A continuation of the previous article…

Total Points: The game ends when a certain total number of points are reached, no matter who scored them. This is kind of an oddball pattern used oddly by Killer Bunnies (at which point your chance for winning is equal to the proportion of points you’ve collected) and Shadows Over Camelot, which ends when 12 swords (either white or black) have been earned by the knights.

Secondary Condition: The game ends when some condition not strictly tied to the turns or scoring is met. For example, Puerto Rico ends when the colonists are all gone (usually) or when the VP chips are gone or one player’s city is filled. If a player wants to lock in a lead, that player can push towards one of these conditions, but that might not be the line of play that scores the most points. Likewise, Thurn & Taxis ends on the turn when one player meets one of a couple of conditions. Both of these conditions are worth points themselves, and there’s even a bonus point for hitting the mark first; but a player who’s been pursuing other goals very effectively could still pull off a victory.

Variable Fixed Turns: The game lasts for some number of turns that can’t be affected by player actions, but the players don’t know ahead of time how many turns that will be. This makes the pace of the endgame different, because it makes the shift from long-term to short-term goals blurry and an interesting point of strategy. For example, Evo lasts for 8 or so ordinary turns (depending on the number of players); at the end of the next turn, if a 1 or 2 is rolled on a die, the meteor lands and ends the game. The next turn, it hits on a 1-4; the next, on a 1-5, and in the one game out of 36 that it hasn’t ended already, the meteor always hits on the following turn.

Exhausted Moves: The game ends when no player can make any more moves. This might be due to a filling board or depleting resources or both, as in Blokus. The end of the game is typically a struggle to squeeze the last bit of points or other resources out of whatever’s remaining. The ending of Go feels this way to me, although technically you’re only running out of useful moves.

Hybrid: A game might have multiple end conditions; typically whichever one triggers first ends the game. A Game of Thrones, for example, ends after 10 turns if no player has won by Dominance at that point. Cooperative games often fall into this style. Shadows Over Camelot lasts until 12 Total Points have been gathered, but can also end by the elimination of all the players, or if 12 catapults ever wind up outside Camelot. The Lord of the Rings board game has a Race ending condition for the good guys, and a Secondary winning condition for the bad guys; Sauron could eat the Ringbearer without the other hobbits being in particular danger.