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If you want to play so that the militarily/economically dominant nation is guaranteed the win, then the best thing to do is to just have no victory condition at all, and simply play until all the players agree that someone is the winner.

I find that these sorts of games often turn into a late game chore and in a big game can go 100+ turns. NewbieNuzzling just shut down after 77 turns without a genuine clear winner because no one wanted to play any more - and this was on a map that in the beginning was commonly derided as being too small. That is why I put VPs in this game: To give people something concrete to fight over. Encourage combat and make a real military route to victory something other than a long, drawn out reduction of all the other nations to rubble. I didn't expect both 3VP provinces and most of the 2VP provinces would still be almost totally undefended 40 turns into the game. But, that's just the way the game worked out.

Ironhawk did this with the cooperation of all the other players in the game, who left the second strongest nation (who was not far behind the strongest) in complete peace for the entire game to prepare for this. Obviously this could have been prevented. Castling the VP provinces is one way, but people, as a group, realizing that the possibility existed and arranging for some way of keeping Ironhawk from building up the strength. Or a community fund to castle the two 3VP provinces, making a raid impractical (arranging THAT is left as an exercise for the players...)

I do feel that it is the responsibility of the players to keep an eye out for what other players might be doing to try to win the game, and to use diplomacy or strength to prevent them from doing that. Calmon is the only player to admit to having even considered the possibility, but obviously he didn't really believe it (or at least, believe it was about to happen) or he would have been raising the alarm rather than sending quiet PMs to one other nation. But, beating an enemy with raids is hardly a new idea. The Germans almost won both world wars that way, and I used it to great effect vs. Ironhawk in a game of Starz!@# once...

Warnings from the host aren't needed. If we played this game over, exactly the same setup, I guarantee the ending would not be the same. Nobody is going to let this happen again. When research is at a level that makes this sort of thing possible, people have to be prepared, and next time they will be.

The specific way this game ended might have been unsatisfying. But I don't think it is a flaw in the game design. If we just wanted to build forces until they become unstoppable and have enemies do the same, we might as well play against the CPU. IMO, what happened in this game is one of the best parts of playing against other humans. I don't like games that devolve into "who can horde clams the most efficiently" or "who can pack the best bless into the fewest points" or whatever other minmax approach is most optimal. Multiple paths to victory is good!