With all the arguments with game speed and why the game is going slow for some people and long turn times this got me thinking.

Does the game play out every battle for all players on or off the screen?

I know when I get many planets and many ships, my time in a turn jumps drastically, some of which is me deciding what to do some of which is me waiting for my ships to move across the map, attack an enemy fleet and watch the battle play out on the map (not in combat viewer).  So waiting for 20-30 or more battles to play out takes time. 

Now if the game handles the off screen activity (for the AI) the same way that could explain why 200+ turns into the game the AI's turn for all 50 players is taking 3-5 minutes. 

With that being said this is followed by another question,  Does the game play out all ship movement for all players off the screen?

I know ship movement is quicker when the ships are not physically on the screen, however, is the game still moving them.  Should that be that case does it really have to for either question? 

If the answer to either question is yes, then why doesn't the game just put the ships/fleets where the new position is, without doing any movement to get there, just know where it's going to be and pop there it is, and why doesn't the battles just boom you win no need for any drama involved. 

Now maybe the answer to both questions is no, if that's the case than no big deal, however, I would still ask for an option to make the players time go faster.

Please put into the game an option to toggle on/off main map battles.  So if as a player I really don't care to see my fleet fire on the enemies fleet for 10 seconds and watch the enemy fleet go boom, I just care who wins and still remains on the tile, than to me I should be able to turn that off and just have my fleet remain on the tile after moving, with some indication I won.

Either way just trying to figure out what the machine is doing for that time frame