The Lighter Side of Rice Famines (Shogun)

I don't have a lot of time for a long post. We played Shogun, which we've played before a few times. Unfortunately Bharmer, the owner of the game, was a little delayed even for our delayed start time, so we didn't get underway until about quarter to 9. Since we had a late start, we opted for the "canned" (pre-set) start positions, chosing who was player A, B, C and D randomly.

The game was generally closer than most of our earlier runs, with the scoring round at the end of the first year resulting in everyone within about two points of each other.

I managed some lucky last-minute conquests in the second year, spreading myself dangerously thin, and the dice-tower gods smiled upon me, causing revolts in two heavily garrisoned provinces which were easily quelled and only one in a undermanned area (losing me the province). Unfortunately for Shemp, two of three revolts caused a province turnover and one of Luch's revolts cost him a castle. I finished with a fair (but not unsurmountable) lead over Bharmer, who was in second place and Luch and Shemp were not far behind.

A good game, with the usual strange results from the dice tower (one turn I attacked twice at fairly substantial odds in my favour and lost in both cases; doing the math, I had at least 6 cubes hung up in the tower). It does seem strange to be able to (potentially) time your attacks based on cubes you can see sitting in the dice tower tray. As an odds-smoothing mechanic, it is quite ingenious.

A good game, usually welcome at the table, but not one that I would typically pick. Something about the artwork bugs me at times, for some reason. I was happy in that this was one of the few times I recall winning, though. Looking back through our session histories, it's been won by a variety of people, so it is not necessarily, as we had suspected in the usual after-game kibbitzing, a game that Agent Easy usually wins.