By the way, I was just thinking about the cancellation of the Grail, not knowing the whole story behind it. After all, it's the best thing for dealing with the situation where a game drags on. In real-time strategy games, there are almost always objects that are designed to "put an end" to the game if it reaches a stalemate... a kind of trigger. I remember in the old, good (probably a contemporary of Heroes) Age of Empires - you build a Wonder, and that's it - the task is to survive.