[Agema]

I've a better idea.

Let's take the top 8* players, and have a Quarter - Semi - Final competition at the central island.

Give everyone points equal to their rank on army size and research graphs (as they're the only thing that really count for power purposes) with other stats as a decider in case of ties. Then pit 8v1 (a), 7v2(b), 6v3(c), 5v4(d).

Then winner of (a) plays winner of (d), and (b) versus (c). Then those two winners fight it out.

That will take 7 turns, plus 6 1-turn gaps for the winner of the round to be clear off the central isle**, that will wrap everything up in not too many turns once we're in position. It also 'benefits' the top players, and I think that's fair. Players are allowed to reinforce their armies between rounds as much as they can.

* Particularly as 3 players are miles ahead of the rest, we could just cut the competition down to the top 4 players, save time.

** We can also think of carrying out the heats on other ground where possible to save time if feasible, if the armies can get to the target/central isle for the next round.