Galactic Civilizations is the only Windows game I've ever worked on that isn't multiplayer.
The first Windows game I developed, Entrepreneur, had multiplayer. It included a built-in chat area and match-making. Stellar Frontier also had multiplayer -- up to 64 players on a persistent world. The Corporate Machine had multiplayer. The Political Machine had multiplayer.
In short, I've worked on a lot of multiplayer games. Moreover, I play multiplayer games. As was pointed out on-line, I played Total Annihilation, Starcraft, Warcraft 3, and several other strategy games a great deal on-line in a "Ranked" capacity. I've tried out nearly every major strategy game from Master of Orion 2 to HOMM 3 to Civ 3:PTW/Civ 4 multiplayer.
From this, I've concluded two things:
1) Some strategy games really benefit from a multiplayer component. Multiplayer extends their "fun" lifespan.
2) Some strategy games don't benefit from multiplayer and the sacrifices made for multiplayer lessened the overall experience.
To people who don't develop games, multiplayer may seem like a simple checkbox feature. Indeed, many developers I've spoken to feel pressured to put multiplayer in because some reviewers will give the game a lower score if it lacks it despite the fact that for most strategy games, the percentage of players playing on-line is very low.
But multiplayer brings sacrifices that many people may not be aware of. Galactic Civilizations II was developed so that multiplayer could be added later (i.e. it passes messages back and forth). But the gameplay was not. We were not willing to sacrifice the single-player experience for multiplayer.
I'm going to give three reasons why multiplayer does not make sense in Galactic Civilizations as part of the base game.
#1 It sacrifices single player features. Ask any game developer whether they be at Ensemble, Paradox, Firaxis, or Big Huge Games, most people play strategy games by themselves on a single computer. What % that is depends on the game. But on a TBS game, I would wager that greater than 95% of players never play a single game on-line even if the option is available -- that includes Civilization IV.
But developing multiplayer is incredibly time-consuming and expensive. In our last game, The Political Machine, a full third of the budget was for multiplayer. The game was ideally suited for multiplayer, published by Ubi Soft it would sell a ton of copies. The game came out and sure enough, only a tiny percent of people played the game multiplayer. That tiny percent didn't justify the 33% budget dedicated to them.
My favorite game of 2005 was Civilization IV. It has multiplayer in it that is as good if not better than any implementation in the history of turn-based games. But what was sacrificed in exchange? There's no campaign. There's no in-depth scenarios. No in-depth random events. You can only trade certain items and techs back and forth no matter what. Do you think this is a coincidence? No random civil wars based on certain criteria? No war-causing assasinations? No crusades? Not even once in a long while? I suspect that there were a lot of concepts and features that Civ IV would have had if it didn't have multiplayer.
When we were making Galactic Civilizations II, we took a poll on multiplayer. Only a small percentage of GalCiv I players cared about it. We took additional polls since multiplayer advocates were so vocal. Same thing.
So instead, Galactic Civilizations II got ship design and a campaign. I think most people would agree that we could have taken GalCiv I, slapped a 3D engine on it, given it multiplayer and been in good shape. But can anyone who's played the beta imagine the game without ship design? And when you play the campaign, I think you'll find that was worth it too.
Moreover, players get a lot more single player experience. There are rare events that players may only see once in a great while but they're worth it -- a religions war that breaks empires in pieces. New republics formed from remnants of shattered civilizations. Civil wars. Precursor ships found on worlds. Powerful artifacts that slowly increase the power of a given civilization so that everyone has to team up on them. Terrorists. On and on. In multiplayer, this would all have to be turned off, but then again, if there had been multiplayer, whey develop any of this at all if it wasn't always going to be used?
Similarly, there's diplomacy. Last night, I played as the galactic arms dealer. The Drengin and Torians were at war and I was supplying both sides with ships for money. I then took that money and slowly bought up the worlds of dying civilizations. That kind of flexibility in diplomacy would be a nightmare in multiplayer, you'd have to put all kinds of restrictions in the name of balance.
#2 The majority ends up subsidizing the minority. Outside some game reviewers and people who have friends who are really into this stuff, most people don't know other people on-line to play these games with. And let's face it, playing a turn-based strategy game with strangers is an excercise in frustration (I am not sure I've ever actually managed to complete a TBS on-line without the other player either dropping or quitting prematurely).
Galactic Civilizations II is $40. Not $50. That $10 may not seem like a lot to some people but to many gamers it makes a difference. Check out the prices on the latest multiplayer strategy games -- they're $49.99. Part of that price is to subsidize the multiplayer component that only a tiny percentage of users will play.
