There is an ongoing debate about that topic. A segment of the community would like to have games end when the coalition meets the victory conditions. Unfortunately the game is not programmed that way, so you have one of three options:

1. Get all members of the game in agreement to end it and distribute prizes based on each persons score.
   
2. Stab your allies to get the points you need
   
3. I believe you can also contact a moderator to place a ticket for the game to end. search through the forum, I remember reading about it somewhere this past month.
   

When there are only three active human players remaining in a game, you will be given the option of "retiring" the game by the agreement of all three players. You will get this option at the next daily update after the number of active players is reduced to three. If all three players are allies and in active communication with each other, this should be a no-brainer.

I have never turned on an ally at the end of a game, and I never will. Part of being a good ally is being willing to support your allies when by luck they have gained more victory points than you (and vice versa), and it never hurts to discuss the terms of your alliances before you agree to be allies. I have played multiple repeat games with the same players as allies, and they should have the same opportunity to win the game or earn the (usually small) gold payouts as one of the top finishers as you. Of course, it is also moot if one ally actually achieves the required number of victory points for an outright victory, but this is often difficult to do on the larger maps. I have won three 50-player Pacific map games, but only two of them were outright victories with 1,635 victory points; the third win was a game in which only I and two allies survived, and only 20 points separated me from my second-place ally. I had previously been a second-place finisher in a game in which he was the winner, and both of us were committed to the alliance team, not in going it alone.

If you are playing on one of the larger maps (e.g., the 50-player Pacific map or the 100-player world map), it is not unusual to have larger alliances of 4 or 5 players (and sometimes more). I personally prefer to have an understanding that the top 3 will be able to retire the game when all other enemy players are eliminated, and players who are ranked below third will go inactive to permit the retirement of the game by the top 3.

i am one that believes that if the coalition achieves the required vps the game should end. Less temptation to backstab. I hate backstabbers.

How bout this analogy:

You are playing football. Your running back decides in the middle of the game to just run the other way, and fumble or whatever, because he is going to the other school next week. Where's the honor, sportsmanship?

Just so you know, in TEAM games, the team's vps all count cumulatively towards the win. Why shouldnt coalition points? Why does the game even keep track of these points?

Thanks Dixie, I think you just solved a problem for me. I am in a team game where both of my team members either did not show or stopped being active with in the first week. So what your saying is I should add all three scores to see where I am toward the victory? or do they have to be active to have their scores count toward the team?

all 3 in a team game count

In a team match, active or not, the team's points are added together.

The problem many see with coalition wins, is that players can simply just combine into huge coalitions in order to end games. 60 players could join a world map, join in a freakish coalition (as they usually do..), and end the game.

Now, on the larger games, most do agree that the number of players that may retire should be higher ie, ten players retiring a world map together.

I agree completely, but the game is not presently programmed to end that way. This has been repeatedly discussed, and last I heard it was supposedly on the developers' to-do list, after having been referred to them by one of the senior forum moderators, but that was several months ago.

There is one problem with that proposal, however; large coalitions of 5, 6, 7 or more players have a huge advantage against loners and the typical 2 or 3-player alliance, and I have read complaints of even larger alliances in the 100-player world map games. If you have 10 players in your alliance, you're probably going to crush everyone else based solely on the numbers and that is horrible for competitiveness. So there probably need to be limits on the maximum size of alliances for each map. The last suggestion I saw was:

1. 2-player alliance for the 10-player European map;

2. 3-person alliance for the 22-player European map;

3. 4-person alliance for the 50-player Pacific map; and

4. 5-person alliance for the 100-player world map.

I have only played one formal team match (last summer), on the 50-player Pacific map, and the game did not end when our alliance achieved the required victory points total. I understand the programming may have been changed on that point since then.

Personally from what I have seen on the 10 and 22 player maps, I would go heavier if there was to be a maximum coalition size. Those maps have to many drop outs by newer players. Maximum size should be 4, imo. This would allow something historical on the 10

• Axis: Germany, Italy, Spain (for balance. Yes, i know it was technically neutral though Facist)
  
• Allies: US, UK, France, USSR
  
• Neutrals: Sweden, Yugoslavia, Turkey
  

Using the scale you suggest above it would than be:

Map size 10 to 50 - 4 players
Map size 50 - 5 players
Map size 100 - 6 players

So they are not forgotten, which would likely cause bugs:

Map size 2 - 1 player
Map size 4 - 2 players

I joined a team game on the 10 about 3 weeks ago and the teams split 4/3/3. On my team one never showed and the 2nd disappeared after a few days. I managed to knock out 2 actives on the 4 player team, and the other team has one inactive, so we are now evened out at 2/2/1. So it is really just a matter of someone taking the initiative to knock out some of the players from really large coalitions to even things up a bit.

The Force is strong with this one.

Yes. there was a bug that made 50p maps to require a player/team to control the entire map for the match to end. Most players were not up for such a feat, so the bug was patched.

Jokes about "hardcore mode" were various and plenty.