You certainly can use RCS locally if Source Depot will allow that. You don't even have to have the ,v files in the same directory or a subdirectory, although I'm not sure this is documented anywhere -- I saw a colleague use that and vaguely recall having read about it somewhere, but I could not find it in the documentation when I wanted to read about it.
(This is from memory, I don't have RCS here.)
Code:
co file /path/to/file,v
Similarly for
ci,
rlog, etc.
If the conflicts are complex, you still end up with a mess. I hear Mercurial (or was it Monotone?) is supposed to bring some relief to resolving conflicts. Also, have you tried xxdiff, emerge (if you use Emacs) or some other dedicated diff merge tool?
Of course, according to theory, you should talk to your colleagues so you can avoid conflicts, not just struggle with a merge tool in your cubicle.
