Multi-player games are played online, in the browser edition: open https://retro.theiguru.au/sengoku/ and choose Multi-Player game on the title screen (7 once you have played; 6 the first time, before Continue appears). The game runs on the website's server, so you can come back to it from any computer. The desktop edition has no multi-player games.

Sengoku's players are separate from The Broken Seal's: make a new player name for each game.

Log in with your player name and password, or choose New player:

• a name of 2 to 20 letters, digits, spaces, - or _;
• a password of at least 8 characters;
• an email address, which is optional. Without one you get no emails.

Account (in the games window, or 8 on the main screen of an online game) changes the address, turns the emails on and off, and changes the password. If you forget your password, ask the sysop (see below).

New game asks for:

• a name for the game;
• the scenario (1560 or 1582);
• the level of the computer clans (Gentle to Ruthless);
• how long each month lasts: 12, 24, 48 or 72 hours (24 if you don't change it).

The game gets an invite code of eight letters. Give it to the people you want to play with, up to 8 players in all; they choose Join with a code. Nobody can join once the game has started.

In the lobby every player picks a clan. When everyone has one, the game's creator chooses Start the game. The computer leads the clans nobody picked.

The main screen works as in a game of your own, with the same orders.

• Each order takes effect at once, on the server's world, and the other players see the result. There is nothing to save.
• If a rival invades you before you play, you see the result when you next look.
• When your orders are done, press 9 End turn. Press 9 again to take it back, until the month ends.
• The month ends as soon as every player has ended their turn, or when the time runs out. Then the computer clans move and the month's events happen, as in a game of your own.
• Anyone who has not ended their turn by then keeps their clan, but the computer plays their month for them, the way it plays its own clans, and their news says so. This happens every month they miss; they can come back at any time.
• The page checks for news every 30 seconds, and shows the month's news when it ends.

Each player sees only their own news. The map itself (every province's gold, soldiers and governor) is open to all, as in a game of your own.

You fight your own invasions on the hex field, against the computer leading the defenders, even when the province belongs to another player.

• While your battle is on you cannot give other orders, and other players cannot give orders in the two provinces until it is over.
• The game server replays your moves to find the result, so the result is always fair.
• If you close the page in the middle of a battle, it carries on from where you were when you open the game again in the same browser.
• A battle you leave is fought to its end by the computer: when you give another order or end your turn, when an hour has passed, or when the month ends.

A clan whose last province falls, or whose third head dies, is out of the game; its player can still watch. The first player to hold all 38 provinces wins.

Leaving a running game hands your clan to the computer for good.

If you gave an email address and the emails are on, the game sends one:

• when a game you are in starts;
• after each month, with the first lines of your news and the next deadline;
• two hours before the deadline, if you have not ended your turn (once a month);
• when the game is over.

The emails come from noreply@theiguru.au. If they land in your spam folder, mark one as not spam.

Problems with an online game, or a forgotten password: email slaterm@theiguru.au, or leave a message for Heisenberg on the BBS (bbs.theiguru.au, telnet port 23).