4 opponents in Galciv 1, 8 opponents in Galciv 2, 128 opponents in Galciv 3, 2560 opponents in Galciv 4, 128000 opponents in Galciv 5, 512000000 opponents in Galciv 6

Or just have a really really boring game and have 1 billion stars and like 2-5 intelligent races all the others are too primitive to go to space.

At the rate in which computers are becoming exponentially more powerful, do you all think there will come a day when, by Galciv 5, that we can have 512 million opponents all at once together with 1 billion stars in a galaxy?

That would approach reality

Wait... you've not only contacted aliens, but have counted how many types there are?

What is with these idiot thread titles? Personally I find that using high number of opponents doesn't work because the game does not have the resources(planets, systems, etc...) to support them. I'm playing with 40 factions with Insane Galaxy Size, Abundant Systems, Habitable Planets, etc... and there just isn't enough space and resources to go around, everyone has a couple of systems and spends so much time competing for things that you can only have one but lose all the others. For example, you want to secure systems for habitation so you have to rush colonization, but then everyone claims all the resources and artefacts and plops stations in-between all your worlds creating a heinous patchwork of territories. This also results in not enough Ideology Points early game. And all of this was on BEGINNER.

Gal Civ Ludacris speed!

Hahahaha, Oh the horrible truth of it.

Or the joy of sub-light travel as games last for hundreds of years to colonize the closest half dozen stars.

No one would bother colonizing anyway, colonies would be useless.  Society would evolve to an unrecognizable anathema by the time contact was reestablished, and the colonists would revolt against having anything to do with their former brethren, possibly having become a strange cult during their trip.