Well, now that expalains a lot of things!!!   

I personally prefer the unpredictability of the FFA over the typical team game where three or four clan guys who know each other and have experience as a team beat up on four random noobs.

I have seen some pretty funny things happen in my couple of weeks playing. I was the .25 in the 6 vs 1.25 alliance Fearchicken was talking about. He was right that I was a newb at the time (I think it was my second or third online game), but what he did not mention that I already had a taste of a 3v1 after I successfully attacked my northern neighbor 1v1 only to have two foreign fleets join his to squash me back into a pitiful semblance of an empire. Meanwhile, Fearchicken was happily taking over half of the map and allied with me probably out of pity, and when the 3v1 people became 6 vs. Fearchicken and my remnant (I felt like Italy in WWII).

Probably the worst and most creative backstab occurred in a 4v4 game I was recently in where I formed peace treaties with two neighbors and coordinated with one of them to attack a third. After we took out our enemy all three of us agreed to move our fleets to the pirate base in our star to prevent it from being used against us later. As my fleet was merrily passing between the fleets of the other two players (A TEC and a Vasari), suddenly one of them starting shooting at me. I sent a message to ally chat that I was being backstabbed and the other ally acted duly confused at first, but then he too opened fire. As my capital ships all went up under the combined fire of my "allies", they revealed that they were actually both the same player on two computers. This guy basically had found a new way to cheat in a FFA game by being his own team, and to add to that he set up the perfect situation to backstab me with a 2v1 advantage when I least expected it and my fleet was unprepared and between theirs.

Although I was pretty mad at the time, I have to take my hat off to the creativity, and the effort it must have taken to run both empires at once (although being at peace with me allowed one of his empires to just sit around build up for the eventual backstab fleetacide). Situations like this are what makes FFA more fun than teams in most cases. I still think that the double boxing guy was a cheater, and I would not play with him again (of course he could just use another name next time anyway)if I can help it. Backstabbing is one thing, but rigging the game so you have twice the fleet power of everyone else is another.

If you can manage yourself while playing this game on two computers at once, I say the sheer work-effort that goes into this makes you deserve the win.

I am surprised not one person realized that the "good american values" by "some guy I don't remember the name of" was a quote of JESUS.
The guy made a joke and not a single person got it.