If there's sufficient demand for multiplayer, we'll do it -- but as an expansion. Those who want multiplayer can then buy it and those who don't aren't forced to pay for it. And everyone wins because they saved $10 in the first place.
Because of the Metaverse, GalCiv II already has multiplayer plumbing. We even have a multiplayer design. But it'll cost money and time to implement it. So if there's demand, we'll do it. But it has to be demand in raw numbers, not just vocalness of the people who want it.
#3 It would have changed the design priorities.
When you design from the start to be a good multiplayer experience you have to make sure the game is streamlined -- particular the interface. So things that might slow the multplayer pacing tend to come out.
Galactic Civilizations has lots of mini-cut scenes in it. Things to help the player enjoy and savor the civilization they've created. The technology tree is huge and designed to linger through and pick just the right one. The ship design is full of extras that are there so that players can make cool looking ships. The battle screen was implemented to be not just functional but fun to watch. The planetary details screens include quotes from random citizens and there's flavor text all over. Each civilization has its own vocabulary based on who it is talking to (i.e. how a Torian talks to a Terran is different than how they would talk to a Drengin).
But a good multiplayer game has to be far more streamlined. You don't want to have core features that encourage users to do anything but move their units and make their decisions efficiently. Take a look carefully at any decent multiplayer games recently and notice how efficient they are. Efficient is great in a multiplayer game. But in a single player game, there is something to be said I think for inefficiency -- for fluff.
And because we designed the game from the ground up to be a single player experience, Galactic Civilizations II has a LOT of fluff:
The screenshot below, I designed all the ships in this particular game. Every new game I make new ships. Why? Because it's fun. It's not efficient though from a sheer "get to the next turn quickly" point of view:
And what's the point of sitting there watching your ships battle it out?
In fact, there's a ton of things that involve reading quite a bit of text. There's a lot of customization within the game that has no "point" other than to let players indulge in the civilization they've created.
It's not that a game with multiplayer can't have these things. Civilization IV has the Civpedia for instance. But the tendancy in a good multiplayer game is to move the text and other stuff out of the way during gameplay and out to a place where it's looked at at ones leisure. And that's a good idea in a multiplayer designed game.
But these days, nearly all games are designed with multiplayer in mind. And for people who have no shortage of choices on multiplayer, it's nice to have a good old fashioned single player experience where you can sit down and indulge yourself to the full experience.
I remember a game called Master of Magic back in the early 90s. It was a great game. But it was only a great game because it was single-player. The things that made it really neat would have been a disaster in multiplayer.
And that's really the point -- multiplayer is a feature. Sometimes it makes sense and sometimes it doesn't. In some RPGs sometimes they're better being single player (Knights of the Old Republic) and sometimes they're better being multiplayer (Neverwinter Nights).
For those who think multiplayer is a must in strategy games I hope this post has at least made the case that maybe sometimes multiplayer doesn't belong in the base game.
We know how to make multiplayer games. We had the budget to make GalCiv II a multiplayer game if we wanted. We like multiplayer games. But we felt that GalCiv II would be a better game if multiplayer was not part of the base game.
I agree multiplayer would ruin the experiance I probably wouldn't even bother with multiplayer unless I was bored.
I got this game in December and up until now I thought I was ignoring the multiplayer aspect. You mean I don't have the option to play GalCiv2 in multiplayer even if I wanted to? My games inventory is filled with multiplayer capability I've been ignoring for years. But not true with GalCiv2, I feel so cheated...
I would enjoy a multi player If it would make the game more real. It would make the alliances better.
Co-op multiplayer against a tough AI maybe. I have no wish to get backstabbed by some dude who thinks it's funny.
quote from the OP
"My favorite game of 2005 was Civilization IV. It has multiplayer in it that is as good if not better than any implementation in the history of turn-based games. But what was sacrificed in exchange? There's no campaign. There's no in-depth scenarios. No in-depth random events. You can only trade certain items and techs back and forth no matter what. Do you think this is a coincidence? No random civil wars based on certain criteria? No war-causing assasinations? No crusades? Not even once in a long while? I suspect that there were a lot of concepts and features that Civ IV would have had if it didn't have multiplayer."
This makes no sense at all. The things noted have nothing to do with MP functions at all, it's all about what the team simply thinks will work for their game or not. If they are on such a short budget where they actually can not afford the time and pay to create some of the above mentioned, then that is pretty sad. Such a small company should think very carefully about venturing out into the money market of big boys. In this case I can see why they would not have enough time and money to row the boat.
