Eurodome - Power Grid VS Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico

Power Grid has too much math. A game with that much math can't be any fun. I have no idea why you guys like this game. We played this game once and I hated it already. Even worse than Agricola.

I don't really love either game all that much, but I will vote for Power Grid, as my wife likes it and we own it, so that counts for something, I guess... Both are very overrated and too dry, IMO, though Puerto Rico is probably the more clever design.

Puerto Rico has a clean design.

Power Grid makes me feel as if I need a spreadsheet to calculate the best move.

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico is a new game every time. We haven't found (or read about) any optimal strategy in this game, and hence we (or at least some in our group) still experiment with different approaches. So I guess we haven't played this game too many times yet, since we are still enjoying the variability in it. It's a fun game with a lot of table talk when you try to convince someone to take a role that's really good for them (and yourself).

Power Grid is also a good game but I hate the math and the too-harsh catch-up mechanism. The market for goods is lovely. The market for plants is not as good since going last could give you the best plant ever without any competition. I have tried many times now to pull ahead in this game, but it just isn't possible to win that way. Being 1st for a few turns in a row will let the others catch up no matter what. A shame. And the end game with all the calculations of the optimal build route on the map and how much money you will then have left for resources and a plant... It's just horrible. Good game in some aspects, but some parts really stinks. Which is why I play it only now and then. In between I have time to forget why I dislike it and then I again get interested in manipulating the market and such and there I sit again counting 13 + 15 + 16 + goods for 3*5 + 2*7 + plant for something like 35+. Hmm. How much money did I have again? And doing this while drinking beer(s) does not help.

Vote: Puerto Rico

PS. All those brown discs in Puerto Rico are only colonists for all you sensitive people.

fuck both of these games. i have never played puerto rico and never intend to, but power grid forces you to do all kinds of tedious maths if you want to play it well and then stops anyone winning with it's bizarre turn order thing, thereby forcing every game to finish narrowly and make everyone think "ooh, how fun was that!" when really you might as well just have set the board up in a final turn situation and played that turn. power grid is like basketball.

I'm going against the grain and voting for Puerto Rico even though it's a lost cause.

I don't get the love for Power Grid around here. It's a game of adding up. Everything has a fixed price except the auctions, so "strategy" effectively comes down to doing lots of little sums each turn to find out how much you can afford to spend at auction. That's it. The map, the supposed "interaction" from the auction and point-blocking are all just petty distractions from the maths. Turning yourself into a human calculator for 90 minutes doesn't equate to fun in my book.

PR on the other hand is head-and-shoulders the best of the "spreadsheet" games. Sure it isn't a barrel of laughs but it is challenging and it doesn't offer any sort of solvable, "best move" game options like so many of its kin. It deserves respect for being the best of its kind if nothing else.

Puerto Rico is a very good game and I'll usually play it unless there are some real eurotards sitting at the table.
But it pales in comparison to Power Grid for theme (OK - I'm an ex-engineer from the electrical distribution industry so I probably get it a lot more, and like it). Then there is a board where you can fight and screw people over on (well, it always happens in our games), and auctions where you can do the same but also where risk/luck is involved as buy early and you may miss out on a better plant turning up, and the fuel market is also a great place for screwing people or getting nobbed yourself.
Maths - I won't make too much of a thing here 'cos I find it quite easy but that's just people being different (I'm shit at art and composing anything longer than 200 words and I won't even mention my lack of musical ability), but if you play with hidden money (as you're meant to) then you only have to worry about what you can buy and not go catatonic calculating everyone else's possible buys.

Vote: Power Grid

Power Grid is the antithesis of Ameritrash, because of its screw-the-leader/catchup mechanic.

...the too-harsh catch-up mechanism. The market for goods is lovely. The market for plants is not as good since going last could give you the best plant ever without any competition. I have tried many times now to pull ahead in this game, but it just isn't possible to win that way. Being 1st for a few turns in a row will let the others catch up no matter what.

Power Grid doesn't have a catchup mechanic. You just described all the benefits for being last in the turn order, but then you go ahead and imply that being 1st in turn order makes one the leader. The "leader" is usually the player who can best manipulate turn-order for their own advantage. Scepter of Zavandor has a catch-up mechanic. Power Grid doesn't.

Place worker on: Puerto Rico

Power Grid is easier to play with a calculator so I don't have to repetitively add up small numbers over and over again. I don't want to play a game that is better with a calculator. Puerto Rico is about reading the other players, judging what they're going to do, and making the best move based on that judgement. In that aspect, it's just like Citadels.

Protoss wrote:

I have tried many times now to pull ahead in this game, but it just isn't possible to win that way. Being 1st for a few turns in a row will let the others catch up no matter what.

There's a guy in my game group who specializes in this. He somehow just grabs the bull by the horns and takes off, not looking back. He wins PG about 80% of the time.

This isn't even close.

Puerto Rico is a well-designed game, but not a lot of fun.

Power Grid is my favorite Euro design, and one that I enjoy every time I play it. It also has cheap expansions, and a lot of them.

Power Grid

I elegantly bid 7 for Puerto Rico. It doesn't really blow anyone's doors off, but compared to the soul-sapping borefest of dry math that is Power Grid, it easily places enough influence with me to win my favor. I admit some bias of memory due to the fact that Puerto Rico was the first Eurogame I ever played.

Bid: Puerto Rico

At the moment, Power Grid gets a higher rating from me than Puerto Rico, though PG is fading with me. The catch-up mechanism in it is just so draconian that it becomes more a game of jockeying for position than actually succeeding. I suppose that's still game enough, but it just doesn't appeal to me so much anymore.

That said, I find Puerto Rico to be a fine cooperative game. Its one truly positive feature is that if you're tired you can just pretend to be confused for a moment and everyone else at the table will tell you what your best move is. You don't have to think at all -- it's magical!

Power Grid

Sag.

Seriously?



Power Grid.

I said previously that I wasn't going to comment on the Math problem but ....seriously, some of the comments are making me jaw drop. You count up your money, you 'have a good guess' what the fuel prices may be based on your turn order and put some cash aside, you work out a few builds you can do and put some money aside, you buy a plant with what's left and pinch some from the 'left aside' pots if the bidding goes high - sheesh, it's all just a bit of addition and subtraction, what age did all you guys drop out of school !!!! Do you have the same problems buying units in TI3 or A&A ?

vote Power Grid

but goddammit. In freakin america Coal is black. not that shitty brown stuff they mine in germany.