but AAFitz came up with something better in the discussion in the Negotiated peace in obscenely long games thread.
the idea is simple. any game ends at round 200 or 300 or some commonly agreed number. to be honest i'd keep that number as low as possible. 150-200 is a reasonable amount of rounds. plenty of time to end the game. if it takes that long then for sure it's a stalemate.
the nice part is that at the end each player loses points. yes you read correctly. every player loses points including those that have been eliminated earlier.
i have 2 ideas for the actual loss:
1. a fixed amount. needs to be big enough to avoid abuse so i say go for max. go for 100 points. what abuse am i talking about? well let's say a colonel is in a stalemate with 2 cooks. if the loss is just 10 points then he'll do whatever possible to keep the stalemate. he can't afford losing to a cook. but if the loss is 100 points then he must do something to win.
2. calculate as if each player lost to a generic 1000 points player. still very punitive but not so much.
main advantages:
1. no more stalemates
2. a slight decrease in inflation (points are lost but not gained)
and the form
* Suggestion Idea: max no of rounds in a game
* Specifics: max 200 rounds
* Why it is needed: read above
