Is there a way to create NPR's manually and then turn them over to the program's AI so the SM doesn't have to run them? I'd like to play a multination Earth campaign without having to run all of them personally.
You can do this using the Create Empire button on the F9 System View window (the yellow sun icon on the System Map). The button will only show up in SM Mode. Be careful of multiple NPR starts on Earth though. They will likely fall out with each other very rapidly and nuke each other's populations, rendering the Earth uninhabitable
Part of the diplomacy code is that NPRs don't like your ships in their populated systems and I haven't got around to modifying that to handle the multiple Earth start scenario. That probably would be worth doing though. I'll add it to my list
Steve