Game Objective

The first time I sat down with The Sims I immediately felt like I was wasting my time. I was tasked with interior decorating, getting a job, going to work, making friends, and manually telling my people to go to the bathroom. "You know what I like about Legend of Zelda," I said, "Link doesn't need potty-breaks. This game is stupid," I then looked up at a clock and found six hours had passed. I came back the next day and played that stupid game for another six hours because if I could get one more friend, I'd get promoted to Mayor.

Games made by Maxis (Spore, SimCity) have largely self-generated goals. I find that infuriating and compelling because without an official endpoint, I have no boundary to stop playing, but if there's a competitive finish line, I may fail.

I bring this up because we have some options as we decide what Sengoku's final objective will be:

1. Standard military dominance - game ends when one player controls X% of the map and is crowned King Daimyo Ultra Power Hyper Turbo Shogun of Planet Universe.

2. Tribunal Shogunate - the top three players after X turns are considered dominate. The reason we'd chose three winners instead of one is partly from the history of the Onin War where three daimyos rose to power, but also because this would disrupt the standard practice of games where the leader gets whacked to allow the second-place player to rise. A three-player victory means you've still got a chance if you're in 4th place.

3. Individual Victories - each player has a specific victory condition that triggers game's end. The Oda clan needs to hold Kyoto for a full year (12 turns), the Chosokabe clan needs to save $300 to win. Adopting these conditions complicates game balance, but means we'll see varied play styles.

4. Player-Set Conditions - at game start, each clan secretly selects a handful of conditions from a list that they must accomplish to win. E.g., "Win 30 battles," "Have the Largest Cavalry," "Control 2 Enemy Capitals," "Successfully Assassinate 6 Generals," etc. Again, this complicates game balance, because as a first-time playthrough, we're guessing which of these conditions would be easier or harder to complete.

5. Victory Points - player with the highest victory points after X turns wins. Players gain/lose victory points for winning/losing battles, accepting/asking for surrenders, making/breaking alliances, etc.

I'm leaning toward #2 or #5, but which of these, or anything you can think of, would you prefer?