PlanetsCentral

before you start insulting, read your own stuff

ok, guys, please keep the fights in the game, not in the forum.

My impression as an outsider:

• first things first: although announced without an initial victory condition, this game was not intended to run forever. This discussion, as unpleasant as it might seem to some, was sort-of planned.
• unless anyone of you has a big heap of ships and starbases in the queue, it's unlikely that within the next 100 turns will overtake Siba's Lizard on first place in this no-alliance scenario (in an alliance scenario, the underdogs could still team up).
• given 30 turns, someone might overtake the Klingons.
• given 5 turns, Tholians might overtake Privies, which wouldn't be a daring feat given that Privies have given up.
• those on the lower ranks probably can change places. For example, given 5 turns, someone could decimate Borgs enough to go down a few places.
• maybe the Bots still pull some trick, but I don't see how that would get visible on score ranking within fewer than about 30 turns.

This I wouldn't expect anything that significantly changes the outcome within the next 20 or so turns.

Thus, using the standard "roll a die, starting at turn 80 (or 70?)" would sound like a reasonable idea to me. Otherwise, Siba's voting idea also sounds sound. Somehow: every fifth turn (or every Sunday, i.e. every other turn?), place votes. If the sum of the voters exceeds, like, 2/3 of total PTscore, game ends (one or two turns after).

--Stefan