Alternative Victory Conditions

[Anonymous II]

Use a scoring system. This system would monitor a faction's progress in numerous ways (you could for example score points for good diplomacy, missions, etc.) In the end, you either set a key date at which scores are compared or you set a score target which would allow for shorter games.
This system wouldn't allow for real surprise winners; conversely it would require the winning faction to somehow dominate the game. As a last point it's always fun to race against the AI in the score.

I really like this kind of "victory conditions". It reminds me of the way Paradox has done with their games. In Victoria - An Empire Under The Sun, for example, there are three areas of point-gaining: military, industrial and prestige.

What I like about this, is that not any odd country can actually "win". Rather, there will be different achievents (when it comes to final ranking) considered good and poor for each country played. I played a game as Dominion of Canada once, and ended up in 5th place or so, and that was considered very good indeed. On the other hand, ending up 5th as Great Britain or Germany isn't consider impressive at all.