Power Grid deluxe - Winning Condition

Question

I read the rules on the winning condition and I check on forums for that also. What are the winning conditions of a game of "power grid deluxe"?

In the following Phase 5 (Bureaucracy) players do not earn money for powering cities. Instead, they check to see which player supplies electricity to the most cities in his network using the resources and power plants he has. This is the number of cities he normally earns cash from during this phase. This player that can power the most cities wins the game! If there is a tie, the player with the most remaining money wins. In rare cases, a player may win the game with more cities in his network than necessary to end the game

There's a confusion on the "supplies electricity" conditions that I see on forum and in the manual. Because there's 2 supply electricity measurement, there's the raw supply electricity and there's the effective one.

What I mean is that you could power up to 20 cities (raw) but if you only have 13 cities on you end up powering 13 cities ( effective).

So what measurement is the right one? The raw or effective one? I will leave an example and you tell me who should win the game:

P1, 20 power supplies capacity, 12 cities connected, can power up to 20 cities. P2, 15 supplies capacity, 13 cities, can power up to 14.

Answer 1

It's the number of powered cities you are actually supplying. Taking a look at the rules you quoted (p. 10, Winning the Game), I am emphasizing a few phrases:

In the following Phase 5 (Bureaucracy) players do not earn money for powering cities. Instead, they check to see which player supplies electricity to the most cities in his network using the resources and power plants he has. This is the number of cities he normally earns cash from during this phase. This player that can power the most cities wins the game!

So, it's evident that you follow the usual procedure of powering cities, but instead of earning money, you just count how many you powered. And what's the "usual procedure" for powering cities? Rulebook, p. 8, "Bureaucracy":

A player may choose (or only be able) to supply fewer cities than he has in his network. The player is paid only for the supplied cities. If a player produces more electricity than he has cities in his network, the surplus is wasted.

Therefore, in your example, assuming that all players have adequate resources: (I am rephrasing it to avoid confusion and adding a 3rd player)

P1, 20 capacity, 12 cities connected; P2, 15 capacity, 13 cities; P3, 14 capacity, 17 cities

P3 wins! The game ends because P3 has built 17 cities, the number required to trigger the end of the game in a 3-player game. Even though P1 has a capacity of 20 and P2 has a capacity of 15, their scores are 12 and 13, respectively. On the other hand, even if P3 has 17 cities, her score is 14, therefore she wins the game.

What happened in the example? Apparently, P1 and P2 spent too much money on Power Plants and didn't have enough money to connect extra cities. Therefore, P3 ended the game, as she was supplying one more city than her opponents. You can win with less or more than 17 cities (the number to end the game in a 3-4 player game). One more than your opponents is enough.