Will there be multiplayer in the future?

Very unlikely sorry. If they haven't by the next expansion (LH) why would they now? Multiplayer opens up a can of worms for balance that they probably want left "unopened". If they did it, well they had to balance early game perfectly etc. and it's not. However, a hotseat mode should be viable imo ;) 

Why not make co-op only?  There's nothing wrong with the current rules if you are only playing against the computer, and I think that's what almost all the people wanting to play with their friends are looking for and would be satisfied with - co-op, NOT competitive.

I feel a hotseat mode is the bar minimum for a game like this. The people claiming that multiplayer doesn't matter in these kind of games don't know what they are talking about. Civ does hotseat, as well as LAN. So why should LH not have at least HS?

I think you're going to find much of this forum overwhelmingly against the idea of full-blown multiplayer for LH.

One of the reasons I love LH is because is because it doesn't have multiplayer.  It focuses solely on a solid single player sandbox experience -- and it plays to that strength quite well.  I currently view Stardock as one of the last bastions gamers like myself can rely on because they understand that multiplayer doesn't need to always be shoved down your throat, and its mere inclusion could drastically weaken core game.

They may very well add this at some point down the road, but I'd probably never play it.  Not because I hate multiplayer games (in fact I play quite a few), but because I dislike playing 4X turn-based strategy games online, for numerous reasons across the board.  Also, if implementing it somehow changed the game in a way that negatively impacted it or overly-complicated it (which I strongly feel is a likely outcome), then it's just another reason I'd much prefer they'd leave it be.   So consider me someone who "doesn't know what they're talking about" if you must, but being intolerant of others' views isn't something I try to be.  I'm perfectly comfortable if we still disagree.

But for those who desperately want multiplayer and refuse to buy LH strictly because of this, perhaps LH is simply not for you.  Fortunately, it's not as if you don't have an endless sea of options when looking to get your multiplayer fix elsewhere.

Haters aside the Devs at Stardock have said they will probably add multiplayer. They are just waiting for other projects to finish to free up network coders.

I think a co-op mode is the best option, which doesn't require all balance to be perfect and you can tailor the AI to be a good challenge.  I think FE and LH are well-suited to co-op and not well suited to competitive.  So I suggest to Stardock that instead of a general multiplayer mode they add a co-op mode for internet, and perhaps hotseat and LAN, and provide mod support for co-op play.

I'm one of those who has no interest in multiplayer. However, the idea of coop is intriguing. I have a friend I used to play the Heroes of Might and Magic series with that way (although it is full multiplayer).

One huge bonus to a strictly coop game: I could see the turns being simultaneous so you wouldn't have to wait for your turn.

That is correct as far as I know. The reason Multiplayer is not in this game is purely the lack of development time for network coders.

I recall there was a post even recruiting experienced network coders from Stardock.

How would multiplayer even work? This is a long, slow, and turn based game. I have never played Civ 5, so could someone detail how multiplayer could even be viable?

Multiplayer is a two-edged sword. It can make wonders for "balance" in one sense if done right, exploit fixing, etc. It can also ruin a game if it means all "good" strategies are nerfed to the degree that it no longer matters what you do because everything is equally good.

In response to Reply #9:

"Log in when it is your turn" games.  That's even what I think was envisioned for the future of Elemental multiplayer.  You play your turn when it is your turn, then pass it on to the next person.  Of course with simultaneous co-op, players could do multiple turns in the one session if they were online at the same time.  But hosting the game on a central server with email notification allows asynchronous turns, and it really doesn't matter how much actual time between the start and the finish of the game.

It would be great if we could have custom mods available in some form in co-op too.

In response to Reply #10:

If the multi-mode was co-op play only (which this game is well suited for) it would not require perfect balance and so does not have this issue.  The AI can be tailored for the skill of the co-op players, and it is no loss if the AI loses.

Civ 5 is a bad example, since they removed some stuff when you're playing in MP (like half the diplomacy).

Civ 4 OTOH... it's basically exactly the same as playing single player, except you can have more humans. It's a great coop game as you can play on a team so you're treated as one entity for things like war and victory conditions. And for coop purposes there's no need to worry about it being a long game, since coop is often played with friends anyway and you can schedule when to play. I played it that way for years.

