Morphogea: A Modular Hex Map (fan expansion for Power Grid) Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Contents
• Printing
  • Map hexes
    • Gluing
    • Laminating
    • Cutting
    • Keeping a Hex Together
  • Connections heptagons
  • Raw Materials cards
• Setup
  • The Map
  • The Rest
• Playing

Contents

• 14 two-sided Map hexes, each comprising 6 reversible triangles
• 1 Turn Order hexagon
• 2 two-sided Connections heptagons
• 1 Raw Materials Market octagon
• 32 Raw Materials cards (8 coal, 8 oil, 8 garbage, 8 uranium)

Printing

To benefit from the extra thickness, you may wish to print everything out one-sided, and then glue the two sides of two-sided things together (carefully, according to the instructions); however, if you prefer to print duplex when you can (I know I do), then extra care is required to align things correctly on both sides, which will also make cutting a more trustworthy process.

Note: If you plan to glue with a liquid adhesive, do not use an ink printer to print your hexes. Color laser printing is the way to go — just don't leave the toner in contact with rubber for long….

Map hexes

Gluing

Each Map hex is labeled a bit like a clock face. The 6 corners and 6 sides bear the numbers 1 – 12. Each of the 14 hexes is the same color front and back (if you ignore any water on it). The terrain is the same front and back. The back lacks the external connections to the sides of the hexes. You may have noticed that the back looks like a scrambled, kaleidoscopic mess. That is because, once the hex is glued together (or printed duplex with perfect alignment), and cut like a pizza into its 6 triangles, each triangle can be grabbed from the edge and — with a twist of the wrist — flipped to toggle the external connection.

When you glue the front to the back, the 12 triangle of the front will stick to the 12 triangle of the back, and the 6 to the 6. The other four numbers will be placed mirror-image from the other side when you flip the hex over (keeping 12 at the top); however, this just means that 2 is sticking to 2, 4 to 4, 8 to 8, and 10 to 10, like you'd expect. Imagine flipping a clock face over, and it should all make sense.

I urge you not to cut the triangles out before gluing, but if you are careful to do one hex at a time, keep same numbers paired, with the number on the same edge of the triangle, you can be a big showoff and do it.

Laminating

I designed the hexes to fit through a Xyron 510 adhesive laminator, which is inexpensive, does a fantastic job, and does not require you to leave a margin of laminate around the outside, allowing a seamless look when you are done. I made my set in 2006, and it's still going strong!

Wait for the hexes to dry from whatever adhesive you used before laminating them. You don't want to trap excess moisture in there.

Cutting

Once the hexes are all glued, dried, and laminated, cut them into the 6 equilateral triangles. I suggest a Carl RT-200 Professional Rotary Trimmer (don't let the "pro" part scare you; it's inexpensive), for nice, straight cuts. If you practice with it first, you will marvel at its accuracy.

Keeping a Hex Together

This is another department in which the Xyron 510 shines. You can get repositionable adhesive rolls for it. I cut 14 small rectangles from a strip of card with the repositionable adhesive, and I have one underneath each hex. The center points of the hex's triangles happily stick to the sticky "pad", and each hex stays together. To flip a triangle, I simply peel it up, flip it over, and stick it to the pad again.

Connections heptagons

It is not necessary to make these two-sided, but if you do, do yourself the favor of orienting both sides upright.

Raw Materials cards

If you are using the Xyron 510, cutting the sheet in half longways will make for easy lamination.

Cut out the 18 cards.

Setup

The Map

The easiest way to set up the map is to use the map randomizer the designer created for Morphogea (an online tool, not part of the printed rules).

To set up the map yourself, you need to know the "number of cities for the number of players" rule of Power Grid. Look at the setup to see how many cities you need for the number of players (the designer's step-based Power Grid summary includes this information). 2–3 players: 21 cities; 4 players: 28 cities; 5–6 players: 35 cities.

1. Randomly select Map hexes whose cities total the target number of cities.
2. Then arrange the hexes (you can ignore rotation and connections) any way you like (see the designer's playable combinations study for examples).
3. Once the arrangement is set, rotate each hex whichever way you like (you can ignore connections).
4. After the rotations are set, flip the wedges of each hex to have connections on hex faces that are adjacent to other hexes, and not have them where they would connect to nothingness.

The original document shows a sample 21-city (2–3p) map, a sample 28-city (4p) map, and two sample 35-city (5–6p) maps, one of them in an uncommon undecahex layout which also happens to feature a long bay. These are illustrations only.

The Rest

5. Use the Connections heptagon that depicts the player count in the center heptagon (the 0 space). Each player places a house on the 0 space.
6. Take a house from each player, and place them on the inner green portion of the Turn Order hexagon, in a random order from 1 – p, where p is the number of players. (As a visual cue to help you see that more cities means a higher rank, the higher ranks are brighter, and the lower ranks are dimmer.)
7. Fill the Raw Materials Market octagon either according to the rulebook, or using the Raw Materials cards. To use the Raw Materials cards, shuffle them, and draw 18 cards. Place the indicated raw materials on the octagon filling each type from the highest price down.

Playing

Everything from here on out works the same as in Power Grid. Use house placement on the Turn Order hexagon to keep track of who is done bidding on the current plant, and who is done bidding altogether.