Let me be blunt: The game, as is, is a digital coaster for me, without multiplayer. So would I pay a dollar for the DLC? Of course! The real question is, how much would MP fans be willing to pay?

Personally, I'd easily pay $10 for MP DLC. I'd pay up to $20 if it weren't for the fact that the only reason I bought the base game (WoM) was because it was advertised as having MP (although it never really materialized, understandably).

PLEASE REMEMBER ONE THING, which I feel gets lost by Stardock sometimes: I have several friends who never bought Elemental and never will without true, working, MP. So adding the DLC won't just net you a buck, but additional sales. Those people aren't going to show up on the forum, because they're not going to be following/buying the game if it lacks a feature they need.

One other thing: This needs to be TRUE MP. In my opinion, TBS is a poor genre for random pickup games, but they make phenomenal coop games with friends that you can save and continue. 

No for me as well.

The amount of time necessary to complete an MP game goes into the tens of hours, with very intermittent bursts of activity. I did dabble a bit into multiplayer in Civ 4 BtS (both vanilla and FfH) - it was an interesting curiosity, but the nature of the game means that if one player is in a building phase while another is in the middle of warmongering, the builder gets bored to death waiting for the warmonger's troop movements and battle resolutions. I can see this problem being further exaggerated with E:FE and its (most interesting and fun but time-consuming) tactical battles.

Hotseat alleviates the pacing problem somewhat (at least you spectate the other players' turns and have some share of their fun instead of a boring end-of-turn wait) but it is highly situational - having completed my student period a decade ago, I do not anticipate having the chance to sit in front of a PC for several hours with some addict friends anytime soon  

I am an avid fan of 4X games, having at least one such game installed in all my PCs since 1992, and also enjoy MP quite a lot given the circumstances, but I feel 4X MP is not a winning combination.  

I vote yes because I have a friend in which I really enjoy spending an evening with playing a game together, its because both me and the friend gets dragged into the same game and talks about it (we sit in the same room), that would also be the extent of my multiplayer sessioneering.

I hope for some proper fantasy tactical game with mp soon anyways be it elemental or something else, heroes 6 is a disaster...

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Hey, we that want multiplayer would gladly pay more then one dollar. Personally I'd pay 100$. I guess you can easely take 5 at leas, or 4.99....

No.  Great price for it at 1 dollar, other single player DLC I would like to buy though.  I just grew out of multiplayer 4Xs after the old hotseat days of youth.  Multiplayer is still great publicity and some community for games, like Dominions 3 and other games got a lot of legs out of it.

I would gladly pay a dollar on Tuesday for FE multiplayer today

Not in the beta so, no vote.

Multiplayer may shift more units.  But if multiplayer is buggy from the start, then better expect those sales to dry up as word gets around.  Also, there's more to adding multiplayer than just setting up a lobby and game list - you've got to expect some disruptive players and give players the means to eject them from the game.

I would buy FE multiplayer for the chance to hang out with some of the forumites instead of jumping between forum and game, because when I play GalCIv 2, it feels pretty lonely.

Honestly, to be a good multi player game it needs a LOT of balancing, and time spent in that would be huge, unless you plan to play in team with a friend against the computer.

https://www.stardock.com/media/stardockcustomerreport-2008.pdf (page 13)

The fantasy strategy game Stardock has also been developing a new fantasy strategy game franchise. It has been described on the Internet as “Not-MOM” (as in, Not Master of Magic). It’s a turn-based strategy game that supports random map generation, integrated modding, city building, unit design, tactical combat, multiplayer, incredibly powerful magical spells, and much more. It is scheduled to go into beta prior to June 2009.

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In my opinion game required to be redesigned for multiplayer support. Currently it is too slow.

In many strategy games balance tends to shift anyway as you acquire resources, add and upgrade buildings, and research technologies.  Of course the Romans in Civ 4 are going to have an advantage right after researching Iron Working.  But you can prepare for such things.

Even in Minecraft, once you've got a stockpile of iron the odds turn sharply against the monsters.  Unless your teammates are so stupid that they detonate creepers right next to your base.

No sir!

I barely have time to play anymore - spending time on multiplayer waiting for people and people getting mad at me when I leave with rescheduling basically impossible due to my schedule? No, thanks!

It's probably more a question of how many people are still around who are interested in it. WoM was originally going to be a MP game, but the MP was delayed well after launch, and then it was really weak once it did appear. At this point few people who wanted it are still around (like me, who has barely been paying attention and hasn't posted in months until I saw this topic).

If the MP audience is gone and not coming back, there's not much sense in building it, right?

War of Magic had multiplayer. The problem is that it wasn't really the same game. Much of what was in WoM was stripped out, and MP was a very basic, limited affair. Wasn't really worth playing (even compared to WoM SP).

So that's the question here. Are we talking WoM style stripped down basic multiplayer, or Civ IV/AI War style "it's SP only with a friend you can play coop with"? Because one of those is easily worth $1 (or $5, or $10), and the other one is worth $0.

But people actually do play these games in MP. In fact, that's the only reason my best friend and I bought Shogun 2.

I voted no. Sorry I have no interest in multi-player online games.

Most certainly. I would pay more if other options like Hotseat or Lan-Support whould be put on the plater (like 5$). Strong favor of coop / non-competitive or balancing heavy / feature-equal to SP but fine with all reasonably done MP for 1$ (probably 1 € here given how a digital distributor might price it) just for supporting the option (also think DLC is a good way to introduce it in the scheme of things)

Edit: Also I hope the DLC if it happens is released well after main release (while still announcing there will be such a DLC sometime along the road). To not possibly tarnish the first impression of the game if something turns sour with the MP DLC and to give time to actually do it right (and also shed some of the worst whiners and bashers which are bound to appear even with the best games around...). Some month at least. So please take your time if you do it... Successful FE with a good player base will after all also mean a bigger multiplayer base down the road... no matter how small the demographic of MPs is compared to the overall players...