How would that work though? Who can dedicate the hours/days/weeks that's required for a good long 4x game to a session of MP? And you're counting on all of the other human players playing in character appropriate to their faction and using diplomacy? I don't see it ever working.
I do. I have a friend whom I meet in quite regular fashion twice a week (our wives are having evening out for whatever type of physical torture they indulge themselves to). We meet and play CivV usually. I'd love him to buy FE so we could play MP just like I hoped we would with WoM and I couldn't force myself to advice him buying it.
We spend at a meeting around 4 hours, we save and reload the game on next meeting. We can finish a typical small map to the end within a month (if it last that long, games are usually won in two meetings since backstab attacks are most satisfactionary event).
This is the style a of MP gameplay I look for. This can be achieved by hotseat if needed, though LAN connection would work better (I'd rather not having Stardock servers option only, as my connection can be firewalled, but I'll work around this either)
Most of the codebase required for MP is already in place. It is there since WoM (just like dynasties). It was ported from some other game released just before WoM. What's needed is enabling it and adaptation to FE, which I believe can be difficult but an order of magnitude or two easier than writing from scratch. Mind you also that MP was a huge selling point of WoM for me, so missing this feature in replacement game is irritating (for lack of other word).
I am (as many others from that vocal minority) willing to pay for that effort. I've given up hope it will be in game or expansion (Fb said so multiple times). I still hold onto idea of DLC enabling it. I'll myself bring another $50 for the game (friend copy), $10 for the MP DLC (on both copies) and $5 for the map DLC which I don't need or want but I'll buy if it will make MP DLC planned for delivery in 2014.