That should be the example of how to do it in Elemental. There's no compromises made to the single player game to make it work, so people don't need to worry about that. It just gives us a way to play with friends.

Total War: Shogun 2 also did it well, although we (my coop friend and I) tend to avoid using the RTS combat mode just because it makes the game take forever if you do.

(That was actually why I got into Elemental originally, all those years ago. Obviously it didn't work out the way I'd hoped, but now that the game has gotten quite good with LH maybe it's time to look at putting MP back in.)

are we on this AGAIN? Pls NO MPer ever! don't ruin a great game with childish MPer elements.

I always wonder where people get this idea from. Was Civ 4 ruined? Last I checked it did alright.

Also good to see people hurling insults against people for wanting to do something crazy like play coop.

Well it is quite obvious that he is .. hm .. concerned (?) ... about how Multiplayer would influce his precious game.

But as you said before, there really is no need to worry if it is just a casual "hot-seat" / "co-op vs AI" multiplayer. There would be no need to even touch single player for that.

go play civ iv then and leave this game alone. thankfully galciv was never MPer either.

Yeah, exactly. It's been done that way before, no reason it can't be done again.

As for that other guy, it's quite obvious that he's paranoid about it. Which is silly, but you know. It's been a common attitude from some people around here going back to when the first game was announced. (That one actually had MP of course, but we won't tell him that. )

This is what I would want.

didn't stay very long now did it? No MPer yay!!!

I'd like to know this as well, I saw someone mention a dev had once posted that they plan on adding it at some point when people become available to work on it, if there is I would love a link to that post.

Don't really get all the MP hate, MP doesn't have to affect SP at all, especially since most of the work to add MP would be done by completely separate people than work on the SP content anyway. As for balance, not every MP game has to be, or is, balanced for competitive play, many games have MP modes just for fun, there really is no negative to adding MP unless the devs get nerf happy, but that's a problem with dev balance rather than multiplayer itself.

They don't know how to do multiplayer.

They never did it for GalCiv or GalCiv II, why would they start now?

I doubt they have any network coders on staff.

It's functionally idiotic, because they make games solely within genres that have typically been dominated by multiplayer, particularly hotseat, yet they stubbornly refuse to add multiplayer features despite everyone demanding it.

Their games would sell much better if they would just add any sort of multiplayer support. But they can't, so they won't.

It's funny that Master of Orion II and Age of Wonders II are still the two best games in this genre, because no one else does a full featured hotseat/online multiplayer.

I just don't get it. The lack of multiplayer relegates Stardock games to dust-bin status, when they could be instant classics. I still play AoW II with friends.

You don't get it because you do a lot of assuming on your part to back up your agenda.

Where do you get the idea that the 4X turn-based strategy genre has been typically dominated by multiplayer, compared to much more obvious choices like first-person shooters and real-time strategy?

How do you know for sure that their games would sell much better if they keep telling us that they analyse the market and the customer response indicates that only a tiny minority wants/needs multiplayer, while at the same time facing added development time and cost?

Why is multiplayer the difference between dust-bin status and instant classic if there are pure singleplayer games that sold well and gathered user praise and multiplayer games that sank to the bottom of the ocean?

That would be me I think.

There is this (found this over the search function and a little digging - Thank you Gaunathor):

https://forums.elementalgame.com/441355/page/1/  Frogboy tells you about what is happening with LH - Mar 18th 2013

The most important statement would be:

https://forums.elementalgame.com/420442/page/1/  Frogboy tells you about the challenge in Multiplayer - Jan 11th 2010 (outdated?)

Master of Orion 1 & 2, Civilization series, HoMM 1, 2, 3, Age of Wonders 1 & 2.

These are the bigshots of the genre.

Multiplayer doesn't make a bad game good. But a lack of multiplayer makes a good game not worth playing. The social interaction of a 4x is a huge component.  It's like a better boardgame.

Here's verbatim messages I sent to my 2 cousins and my brother (collectively, we've played probably 100 games of AoW 1 & 2 each, all multiplayer):

"Hey, I found a great looking game like AoW, Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes. Looks really good"

then:

"Nevermind, there's no multiplayer."

Reply
"Shitty, that was one of the best parts."

I would love to have multiplayer in Legendary Heroes, but would likely only ever use the hotseat mode.  I'd definitely be willing to pay for a hotseat DLC (I suspect this would be much easier to code than network synching).