Sho' Nuff

With last night's Shogun still tingling my brain, Stanley and I cranked out a game of The Networks this afternoon. The idea is we are running competing TV channels, and choose shows to fill three slots between 8pm and 11pm, raising both cash and - crucial for winning - a larger audience share than your opponents.

My channel was VCK

Abetting this shows are adverts or stars that will garner more audience or cash, and there are also Network cards that are essentially McGuffins - a little fillip here or end-game bonus there. 

I'm wary of games that pass themselves off as funny, but to be fair to The Networks it makes no claim of being 'hilarious' but did provide some comedy - at one stage my channel had An Hour of Shouting at 9 and Get To Know Your Lower Colon at 10.

Mmmmm

This goes on for five seasons as your older shows lose audiences and get consigned first to reruns, and then the archives. Twas ever thus...

I'm currently the undefeated Cube Quest king in our house with something like ten victories in a row, but I simply can't defeat Stan in anything heavier than that, it seems, and he trotted out with a debut win:

Stanley 140

Sam 136

It was a lot of fun. I would happily have played again, but Stan had been pushing for us to play Shogun, so after tea we sourced a 2-player variant from BGG: where some areas are uncontested and both players take two special cards, instead of one. Other than that though it was much the same deal (except we played the rice rule correctly this time) and with the rules fresh in my mind I explained them a little more clearly today!

Black cubed areas remain off-limits

Too clearly, perhaps. Competitive dad came out and I really wanted to win this one, but I was defeated by both tactical play on Stan's part and a couple of awful cube tower moments that had me cursing Dirk to the skies. At the end of the first year I led by a single point, but Stanley's blue armies were amassed and ready to attack.

Winter isn't coming

We broke for tea, and realised we were being watched through the window by a snail.

Then the second year commenced, and we went toe to toe. I thrice pulled out the attack-with-a-single-army manoeuvre but though it did thin Stan's forces out, it wasn't enough. And in the autumn of the second year I stupidly didn't bother picking up money, forgetting - somehow! - that I needed it to build buildings!

A couple of tactics worked well - while Stan was busy in the middle of the board I claimed majority in castles around him. But my forces kept being attacked and the game ended with a convincing debut win from the boy. 

Stanley 41

Sam 35

Another whupping

I think I may leave it another four years next time. 

Hello AP my old friend

Saturday, and whilst the boys watched Pee Wee's Big Holiday, I talked Ian and Chris through the rules of Shogun. Andrew joined us - he and I had both played Shogun and its predecessor Wallenstein, but in the dim and distant past, with regular ass-whuppings at the hands of Anja, Adam, Steve, and Dan Clamp as I recall. But although it's a real brain burner - the post title comes from Ian invoking Art Garfunkel - the rules aren't actually terribly complex, and we set about populating feudal Japan forthwith. (Andrew here, just to add a little historical something: the names were the old names for Japan's regions, click here to see Chris' favourites Bichu and Bingo in all their historically accurate glory!)

Like Wallenstein, Shogun plays through two 'years' of the country, and in three seasons of each year you choose which of ten actions to assign to which area you control - or hope to control, if some Daimyo type hasn't nabbed it off you. Some actions allow you to strengthen, or confiscate money or rice from the local populace - good for building or feeding, but bad for popularity - too much confiscation leads to revolt.

Is this farmer revolting or raving?

Some other actions allow you to build buildings - theatres, temples or castles - and only two of the ten actually let you do what everyone is really wanting to do, which is attack.

Me(black), Chris (yellow) and Ian (blue) fancy our chances in Kozuke

I had what looked like a strong starting position, with several areas clustered close together. But sat in the middle of them was Ian, with five armies. He and Chris also managed to establish some mini-strongholds in the easier-to-defend areas of the board, whilst Andrew and I were more central. As the opening year played out, I realised I was doing what I'd always done previously, which was playing too conservatively, anticipating attack instead of expanding. So I tried to drive Ian out of my territory, only for his paltry single army to defeat the incoming four!

Ian surrounded by Sam

Andrew I seem to recall did spread himself a bit more, but suffered at the hands of Chris. Come the mid-game scoring at the 'winter' of the first year, he and Ian were miles in front, whilst Andrew and I languished far behind them. It had turned into a battle for first and a battle for third.

Unfortunately for Ian, his money ran out and in the final season of the final year his options were minimal. Chris and Andrew both took areas from him, whilst I finally broke the pattern of consolidation and managed to spread myself a bit around the board - enough to nab third, whilst Chris surged far enough ahead to see off Ian, who despite his worries had still scored substantially for all his buildings.

The final board

Chris 40
Ian 35
Sam 29
Andrew 27

Post game photos of people taking photos!

Whew! It was now three and three-quarter hours since we'd sat down to play, but as that meant it was only 10.45, we were all up for another game, and played Unearth: the game of digging up ruins and collecting stones. It was, Andrew said, "the ideal game to play after Shogun" as on your turn all you do is roll a die. You then place it on a Ruin and hope that when the ruin's value is reached by all the dice present, yours is the highest - claim the ruin, collect sets of ruins, score points. But if your dice roll is low (a one, two or three) you take a stone, and build with it. If you build a stone circle you can place a Wonder in it for points at the end of the game. Get dumped from a Ruin and you get a Delve card, which gives you some little fillip during play.

Stan and I had played the day before and thought it just ok, but it came into its own with four - lots of room for screwage and pushing people around - a Cosmic Run with added interaction really.

Andrew and I tied on 26 points, but Ian took the win with 27!

Ian 27
Andrew/Sam 26
Chris 21

A nice filler to end the evening after a totally brutal Shogun!

Five hours of game

A Saturday's games night is a bit special, and tonight saw a rare return to the table for pre-blog regular, Dan. It was his first appearance in almost two years, and he walked right into an epic: Shogun... As played by five people who'd never tried it before.

This game is largely similar to Wallenstein in terms of mechanic, with a few slight changes. Perhaps the most obvious is the change of map. Instead of Germany and it's open fields of opportunity, Japan's map is bordered by sea and it quite long and thin in comparison. As such, there were fewer chances for attacking, but at the same time, fewer chances to be attacked. With just six rounds (plus two scoring rounds) trying to connect your disparate territories seems impossible.

We arrived at eight, and after the rules were explained, we began at around nine. By nine forty, the first round was done and dusted. Sam felt his planned bedtime dissolving in front of him like a mirage. We ploughed on, picking up a little speed and getting a feel for the game. Dan instantly declared that war was fun, and did not hesitate to expand his territories.

As ever, Andrew found it impossible to sit still

By the end of the first year (at around eleven o'clock) Dan was in the lead. Usually, the person in the lead gets picked on by the others, but not so much this time. Steve ran out of money in the second half of the game, and never really recovered. His poorly reinforced regions were picked off by the rest of us.

The final round was slightly ruined by the fact that money didn't come out until the very end, which meant we had to exact our evil plans of domination with whatever money we had left over from our last evil plan of domination. Dan seemed to do very well exploiting his sea routes and all his buildings, meanwhile Sam managed to get a whole region to himself. All of which lead to the result finally being calculated at one a.m., leaving Dan very pleased that his win ratio was up to 66%, albeit with only three appearances.


1. Dan 47
2= Andrew 34
2= Sam 34
3. Anja 33
4. Steve 28

						Points
Adam	1	1	1	2	1	6
Sam	2	3	2	1	3	11
Steve	4	1	1	4	1	11
Joe	2	4	3	1	4	14
Hannah	4	3	4	1	2	14
Andrew	2	3	3	4	4	16
Anja	3	2	5	4	2	16
Dan	1	5	5	5	5	21