The game has had the 8 player limit since the beginning, 26 years ago. Isn’t it time we raise the bar a little? I think we have the technology for that!
The only progress made was increasing the population cap which, albeit important, doesn’t allow for more players. Although it doesn’t seem a mainstream thing, I think has application for some creative Custom games and Scenarios, we already have Huge and Ludicrous map sizes.
I also found out Age of Mythology has a 12 players limit! The population space is different but still that could be pretty taxing on the system in the late game. Since this isn’t meant to come to Ranked performance doesn’t really matter, having 12 or (why not) 16 players with a 500 pop cap is entirely on the players’ shoulders, is up to them to know whether their machine can run it or not.
I think increasing the player limit for non-competitive games could be a distinct possibility.
P.S. move the 3K stuff outside the base game! I’m not done yet!