Power Grid Rules

Game Pieces

• There are 132 wooden houses, with 22 in each player color. These are the cities that the players build. The resource tokens are as follows: 24 black round tokens (oil), 24 brown square tokens (coal), 24 yellow ridged tokens (garbage) and 12 red round tokens (uranium). The game board and the money are self-explanatory.

  There are 42 power plant cards. The number in the top left corner is the power plant number, and it is also the starting bid at which the plant begins auction. The symbols in the lower left corner--coal, oil, garbage, uranium or hybrid coal/oil--indicate the type and quantity of resource the power plant needs to run. Some power plants--the ecological and fusion plants--have no symbol because they need no resources to produce power. The number in the house symbol in the lower right corner tells you how many houses are powered when that plant uses the resources.

Setup

• Each player begins the game with 50 "Elektro," the game's currency. The player turn order is chosen by drawing lots at the beginning of the game. Place the resources on the resource market at the bottom of the board. Place three coal on spaces 1 through 8; three oil on spaces 3 through 8; three garbage on spaces 7 and 8; and two uranium on spaces 14 and 16. Set the power plant cards numbered 3 through 10 and place them in two rows of four, with plant numbers 3 through 6 on the top and 7 through 10 underneath, and put power plant number 13--an ecological wind-power plant--on the top of the stack.

Gameplay Phase 1

• First, the player turn order is determined. At the very beginning of the game, the turn order is determined by drawing lots. In succeeding rounds, it is determined by the number of cities a player has built. Then the power plant auctions begin. The first player begins by bidding the minimum bid on one of the upper four power plants. Going clockwise around the board, the players either bid or pass, and the highest bidder wins. A new power plant card is drawn from the stack, and put in the market or queue according to the plant number. Once a player has bought a plant, he cannot buy another in the same round. If the person who starts the auction loses the auction, he begins the next auction until he is able to purchase a power plant. A player can choose not to buy a power plant at all, except in the first turn, when he must buy a plant.

Phase 2: Resources

• Players then purchase resources in reverse player order. In other words, the last player starts. The number in the top left corner of each resource space is the price of each token. Thus, as players buy the resources, they buy the cheapest first and the prices get higher. Each player may purchase resources to power his plant twice, and stores it in the plant. Resources may be moved between plants at any time. After all the players have acquired resources except the players who opt out, resources are replenished as follows: seven coal, five oil, three garbage and two uranium. The resources are placed in the highest open spaces for each type.

Phase 3: Building

• In the building stage, the players build cities on the map in reverse player order. You must pay 10 Elektro for each city you build, plus the connection fee̵2;the number on each city connection̵2;to build a city, except the first city, for which you do not pay any connection fee. A player may build in as many cities as he wants, but a city can only be built in once. You may pass through another player̵7;s city to build on the other side if you pay all connection fees necessary.

Phase 4: Bureaucracy

• After each player has built cities, the players power them in the Bureaucracy stage. Each power plant uses the resources to power the cities. The players receive cash for the cities they power. If no cities are powered, the player earns 10 Elektro. For one, two and three cities, the player receives 22, 33 and 44 Elektro respectively. After that, the numbers are as follows: five cities=64, six=73, seven=82, eight=90, nine=98, 10=105, 11=112, 12=118, 13=124, 14=129, 15=134, and 16=138.

Winning the Game

• The game ends when a player has built 17 cities during the Building phase or all the building spaces are used up. The winner of the game is the one who powers the most cities during the Bureaucracy phase immediately after the Building phase. If there is a tie, the player with the most remaining money wins. If there is still a tie, the player with the most cities total, powered and unpowered, wins.