by Bill Todd

Created on: December 01, 2009

Real estate sim games have been around for a long time. I've played many of them. Some are good, some are bad.

Video game versions have been around for a while as well. The one advantage a video game has is that there is usually a time limit for you to make decisions. This adds a challenge to planing out your city.

Dispite all of the video games out there, though, that deal with real estate, my favorite business sim is actually a board game.

Power Grid is a business simulation board game. It does, however, have a section each turn that deals with obtaining real estate (your putting up more power plants), and there is as much strategy in that decision as there is in the rest of the game.

The premise of the game is that you own an electrical grid and the game is to see who can run their grid the best (best meaning the most profitable). You do this by buying power plants, the resources to run them, and buying new expansion slots in other cities.

The first phase, buying power plants, is done by auction. Players each bid or pass in turn, although once you pass on a power plant, you are not allowed to bid on the particular plant again. Players keep bidding until only one person is left and the winner gets the power plant for the amount they bid for it.

This sounds very simple but the amount of strategy involved can make or break your game. This is because the first player has a chance to manipulate auction by choosing which plant goes up for auction. Situations will arise where players need more powerful power plants and when this happens the first player can put them out in order they wish knowing the other players will buy them and leave the last and best one for themselve.

Also, the cost of the plant is a major issue. Never expect to pay face value for a power plant. Bidding will drive that up. Knowing when to pass and when to bid are critical, as well as when to bluff in order to drive the price up for someone else. Remember, if they spend a lot on the power plant, they won't have as much to buy resources or expand to other cities.

The power plant's resources are another key issue. One of the great things about this game is that the resources are limited as they are in the real world. Plants run on coal, oil, garbage, or nuclear materials, and there is only so much of each available at any given time. The rarer it is, the more expensive it is to buy, and it is possible to be completely out of resources in a game. As such, with the prices always changing,

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