I'm guilty of this and I'm sympathetic to you (go figure). I don't know how to fix it.

A cool idea (which is never going to happen) is having "masked" tables, where the players are anonymous till the end of the game.

Intrinsecal? I suppose you can't realy spell a word wrong if you just created it, but shouldn't it be intrinsical?

If you are playing competitively then just do your best one game at a time.

If you are playing for fun then you shouldn't care if you annihilate your friend and then laugh in their face non-stop for four hours.

I just wanted to be clear on this: I'm usually not "nice" to friends just because they're friends, unless I see an advantage to an alliance on the board, in which case I'm just as likely to ask a stranger the same. I'm guilty of the sympathy thing mainly where Ryan is concerned, because he's the creator and I find myself not attacking him when I maybe would have attacked anyone else. I am also guilty of getting drunk and letting people live if they play name that song lyric with me. But as frustrating as it sometimes is, the lack of any rules other than those built into the game is part of what make this such a fun game to play.

This is tough. I'd never go in with a pre-game alliance, but if I had a good ally/truce experience with someone in the past, it could be just that little extra that would make me accept an alliance offer. I mean, knowing that the guy won't stab you in the back is worth something, right?