I think it is more a marketing decision with GalCiv2. You don't have a lot of money, you don't think it'd be wise to invest in MP because you won't get a high return on it in the end. Done matter. It does not mater what the fans want, it about making money for the gaming companies. This is perfecty reasonable.
However there you also have the greatest difference between "StarTrek Birth of the Federation", "Civilization 4", and "MOO 2-3". They gear themelseves to the fanbase, even the minority..... which by the way happens to be their greatest fan base.
See, wht you don't know here, is that all the players who WANT MULTYPLAYER, are actually the greatest of the fan base, the most dedicated. The only ones who want MP are infact the loyalists. In general, not a lot of players take well to any strategy turn based game. All the ones who want to try it all out, are ok with no MP, but they move on when bored or uninterested. It's the MP'ers that you see whom tend to linger in the MP lobbies for years! Sure maybe a smaller % of those fans are activly in the MP lobbies, but they are your most noteable fans, like me!
I have 3 real life friends whom we always play MP in other turnbased stratigy games, currently Civ4. Whith Civ5 coming out, we are going bonkers! yay! They have the money and the dedication. They can give us MP because they don't mind losing some money to make their minority ultra fans super happy. This is how you build a customer base where your fans actually keep coming back everytime you make a new game.
Seriously, by now your team should be pulling all it's strings to get your butts in gear to make a MP GalCiv game. Older games stomp you out due to your lack of MP and the new games coming out will surly stomp you out. With the new engines coming out and with steam online, MP games are paving the way. Do your research better, Civ4 actually does very well in MP activeness.
I'm pretty sure the original poster is totally forgetting that these turn based games are NOT always being played over the official servers. Often they are being played together on local servers with a group of real life friends hooking up with other real life friends from across the globe!!
Did you know that there are still a lot of people who play 1995's "Birth of the Federation?" It's all underground now sort of speak, but there is a HUGE fan base that still plays that game on local and private servers.
You're team needs to contend better, because even the older, not so great games are still racking up the points in what could be your sales, simply because you are too afraid to invest some money into the project. Go look on Ebay, people are still selling of these old games around the world consistantly.
If you think you are spending 33% of wasted investment money into MP projects that will fail, while you believe only 5% of the fans actually play MP..... you are very sadly incorrect. Where did you even get those odd figures? In my current playing experience over steam, official and local/private servers, I'd say a good 25% of fans play MP and buy their games for the MP. Thats a lot higher than 5%.
So if you "waste" 33% on the MP projects, subtract 25%, then you have 8% wasted. Now, don't you think the minority fans of 25/100 are worth 8/100 (8%)? Even if 8/25 of those MP players get bored and move on, you are still in the good as far as fan base is concerned vs your wasted profits. It's all about the money with you guys, not the fans.... well at at least your not as dedicated to your fans wants in regards to some other teams out there like Civilizations creator. There is a reason why Civ4 kicks your arses in game of the year and profits----- its because they have multyplayer!!!!!!! You game here is actually pretty damn good! even vs Civ4!!
I was so fucking surprised to but this game and learn it did not invest in MP. You guys would had kicked the shit out of all current compitition with your game if it had MP. Whoever over there thought you'd be wasting 33% profits by not implementing MP, where Civ4 is raqueing up 25% extra profits due to their implemented MP is absured. Imagine 25% of 5,000 players purchasing your game.......... That's a lot of fucking money? Are you serious, you think you won't get that 33% wasted profits back? omg....
I mean if you had a shit for shit game, sure... I would understand, because no one would probbily even buy your game anyway. But you guys have one of the best games I've ever seen created for a turn base. I restate. Whoever thought not investing MP is not trained in marketing at all. I'm a marketing Student at my university and I've done a lot of reaserch into this because I was so utterly baffled why you guys did not enter MP with your game. No one else does that..... because it's just dumb. There is a reason why you guys are unknown in the gaming world, because you don't market yourself well and you can't pit against the boyz out there than can put real games together where the community can really get together and play and talk about your game collectivly together. This is where you fail.
If you make a GalCiv3, seriously, throw in a half decient MP and I garuntee you will see how wrong you are about your % stats. Don't forget that MP is not just played on Official Servers. Another 2/3's play on local and private servers and buy games just for that.
are you kidding me dude? lol
try making at least 1 friend.... omg, i'm sure it will be just fine and you might actually have tons of fun.
for you losers out there whom can't even make 1 friend to play online with.... omg, I understand why you believe MP is no fun and can't keep a game going. Most people who go for Multyplayer, and buy this game, buy it in groups. Usually you will get 2-4 friends coming together and all going out to buy the game as a social reason to get together and have fun.
