I would agree that pause is a necessity in multiplayer. As a father of four, I tend to find myself looking for the pause button rather frequently when playing multiplayer (I play only understanding, friendly games as I typically spend almost a third of the "game time" not at my computer, dealing with the kids latest emergency). As such, I tend to shy away from games that don't allow this to occur, or tend to make a poor partner as I am used to typing "gurard my base for a minute, someone is crying again," or "brb, there are slugs in the house!" Maybe an option where everyone could "opt in" via radio button prior to the game starting, or listed as an option for the host to select (right next to victory conditions) and displayed such that everyone is (or should be) aware that it is possible. Not to steal from others work too much, but SupCom implemented a clever means where the number of "timeouts" a player could take was set to a fixed number (or unlimited) as an option. This allows for the unplanned emergency bathroom break, or (in my case) the scheduled crisis of the minute.

Just (about) my 2 cents.

there is no pause, watch the WOW episode of southpark, see cartman doesn't need any pause!!!!!

Agree.

My friend I'm gonna play with has kids. Sometimes...you just need to pause. I hope this is added.

It was added in the release version, iirc. You can (presumably, not tested) mod the number of allowable pauses per player in your

C:\Documents and Settings\(your user name)\Local Settings\Application Data\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Setting\user.setting

file, by changing the "MultiPlayerMaxPauseCount 10" line.

I'm pretty sure the other players in the game would need to mod that to the same value, because the game checks to make sure you're using the same files. On the other hand, it is a settings file so it may not care, and may just take the lowest number among the players.