I wanted to start a game with several separate AI factions on earth and with solar warming enabled. I used real world data, meaning that after adjusting for population and GPD, the US had 300m people and 12 labs, more than anyone else (Though Japan and the EU were close)
Everything finally working, I order a quick research project to increase research rate, but first, get a commercial drive to build a crude nuclear pulse freighter.
Step forward five seconds so I can start talking to the AI, whom I haven't spoken to yet, or even seen. I figure I'll use SM to set them to communicating to me first, which only makes sense.
Suddenly, a billion contacts. Earthside sensors detect dozens of "alien" ships, and displays the weapons range of each of them as huge concentric circles around earth.
I try to step through a few weeks until my first pulse drive gets designed and I can start leaving earth... somewhat behind the other empires, of course.
A move a few hours each time before being stopped by receiving new notifications. China's and India's and Brazil's ships start heading out in all directions at 2000kms+
I enable auto turns and prepare to force step for five days.
Aurora hangs forever.
So yeah, how can I play that game idea? I guess I could cut it down to three groups, perhaps NATO2, PISR (People's International Socialist Republic), and UN... but the other sides would still have hundreds of starting ships...
