I think the intent of the game was so that people would work together for most of the game, in whatever type of alliance you wanted, then near the end the strongest players would then turn on each other for a sole winner, kinda like the Survivor reality tv show, I guess.

I wouldn't mind a team format at all (which I also prefer), such as putting all Traders vs all Researchers vs all Warlords and having to meet a cumulative goal for a win condition, with the person contributing the most for your team being the overall winner, or maybe something like that. Of course, no idea how this would work out, but I'd be curious to see which skill set would win.