[Wrana]

I've also began to change victory conditions (use VPs, to be exact). Though it actually allows to skip what is usually called lategame.
I think the reason is twofold: first, the MoM had a quite beautiful ending, together with point systems which allowed to mark how good your performance was this time; second, it contained some interesting quirks possible to use in lategame only (artifact creation, Spell of Mastery), together with some targets which you could take only at this levels (strong nodes & dungeons). Also, it had initial restrictions in research which could be partially lifted in endgame.