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For the next game I'm considering allowing for allies and alliance victories. The way it would work is that players would be able to ally with each other, and if everyone left in the game are all in the same alliance then they would all win. However, alliances would need to be careful of who they allow in, since allies would be able to see each others' base coordinates, meaning that someone that's less than honorable could betray the alliance, leave it, and then target their bases.

Mechanically, forming, joining, or leaving an alliance would take up one action, since your character would presumably be working on doing that instead of targeting something. Players would not be able to join an alliance until the turn after it was formed, to prevent cases where alliances are formed late in a round and players that took their moves earlier do not notice and can't edit. Players would only be able to join with the permission of the person who founded it...if the founder does not accept or reject an request to join on the same turn, it will be carried over into future turns until they respond to it either way.

Sounds cool to me. Certainly adds a mechanic beyond just plugging in locations in RNG and trying to second-guess other people's patterns.

Nothing stops someone from targeting their own base. Logically nothing should then stop them from targeting their allies bases.
Equally, however, there's no restrictions on just saying 'hey that backstabbing fuck's base is at X and Y' upon their sudden (but inevitable) betrayal.
Safer by far to prohibit leaving alliances.

Additionally, define 'forming' an alliance. The way its described makes it sound like one person starts it and then other people have the option of joining it, but that seems a bit dumb conceptually since an alliance of one isn't much of an alliance. Its mechanically easier, I suppose, since having two founders would necessitate requiring BOTH to agree (after which if a 4th person wanted to join...a vote?), but it seems like it would be more logical.

Some thought has to be given to the mechanics, considering that it's a turn-based forum game where people may take their actions and disregard the game until the next round. The mechanics have to be simple for the people playing it and for the person hosting the game.

Your point about being able to target their own base is valid, so I agree that it should be possible for people to target their current allies' bases. However, I will probably still give people the option to leave an alliance since my feeling is that in time it will allow for more dynamic gameplay...people switching sides and all that.

But at the same time, an alliance must immediately kill anyone who leaves their alliance, lest their locations be betrayed. So that effectively means that nobody will want to leave an alliance; it's essentially MAD.

But at the same time, an alliance must immediately kill anyone who leaves their alliance, lest their locations be betrayed. So that effectively means that nobody will want to leave an alliance; it's essentially MAD.

Exactly what I was asserting. The only way you could do it safely is if you got that one specific item that let you change your base location. But as a corollary, since you need to get it twice in order to be able to change your base location, the moment you get it once, there's a target painted on your back, because your teammates start getting nervous that you'll betray them if you have the opportunity.
Prohibiting leaving an alliance is the 'safe' option to my mind - that or prohibiting forming an alliance for at least 10 rounds from the start of the game (and if you were gonna do that, I'd then also prohibit forming an alliance if it came down to a faceoff between two people, since, come on, that's kinda lame).