and no more than the number of workers you didn't use for bidding. If you have no space left in your factory, you can clear away a location at the cost of another worker. First player does all of his buying before second player, and so on, and so - barring lack of money - buys all the good plants. Last player generally gets crap to choose from, and pays much less for it.

After all this, you get all of your workers back, reassign as many as you need to run your plants, leaving you with however many are left. You can also buy up to two additional workers at 7 bucks each, which can be used as regular workers for all things. They go away in the next round at this same point, though you can then buy them again.

Any items in the market go back on top of the supply stacks. This means that crap buildings that even the last player didn't want get put back onto the stack and are the first ones out of the gate again on the next round. Power Grid had a mechanism of getting rid of these wastes of space, but Factory Manager leaves these in, apparently deliberately. I'm not sure why. I think PG's idea was better. I found this annoying in FM, but perhaps it's not such a problem in a four or five player game. I will have to see.

You then collect income. The game is limited to five rounds, which is somewhat surprising for this type of game, but seems to be about right. The winner is the one with the most money.

In our game, I had the most money at the end of turn four, and couldn't do anything useful in turn five, so I did nothing and saved my money. Nadine did tons of stuff in turn five, shooting ahead in every area, but costing her a lot of money. As a result, even though income is doubled in turn five, I was still far ahead at the end.

It's a lot of juggling numbers. Add this and that and that, subtract this and that and that, factor in the money and workers required. Unlike PG, it didn't provide much tension as a two-player game, but that may be because we didn't know to block each other for turn order enough. Going first in the turn order is a huge advantage, but only if you have enough workers to do something with it. I suspect that multi-player is where the game shines.

I Can't Give You Water Because We Sell Water

Or, Adventures in Cincinnati

Half-Priced Books

I drove along small roads, because I couldn't figure out how to get onto and off of the major highways. Cincinnati's highways look like an overturned bowl of spaghetti. Look at your hand with your fingers spread out. That's what the end of I75 looks like, only, each finger has another hand coming off of it, some fingers merge back together, and there's no telling which ones go left or right around the bend.

Driving the small roads was, aside from a lengthier drive, a tour of the underbelly of Cincinnati. It's not pretty, at least the part I drove on (mostly Rt 27). But I discovered a Half-Priced Books. I loved the Half-Priced Books in Dallas. This one was ok, but only a third of the size of the one in Dallas.

I used to buy a lot of audio media: now I cycled through the records (my player doesn't work anymore), the cassettes (too fragile), and the CD's (I'll get these on occasion), and discovered that I'm really not in the market for audio media anymore. It's not that I don't listen to audio. It's that I can find any song for free, legally (a video, a promotional website). And, more importantly, I have access to so much music today, that I don't need any one particular song. I like genres of music now, not particular songs or artists. OK, I still like some artists more than others, but there are so many great artists that I'm not going to miss any one if I don't have their music.

That left games and books. I found one or two things I would consider reading, but nothing I would consider buying.

Newport on the Levee

Newport on the Levee promised shopping, an aquarium, movies, and I wasn't sure what else. Not really a fantastic choice. I think the zoo or Krohn Conservatory would have been better bets (and there's supposedly some downtown fountain area that I don't know much about).

Parking was $2, which was fine. I hit the aquarium, which was $20, which was about 50% too expensive.

It's a nice aquarium. Nice setups, interesting fish and slimy things, with the occasional out of place display (what's an owl doing here?). Staff are friendly. But it's smaller than I was hoping for. No jumping dolphins or whales, no sea shows. Little in the way of hands on exhibits. In short, it was worth $10, not $20.

Some pics:



This display included "four-eyes", little fish that hover at the surface of the water like submarines, their bubble eyes only above the surface, with split vision below the surface as well. You can't really see them in this picture.



I've got Australia and I'm going to wait you out.



Hiss.



Bark bark. (These animals go a bit crazy in here.)



Meow.



Birds at an aquarium. Whatever.



This guy was mammoth, and was slithering his way through the electric cables in the ceiling, crunching the light fixtures in his way.