Such the case of I. I went out with 2 friends, and we all baught the game and went home to play over our private server together. $150 CAD sold!!! right tere in 1 foul movement. Then 3 days later another friend of mine went out and baught a copy because myself and my other two friends told him how great MP was. Boom, another $50 sold. Thats how marketing really works. Word of mouth. And, as long as you have at least 1 real friend in this world, good riddense.
Turn based games do not fail because they implement Multyplay. They fail simply because they are games made bad in general.
OP quote
"We know how to make multiplayer games. We had the budget to make GalCiv II a multiplayer game if we wanted. We like multiplayer games. But we felt that GalCiv II would be a better game if multiplayer was not part of the base game. "
thats not true, your chief stated he hates MP because he can never get a game to continue. He was speaking in terms of being on an official server playing the game. This can be very true. That is why you best join a local or private fan based server to play with where you make guild friends or play with your real life friends. The chief obiosly doe not have any real friends, or didnt in the past anyway before he made GalCiv.
He didn't make the MP an option from the start, from the base configuration because MP was disliked by the head hancho and he likes less balancing work, money and profits more. If you guys really could make your game MP, you would had, and you really could have if you wanted. Your game could had easily been enjoyable to play in both campiegn, single and MP. You just had to make it that way from the base and build off of it. To do it now, would be fail because you already geared it towards single play.
Civilizations started single player, and then they bursted out into MP once they had the budget and with every new copy they make in the series, they make more and more money. What changed mostly? Multyplayer. All there single player games are just as good as the last for the most part (aside from graphics over the ages). If they acn do it so well, you guys should be able to as well. I'm just angry because ya'll are making it look like the reason you did not include MP which you know is a big flop is due to greedy reasons rather the real reasons you are trying to throw over our eyes. Most of what you said holds no real texture that could not had been done if you simply chose to. Like you said, you could had, if you wanted. You had the funding. It was a really bad marketing decision, that's all.
Put it this way. If your game was MP now, when I baught this game yesterday, I would had immidiatly called up my other 4 buddies that I play Civ4 with. I would had told them, "hey guys, check this game out, it friggin rocks! and its MP too!!! buy it now! lets get it on because this game is maybe even better than Civ4.
But, because you didnt market the fans well nor your game, you don't have MP and I won't be calling my buddies at all because they like MP with a good game. You have a good game without MP. Simple. This again, is why Civ4 is making the big bucks, and you are not.
GalCiv 2 is a wonderful game. What could had been 99/100 is now 90/100. Check your rating online. You guys would had been one of the only PERFECT games ever greated in all stratigy turn based history! What was missing from all your reviews and ratings? You guessed it, MP.
@DarynFlannery - I disagree.
I don't think telling Brad that you know better what he wants than he does, then insulting him is much of an argument.
A game doesn't need multiplayer for you to tell your buddies to go check it out. Unless you're the kind of person who turns off their phone and locks themselves in their bedroom so nobody will know that you're playing Final Fantasy XIII. Great single-player experience, definitely something to shout about.
GalCiv 2 rocks so much without multiplayer that there's this like community of people who talk about it constantly. No really, I'm not making this up.
Multiplayer games lose features or suffer from imbalance because of those features. The features which GalCiv 2 did not lose were the ones which actually sold the game back then. It's silly having a lacklustre base game with multiplayer and then putting the good stuff in the expansion packs. That just gets your customers really angry at you. You may think that multiplayer is the must-have feature, but it doesn't sell units like the other features do.
Like I said above, there are people who want to play games where you don't get zerged, backstabbed, or have players quit on you. They're surprisingly okay with an AI that rushes with lots of early units or attacks unexpectedly. It must be that they realise that an AI is only the sum of its programming, whereas a living person has a choice to be a good sport or not. Or maybe it's simply because they don't crave social contact or feel the need to compete when playing computer games.
I'm sorry that GalCiv 2 doesn't come with a side order of fries and a Pepsi Max, but if you want that you can go to the burger store across the street.
Hey Brad. Now that Elemental is coming along nicely, and GalCiv III must be somewhere out there, PLEASE remember this thread, and PLEASE do not add multiplayer... you're initial post covers the reasons why perfectly.
