Alright! Update!
I throughly enjoyed this. If there were a way (haven't looked yet) to do this in PBF, I would /in in a heartbeat (bidding might be slow).
We only got one game in, but that included teaching time for those who hadn't played or (like me) poured over the rules ahead of time. We had a full house of 6 players, all competent gamespeople, so the whole board was in play.
I drew lucky at the start of the game, going last in the first round of auctioning. While this would have potentially allowed me to pick up plant 13 uncontested, I opted for plant 10 at cost 13 - figuring Coal was cheap enough early, and powering two houses out of the gate was better than just 1 for free.
Unfortunately I fell into the "first time playing" trap of not realizing that when the player order got rearranged, I was no longer buying that cheap coal first. But as only a single person aside from myself ended up with a round 1 coal plant, it wasn't terrible.
From there I think I really got my big break. The first player to place their network went for the cheap North. The second player went to the cheap West. Third player went East, and fourth decided to "share" the West. This brought it up to me, and despite the higher connection costs, I felt my strongest chance would be to monopolize the South. The last person, who has played much PG, was only used to 5 players tops, so she avoided the South as well, opting to contest the North.
As the game went on, things happened about as you would expect. In round 2 I spent high to pick up plant 25 (which unfortunately left me unable to build a new house that round, AND took coal as well) - but being a 5 it stayed with me for the entire game. I was also able to get my first 6 relatively early, and grabbed my second right as we hit phase 2 - which meant I totaled 17 potential quite early and only bid to drive up prices.
I made a few counting mistakes that really cost me (especially late in the game). The most notable was when I had 10 houses, and the resources already stored for that turn. I bought out resources hoping to be able to build 3, then 4 houses to end the game - and left myself with 73 instead of 75, which is what I needed for 3 that turn. I could've EASILY waited to purchase the resources until the following turn.
As it turned out, I had 148 to spend the following turn, but I was able to jack up the price on the last two 6 plants because those people needed them to hit 17. I made my second big mistake when I thought that it took 17 POWERED houses to end the game,, instead of just 17 houses. I knew nobody could reach 17 powered, so I bought resources for an extra turn, leaving me 118. Of that, I spent 105 on 4 houses, giving me 16, with 13 left over.
One of the players more familiar with the game, who had 14 to start the turn but could only support 16 decided to spend everything to end it right there, when 16 was the highest score. So he built 3 houses, leaving him with 6 money.
The player who went last on that round also managed to get himself up to 16 in a do or die play, but had 8 leftover.
So in the end, I won on money, 13 to 8 to 6.
Realistically, I should've had 17 powered plants that turn though, and won on points. It was nice having the entire south to myself as well, even if the connections were a little more expensive. I think by the time a lot of the people in contested areas paid for double-connection fees to "jump" an occupied city, it ended up working out about the same anyway.
Still, tons of fun, but I'm sad I won't get to play it again for some time. The girl that I went up to play it with lives on the other side of the country, and while I've known her for... 12? Years, I probably only see her once a year (often every-other). And it's mostly her and her family that enjoy gaming at the level I do (as I said before, it was through her family (indirectly through her) that I was introduced to Dominion last year at Christmas.).
I'll be looking to pick up a copy of this soon though, and maybe I'll be able to con some other friends into playing it. In the meantime, TABLES, figure out how to PBF the game!