The jellyfish display was the nicest part.



Freaky.



A shark ray, pretty rare. She just got a mate, and they are trying to play matchmaker.



Lawyers.



One of the few hands-on displays, you could pet these sharks.



Help, I've fallen and I can't get up. (Which reminds me: What did Jesus say when he wasn't allowed into the Disco club? "Help! I've risen and I can't get down!")

The gift shop through which they force you to walk was ok, but there was only one game on display: Oceanopoly. Hey Z-Man! Try sending them a few copies of Reef Encounter. Actually, I think I'll write to Zev about it.

It's Not Me

After the aquarium I went to the attached mall, which is mostly a waiting room for a multiplex cinema. Not much here, but they had free wifi.

Here is what life is like in America, for those of you who don't know:

Me: "I'd like some water, please."

Pleasant counter person: "I'm sorry. We sell bottled water, so I'm not allowed to give you water."

Me: "The sink is right there. There's a plastic cup right there."

PCP: "I'm sorry. It's not me. Those are the rules."

Me: "You realize that this is not good for PR, or for business?"

PCP: "It's not me."

Me: "Thanks, bye."

PCP: "There's a water fountain right over there."

Me: "So you can't sell me water, but you can point me to the water fountain?"

I sat down and connected to the wifi, but my battery was running low. There was a plug on the wall, behind a stand at which you stamp your parking ticket if you've been to see a movie, so that you can get some of your parking money back. The stand was not really close to the wall or the plug.

I plugged in.

Pleasant Mall Worker: "I'm sorry, sir, but you can't be back here."

Me: "I'm just plugging my computer in."

PMW: "It's not me. They just don't want anyone behind the stand."

Other than the mall work staff, there was no one else in the mall.

Me: "... Ok, I'll just sit here, a few feet away and not actually behind the stand."

PMW: "That's ok then."

I sat on the floor near a doorway into some shop, Christmas lights dripping over my head. Unless they stick a turkey into the manger, I think Thanksgiving decorations are no longer functional. Out came a shop worker.

Pleasant Shop Worker: "I'm sorry, sir, but you can't sit here. You're blocking the shop door."

Me: "I am?"

PSW: "Yes, it's not me. They don't want anyone blocking the door, so that people won't trip."

I scooted a few inches back toward the stand.

Me: "How's that?"

PSW: "That's fine. It's not me, you know. That's the rules."

Game Night at Yottaquest

Yottaquest is a game store in Northern Cincinnati, run by an amiable and well-loved guy named Matthew. Goodman Games chose it as America's favorite game store in 2009. They have plenty of space for gaming, and a newsletter.



And they have good taste in games (note the game on the left).

There were some 20 to 25 people gaming ...



All night gamers playing Descent ...



Euro gamers playing Power Grid ... (including me. I trounced them, playing somewhat unusually. I started with plant 4, and then, seeing the competition for cheap places to build, I rushed to build more cities than I could power. No one contested me for early high capacity plants. That let me rush through to stage 2, and pretty much end the game while others were scrambling for capacity.

The player on the left gave me the most competition, but he hung back in cities, not expecting me to push through to stage 2 so quickly.)



Playing Dungeon Lords ...



Playing Endeavor, which I really wanted to play, rather than Power Grid.



And, in the back room, playing miniatures ...



And role playing.

After Power Grid, I played a filler card game for 2 to 6 players called Alice and Wonderland Parade. The game has zero to do with Alice and Wonderland. It is a simple avoidance card game like Geschenkt.

There are 6 suits, each with cards numbered 0 to 10. On your turn, you add a card to the end of the parade and draw a new one from the deck. You then may have to take cards from the back of the parade and place them in front of you (negative points). You take cards as follows: Let's say you place a card of value N with a color of C. E.g. a 7 Red. You ignore your own card and the most recently placed N (7) cards in the parade. For all other cards in the parade, you take all cards of value N (7) or less, as well as all cards of the same color C (Red) as your card.