Thanks for the great games.
Rick
I hope GalCiv III will finally have at least hotseat and LAN mode.
If they make it a multiplayer game, how will it be turn based?
[quote who="Alorum" reply="563" id="2628512"]If they make it a multiplayer game, how will it be turn based?[/quote]
What do you mean? Civ, Heroes of Might and Magic, and several other strategy titles are turn-based. Simultaneous turns are the more common trend in that arena these days.
In HOMM you move a few players a very limited amount of range on the map, with occasional fights that last a few minutes at best. In GalCiv, esp. on bigger maps that can be quite different. Yesterday I ended a turn that lasted ~36 hours of continuous play; moving 500 units manually around, putting 6000 objects into planetary build queue. That was an exceptional big turn, but from now on most turns will be ~6 hours each. I just can't imagine how that could possibly work in MP.
I remember people freaking out when the Civ series went multiplayer too. That's one of the longest most succesful franchises to date. They've been going for years. Change can be scary, sure, but it isn't necessarily this huge evil some fans think it is.
WTF? Those numbers sound insane even for immense sized galaxy...
Ever played chess?
Well, they are from a Gigantic-one, which, in DA, will even hold more planets as the TA Immense one. But this actually serves a good point here, if we look into the evolution of GalCiv we'll see that, from version to version, the galaxy-size always got increased, new races were designed, additional techs (whole trees), or other stuff (such as asteroid mines or ascension crystals) got added. Not to mention the ship-designer feature which wasn't present in GalCiv1. SD responded this way to the demands of more stuff, more depth, bigger challences, simply more of everything. And still these demands are there... But all these things mean micro-management, and that's basically the problem with the MP option, because there *time* is a real factor.
And if you look at games that are MP you'll see that these classically are shooters, where one player controls one object. Such an outlet of course doesn't allow to be plagiarized as a strategic style of gaming, but let's just add some objects and here we are at chess, where you control 16 figures. Altough that is not much there turns can last for hours, even days - it all depends on how accurate one wants to play a game. However, you can also play chess against time, but to implement this one factor will totally alter the gameplay.
In that sense SD would have to wander all those previous steps backwards, steps which were successfull and provided them a certain place in which they are unrivaled. To negate its own strengths would certainly drive people away.
Also, a micro-overkill will do the same, and SD responded to that with the Planetary Governor-feature in TA, (which is buggy to use) but it hints into the right direction - more automation which is *player*-control - and not a game that plays itself and where the liberty of free decision has been nerfed to a basic set of options.
Classically shooters? I would change to some other word than classically. Just because FPS multiplayer is huge now, doesn't change the fact the Diablo was fairly early multiplayer, so was Serf City, Civ II, and Master of Orion... none of which fall into the "classic" FPS. Paradox makes some pretty good multiplayer games too, and unlike other games, don't necessarily feel the need to force everyone into "equal" roles/kingdoms. Having a multiplayer game does not mean you have to dumb down, simplify or quicken gameplay. I don't know the number between Galc Civ and say Civ, but I suspect Galc Civ is smaller, and that's fine. There is nothing wrong with putting out game that requires patience and long turns in multiplayer. There are plenty of us who don't mind that at all. Games don't even have to be turn based to be complex. EU, crusader kings are certainly not turn based or simple. Crusader kings, you could play one or two hours with your primary goal just trying to marry into an inheritance, and somewhere out there, my sister is trying to decide who to marry her daughter to. Multiplayer does not have to dumb down or speed up play. It's all about your target audience, and SD doesn't necessarily need to sell 9 million copies to make up the cost of a giant marketing campaign.
In all honesty I don't know any of these games you quote, and how they successfully integrate MP is out of my imagination. But in case of GalCiv2 I find that pretty hard to believe, not in the shape that this game is today. Let's just for the sake of argument assume I could host a map online, with a few AI's that could be taken over by other online-players. Okay, 2 join but one is from Australia, and whenever I come to play and ending my turn this guy either sleeps or works. Same with me when he plays.... So we could do 1 turn a day at best. A usual game on standard/mediocre settings will have 200-400 turns - that's a year to play a single game! Imagine what will happen in an Immense/all-abundant setting with 10 players?? That's just not realistic.
Then there are plenty other problems, like for instance the diplomacy-section. How am I supposed to make a bargain (or 30 of them) when the other player is offline? That's one of the things SD said that there would have to be made too many sacrifices in order to enable MP for GC.
