Well, I think we've actually turned our position around, and that in the aftermath of a titanic battle between Utgard/Bogarus and Caelum/Caelum (is that who is still playing?) we might come out ahead. More likely, though, I'd contribute just enough to whoever I thought was losing, so that they'd win.
Anyway, I don't think that the game is over by any means - if we can set anyone who wants to quit to AI, we can just keep playing.
If we want to avoid something like this in the future, we should use victory point accumulation
.