Like many other people on this forum, I can't see why they didn't include a within-game option to toggle between strictly turn-based and simultaneous turns (similar to the speed settings in Defcon).

However, since they don't seem to be changing this, it's up to players to make the change themselves. I've got one proposal - please let me know your thoughts.

This entirely relies on players being cooperative, so inevitably it's going to work best between people who already know each other. But all that it's asking of players is really just the equivalent of saying "don't throw my pieces on the floor" when you're playing Risk.

Turn-Based Rules Beta

It's very simple. People play turns simultaneously for the vast majority of the game, for example when they're building up their civs and attacking AI. However, if at least one player types:

"Request Turns"

then players have to take turns in moving their units in some pre-decided order, for example at the beginning of the game everyone decides "Jack is Player 1, Jim is Player 2" and so on for more players. I'm not sure whether this needs to be followed for buildings as well, or just units. I'll describe it for 2 players, but it's exactly the same principle for more:

So Player 1 does all of their movement and attacks. They then write "Player 1 end".
Player 2 then does all of their movement and attacks. They write "Player 2 end."
Then Player 1 is not allowed to make any other movements or attacks (because they had their turn at the beginning).

This process continues until both players agree to play simultaneously again, for example by writing:

"Player 1 requests simultaneous"
"Player 2 requests simultaneous"

Now, it takes *all* players to request simultaneous in order to return to turn-based, but only *one* to return to turn-based.

So, any suggestions on how to improve this? If you are perfectly happy with the simultaneous gaming mode, then please do not comment here, I am very aware that some people are fine with how it is at present.

Of course, this process I've suggested is surely very easy to program into the game, I still have no idea why it isn't an option.