[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Slynky:
If the game is "Last man standing", I will form alliances and make sure everyone understands that when I make agreements with them. I also realize that, perhaps, if one of "us" makes it to be the Last man standing, and we have to "part our ways" and duke it out, I know I (all of us) contributed to the winner...enabling him to beat us.

This is how I treat it as well. Personally for me a non-team game is a waste of time if there is no winner. That doesn't mean I have a compulsion to always be the winner. Quite the opposite actually. To me a person who insists on team victory is one that cannot abide the thought of not being able to win and therefore must change the rules and declare themselves "co-winners". I myself have no problem coming in second, or third, or even Last. (It's a good thing too considering my record. )But I want to know where I place.

What I have done in several games that have seemed to drag on is agree to stage an artifical ending. Like a showdown at the OK corral my allies and I will gather our remaining forces in a central location and have at one another until only one is remaining. Other times we have simply called the game and declared one person the winner. Of course in those cases my allies are like-minded individuals not obsesed with not losing. But almost without exception it is at a point in the game when the eventual winner is pretty much understood. The only question remaining is how long till they can erradicate the others in the game.

Geoschmo