This has often been debated.
On the one hand you have the serious competitors who want all games to be decided purely by strategy to a single person so that they can judge themselves against each other like battle ladders in other games.
On the other hand, some people are more interested in seeing the games strange concept of balance be vindicated. And in just giving kudus even if its in a less serious and more-for-fun game.
Some of the more serious wargamers dislike wins that are allied wins, wins by turtling, or wins on really large maps which they feel is a win just by putting up with micromanagement more than other people can. They dislike wins by certain tactics even if its a feature that is built-into that nation on purpose. The points are justified. To do a decent ladder would require an agreement on game settings, lower random settings, map size or even agreeing on one balanced map. There are threads discussing that and how to make the game results less affected by luck at the games initial creation. But as far as winning because everyone else went AI or stopped playing, Im not sure you will get an agreement on that. If a player gives up, then they give up. Does it matter when and how they give up as far as deciding who won?
Any kind of ladder rating has been fought here. What we do have is less strict than that but I still find it useful in arguments about nations to prove that any nation can win, just that its features might lend itself more to a certain type of dom3 game other than king-of-the-hill on medium sized maps. I like that it records all kinds of games, all kinds of wins. Im not as interested in who won, as much as what they won with.
There is a Dom3 forum at dom3mods where its apparently been said the serious dom3 gamers hang out. You might check there. They might be interested in a ladder competition.
