Step by step instructions....
1. Secure first place (usually with 14-18 lands)
2. Let 2-3 suckers fight for first, evening things up if somebody gets ahead
3. Watch the points roll in

Sounds like a sound strategy...I will usually let people find it out for 2nd without attacking them. Hmmm...interesting. So why does everyone seem to be complaining?

A few weeks ago, it was such that a great player defeating average opponents wasn't rewarded for a win nearly as much as an average player defeating stupid opponents, because a player who chose to be stubborn could easily pay enough per-round tax to wind up losing the 15 point maximum.

Now that the tax rules have changed to not being charged every round, the winner's performance is reflected much more accurately in her score. Kenjamin is right that the eventual winner still gets some benefit from a protracted endgame, but it is a much milder effect than it was when people were really complaining about it.

But where do you find info about the latest rules changes e.g. like antes not charged every round which happened sometime in the middle of this month as I read -- compared to antes charged every round as at the beginning of September?

The rule change is retarded because it opens the game to turtling, and because not everyone knows about it.

I've seen long protracted games from 100+ players who refuse to give up despite not being able to jump ranks unless it's a 2:1 tagteam.

All this does is ruin the dynamics of the new rules and possibly ruin games of players who would've escaped with a 2nd or 3rd ranking.

Of course, when everyone knows about the new scoring, the system will be tweaked again....

I think the way it works now is if you're losing territories then you're losing dominance. So if you're the next to die and can't increase your territories then you should flag.

I think point farming refers to:
1) 1st targeting land from 2nd to get more dominance. What this leads to is 2nd and 3rd refusing to flag because they both want 2nd, so the farmer maximizes domination by targeting 2nd and being deceptive about who he's going to hand 2nd place to
2) Magically getting "lucky" in games at the 400 tables