Two-Player Power Grid: Playing With the Rival Company

Power Grid with two players used to be a different, looser game. Recharged fixes that with a third company run by the rules: it has no money, cannot win, and takes plants, fuel, and city spaces for free. The player counts lesson covers the setup. This lesson is about using it.

The rules below come from the Recharged rulebook’s two-player section.

How the company behaves

• Seat: always second in player order.
• Plants: after the first plant of the auction phase is bought, or the start player passes, it takes the largest of the 4 current plants for free. With 3 plants already, it only takes one that beats its smallest, and scraps the smallest.
• Fuel: it takes exactly one run of fuel for each plant during the fuel phase, never stores extra, and returns it all to the supply in bureaucracy. With a hybrid plant, it alternates coal and oil, starting with coal.
• Cities: 16 houses. 6 go on the board at setup. While any remain, every time either of you builds the first house in a city, a company house goes in that city’s second space.
• Steps: it never triggers Step 2.
• The end: the game ends when one of you reaches 18 cities.

The plant it takes is your choice

The company takes the largest current plant at the moment the first plant sells. So the first purchase decides what it takes.

• Opening the largest plant and buying it means the company takes whatever is largest in the current market after the replacement is drawn and sorted.
• Buying a small plant leaves the largest one for the company.
• Passing as start player sends the company in at once.

Before the first auction, look at the current market and ask: which plant do I most want my opponent not to have? Then arrange for the company to take it. A plant that powers many cities on the fuel your opponent burns is often the right one to remove.

Its fuel take lands in the middle

Fuel runs in reverse order: the player in third place buys first, then the company, then the leader. The company’s take always comes after the trailing player and before the leading one.

That gives the trailing player a lever. If the company’s plants burn the leader’s fuel, the company’s take raises the leader’s price or empties the market before the leader buys. Choosing plants for the company that burn your opponent’s fuel is a quiet way to tax them every round.

Because the company burns its fuel and returns it each round, it does not hoard. Its demand is steady and easy to forecast. Add it to the fuel sums from the resource market lesson.

Setup walls

At setup, the start player places 1 company house, the other player places 2 next to it, then the start player 2, then the other player 1. All six go on neighboring cities, in Step 1 spaces.

Those six cities are closed to both of you in Step 1. Use your placements to:

• Wall off cheap ground your opponent would want.
• Leave a cheap cluster near where you plan to start.
• Split the map so the two of you are forced apart, or together, whichever suits your plan.

In Step 2, those six cities open their second space to you. They are the first new room on the map.

Every first build blocks a second space

While the company has houses, each new city one of you builds gets a company house in its second space. With 10 company houses in reserve after setup, the first 10 cities you two build between you are sealed against the other player until Step 3.

So in a two-player game, Step 2 opens much less of the map than it does at higher counts. The race for open ground lasts longer. Plan to claim your area early, because your opponent cannot follow you into it until Step 3.

Turn order with two

Being start player means you open the auction first, then buy fuel and build last, after the company. Being third means you buy fuel and build first. The midgame lesson says turn order is something you spend. With two players and a fixed company seat, it swings even harder: every round, exactly one of you has the good seat.

The Robots as a next step

If you play mostly with two and want more variety, The Robots expansion adds robot companies with their own behavior. The expansions lesson has the details.

The rival company rewards players who plan one move further than their opponent. It is not a nuisance to work around. It is the third player you get to steer.