And going RTS certainly will kill all strategic thinking in favour of speed. It will be a totally different game. But I could be awfully wrong, esp. that I couldn't associate anything with the examples you brought. Enlighten me.
Play with people you know. I mean we're not talking about games that are mainstream to the point where they try to pawn the game off to every gamer on the planet. These are niche games. And I think GalCiv 2 is more niche than mainstream (well compared to games like Sims, Assassins Creed and say MW2). Civ IV admittedly, made some compromises to make the game more multiplayer friendly, fair, and while I don't mind that, I see the argument against it. Games like Europa Universalis III and Crusader Kings didn't. You can play france or portugal or england or some little place no one has heard off on the otherside of the world. If that happens it could takes hours, days or longer for two players to actually "encounter" each other.
Paradox tends to keep the game open like that, you can interact a lot with other players or not all, but it's not the kind of game I would expect to finish with strangers... more like friends. People you chat with while you play. People who you don't mind pausing the game for 10-20 minutes for a quick break. Is it the ideal multiplayer experience... no not for some people. But then again, they didn't compromise a lot, force all kingdoms to be equal, force turn limits and other limitation to compromise the singleplayer experience for multiplayer. I mean when I play EU 3, it doesn't play hugely different from singleplayer just because my sister is controlling one of the nations. EU3 is not exactly turn based but it has a sliding speed bar that works amazingly well. We just threw it down to 1 or 2 if any of us (there were three sometimes) entered a war. I don't see too many games with forced turn limits anyway (Civ IV has a ending not just a turn limit option), and offline i am guessing you are talking some sort of email game with that.
But like I said, I play strategy games with people I know, or encounter not just random folks in lobbies. EU3 is not a simple RTS, neither is Crusader Kings. Master of Orion was a blast multiplayer (the original & 2). Sure, making a game mulitplayer is more difficult, but all these compromises... I just don't buy it all.
That might be true for FPS online MP with unknown random persons on the other side of the world. But I assume, most players want to play this game with friends or relatives, as is the case with other TBS requiring long games with many turns. Hotseat, LAN or even online MP with friends wont suffer these problems. if you can play chess with your friend, you can play GalCiv too, which could even be saved in MP, so long games are no problem.
I know this is my first post here, and that will reflect badly on me if this post comes across as a whine post, but I just feel compelled to mention.
Years and years ago when I was still in primary school, 11 years old or so, I'd go round a friend's house and we'd play MoO1 or MoO2 hotseated. More recently, but still some time ago I played GalCiv1. It was really good fun, I didn't care for the lack of MP because I had nobody to play with.
Much more recently, me and my housemates have been playing Civ4 over LAN. I also dug out my copy of MoO2, and three of us have been hot-seating it like crazy over the past 1.5 years. It's been great fun. I started looking for similar, newer games. We bought MoO3, but it was terrible. I remembered GalCiv1 & GalCiv2, but sadly no multiplayer on either.
GalCiv1 is a much *better* game than MoO2, but there is still no alternative for those of us who do wish to play a 4X space game in hot seat or multiplayer!
I have always intended to buy GalCiv2 because I enjoyed the first iteration so much. But if there had been a hot seat I would have snapped this game up so fast a long time ago, instead of waiting till I'm at a loose end. Looks like me and my friends will carry on playing a game from 1996 a while longer!
TLDR; Hot-seat is so much fun.
It's fun so long as one person isn't on the seat for two hours at the later stages.
Either you scale down the size of the arena, or you need to decrease the amount of player input required.
For example rather than having a huge empire to direct every turn, you could play in one part of it at a time, and the rest would be handled by automation. The automated sections of your empire would supply battleships to the controlled section of your empire as needed, or focus on building trade connections, or doing research, or recruiting soldiers to fill your transports, or improving relations with your neighbours, or fortifying against attack. Your control over the automated sections would be limited to changing their broad focus, until the action shifts to a previously automated section.
One could argue that attacking two or more sections of a player empire is possible. You might even have some success initially because they aren't focused on fortification at first. But assuming the player's empire hasn't been severely compromised, focus in adjacent sections will change automatically and deter further advancement. Going to war with an empire on two fronts would just result in two 'borders' flipping over to full fortification. Obviously, space is so vast that you can't build a wall in it as such, but you can put enough long-range military starbases in it, that the planets in a particular section are well-protected, and any enemy ships passing through are hampered by warp disruption fields.
Or, if you were to scale things down, you could pretty much only support a handful of ships and planets, thus making it trivial for a human player to stay on top of it all.
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