The game continues until the deck is exhausted, and then all players play one more turn without drawing any new cards, which leaves them each with four cards in their hand. Each player chooses two of these cards (simultaneous select and reveal) to add to their board in front of them. Then points are counted.

Count the face value of all cards. However, in any color in which you have, or are tied for, the most cards, you score only one per card. Lowest score wins.

On first play, the mechanic, like Geschenkt's, appears to be brilliantly balanced. There are no good or bad cards, but how you play them is quite interesting. It plays quickly and for up to 6 players (though I suspect it is best with 3 to 5). I loved it.

The cards were really thin and pathetic, unfortunately. I'll probably just play it with my set of Sticheln cards. Sorry, designer/publisher. And what's with the meaningless theme?

After this, I joined a Dominion game. Several games had already been played throughout the evening. We played with a mixture of cards, but many were from Seaside, with which I have no experience.



I got thoroughly trounced. The set contained very little in the way of bonus coin value; only Pirate Attacks gave dependable coinage boost, but I didn't recognize that until too late and they were all gone. Some other cards let you draw Silvers and so on, but the Pirate Attacks just robbed them away from you, especially in a five player game where you might be hit by three attacks by the time it's your turn again.

There were also no bonus actions, except for the Pearl Diver, which didn't do enough.

I ended with 6 points, while everyone else had at least double digits. The winner had 24 or 26.

I showed some people how to play It's Alive, but, again, I didn't see how it went, and, again, they didn't choose to play it a second time. Hmmm...

Another nice group of people and some fun gaming.

Lazy Shabbat Gaming

Nadine, Abraham, Eitan, and Emily came over for a game on shabbat afternoon.

Nadine and Abraham are regulars to the group. Abraham's wife is out of the country, so he was bored. Eitan and Emily are a couple that came to a recent group meeting once, and now plan to attend with some frequency.

I chose Power Grid as a good game for a shabbat afternoon for five, including two first-time players (E&E). And Abe had played only once.

Several truism about Power Grid, which we expressed at the beginning of the game: the game is really decided in the last two or three turns, assuming you play reasonably; and everyone falls 1 or 2 dollars short at least once in the game.

Actually, I didn't experience the last one this game. And I also discovered another truism: it's harder to get the plants you need then the goods and cities you need. That's because you can only get one plant at a time, and only a few or no decent one will be available on each turn. Which isn't to say that you can't be locked out of fuel on occasion. But it's a secondary concern to the plants.

In our game, we played without the Southeast on the US map.

Nadine had the plants she needed close to the beginning of the game. I took Pennsylvania as my opening move, and Nadine still insisted on taking New York. As a result, within tow or three turns, she was locked into three cities for all of stage 1. The closest city she could get to after that was at a cost of 51 (Knoxville or somesuch). Despite that, and despite terribly low income as a result of that, she still managed to make it to 14 cities in the last three turns, when she could finally expand.

Abraham took the West and tried valiantly to lock everyone else out of it. Eventually, however, we crept through his wall here and there. Eitan especially found his way from Duluth to Seattle and shot out from there.

Eitan and Emily took most of the the center, Eitan in the north and Emily in the south. Eitan crowded against me and Abraham the most. From my three cities in Pennsylvannia, I also got crowded and jumped into the center south to compete with Emily there. Eitan triggered stage 2 with his leap to Seattle, and stage 3 came a turn later.

Eitan played primarily a green strategy. I took an early nuclear, and Emily took a later one. We were buying them at cost of 1 or 2 the whole game. We also both took hybrids, and Emily also had a garbage.

Nadine had all oil, and Abraham had all coal. Coal shot up in price early on, but as people got out of it, the price fell. Abraham still had a chance to spend a ton of money on the last turn to prevent me from powering my 7/3 coal plant but it wasn't worth his while to do so.

Final scores: Eitan 16+, Emily 16-, Jon 15, Nadine 14+, Abraham 14-

The game took us from around 4:45 to 8:00, breaking for maariv and havdalah. And then followed by dinner.

Also, Friday night I asked my guests some Moot questions. Many of the questions are not all so tough, but the subject is interesting.