Is there any way I can start a game with 17 players? I have 8 humans, and I want to create a monkey-in-the-middle style game with 16 players around a ring, alternating human and AI, and then an AI in the middle.
Ideally what I want is the ability to have a galaxy with unclaimed stars in the middle, but I think that’s a bigger ask.
That’s a cool sounding game.
What would add an extra dimension to it is the ability to disallow trades with AI’s.
While it is a nifty trick to attempt (doesn’t always work) to trade tech with the AI’s, it does reward the folks who can login right after a turn … and/or delay submitting to do this … but can’t blame 'em.
Probably nice to leave this ability in the game, but maybe Jay in his copious spare time (!) can add an option at game creation to optionally disable tech trading with AI’s … both “robots” from the start and players that AFK.
I can especially seeing that being a nice option for the game you have in mind above … and HEY, if you decide to do turn-based, let me know as I’d love to play.
If I have you play, I’d have to make the request for 19 players. 
I’m still waiting to hear back from one of the 8 humans, so if we end up at 7 humans, I can do it with 15 players…
The other thing that I’m avoiding asking for, since it would be more work, is to let me lock in human positions, so that I could run this as a dark galaxy, but know that humans and AI alternate.
Got it … and yea, you’ll need to disable dark galaxy so people fill in the right spots - save Green for the HULK!
I’m going to go ahead with 15 this time (sorry, HULK), but it would be nice to either have the ability to customize in the future, or have “blank” slots.
No sweat - have a great game - post the link here when you have it up so people can check it out
Here is what it looks like so far (players in the game – who I doubt read this forum – please ignore this to preserve my anonymity).
I’d rather not post the link, since it’s password-protected and I use the same stupid password for every game, but I will message it to you.