Multiplayer Is Live — and How We Simulate the Planet

Hello, world leaders!

Global Protocol: New World Order v0.5.0 is live — and with it comes the feature many of you have asked for since day one: online multiplayer . Up to eight players can now share one world while the AI runs every other nation on Earth.

It also felt like the right moment for our first devlog : a look back at how far the game has come, what's really running under the hood, and why making a world this big play in sync was one of the hardest things we've built.

A quick introduction first, since many of you have asked who's behind the game. I'm Ozan Kanık , founder of Dorlion Interactive. I've been a professional software developer for more than 12 years and have shipped mobile games before. Architecture and performance are what I've worked on my whole career, so this devlog is a chance to finally show you that side of Global Protocol.

Seven months, one planet

• February — the first line of code. Within two weeks: a map, an economy, diplomacy, AI, nuclear weapons and saving, all talking to each other.
• March–May — Steam Playtest, fog of war, DEFCON, envoys, UN Security Council votes, full modding support, 12 languages — and a first multiplayer prototype.
• 1 June — Early Access! Linux, Steam Deck, macOS, Steam Workshop, a 13th language, political parties and elections followed within weeks.
• July — trading cards, 2,000 copies sold, reconnaissance satellites, submarine-launched missiles and national laws.
• August — the Knowledge Network: 150 doctrines replacing the old tech tree, plus the Mod Builder and spectator mode.
• September — a real-world commodity economy, diplomatic trust and embassies, an air and naval overhaul — and now multiplayer.

That's 2,600+ commits, 109 releases and 16,000+ automated tests so far. Thank you for every bug report and every forum debate that shaped them.

What "simulating everything" means

Global Protocol doesn't just run your country — it runs all of them, every in-game day :

• 4,604 provinces, each with its own population, buildings, terrain and supply
• An economy of 54 goods — from oil and lithium to semiconductors — produced, stockpiled and traded on a world market
• Over 200 AI governments with budgets, parliaments, elections, laws and long memories
• Diplomacy with trust, embassies, alliances, sanctions, trade blocs and UN Security Council vetoes
• Armies, fleets, air wings, spies and satellites — and DEFCON, with seven missile types

The 2026 starting world is built from real data: the World Bank, the IMF, USGS, the FAO, the Energy Institute, the IEA, national statistics offices and more.

Built on DOTS

Global Protocol runs on Unity DOTS . Instead of thousands of individual objects, the world's data lives in tightly packed arrays that roughly 240 simulation systems sweep through in bulk, with the Burst compiler and the job system putting every CPU core to work. A few numbers from our profiling:

• 29 ms to simulate one full day of the entire planet (down from 45 ms after our August performance pass)
• About 70 seconds to run six in-game years of the whole world with rendering switched off — our favourite tool for testing balance
• 0.06 ms for a pathfinding query across the province map

And so that 200+ AIs don't all think at once, each country gets its own planning day in the month. Only about nine governments sit down to strategise on any given day, which keeps the load flat.

Multiplayer: the finishing touch

A world this big can't be streamed over the internet — it would be like emailing an encyclopedia every two seconds. So Global Protocol uses deterministic lockstep : only your orders travel between players. Every machine simulates the entire planet by itself — including every AI decision — and arrives at exactly the same result.

And we verify it constantly:

• A world fingerprint every game week, split into six sections so any drift is pinpointed instantly
• Self-healing resync: if machines ever disagree, the host streams a snapshot and everyone — host included — continues from byte-identical state
• Mismatches refused at the door: game version, mods and scenario are checked before a session starts

In our final sessions before release, 21,380 AI decisions matched on both machines — every single one — with zero desyncs detected .

Everything you do in single player — now with friends

Multiplayer isn't a cut-down mode. Everything you can do in single player, you can do in multiplayer : run your economy, trade on the world market, research the Knowledge Network, pass laws and win elections, run covert operations, negotiate treaties, vote in the Security Council, command armies, fleets and air wings — and climb the DEFCON ladder if it comes to that. Team up against the world, race each other for supremacy, or betray your friends at the perfect moment. Mods and custom scenarios work too, as long as everyone runs the same set.

• Host or join from the main menu and invite friends through the Steam overlay
• 2–8 players, each leading a different nation, while the AI runs the rest of the world
• The host sets difficulty, AI aggressiveness, privacy and game speed
• Nations led by players are marked on the map, and the players panel (Tab) shows everyone's nation, ping and connection
• Lobby and in-game chat
• Drop-outs handled: the game pauses, the AI can take over, and players can rejoin to reclaim their nation
• Save and resume multiplayer campaigns from the lobby
• Cross-play between Windows, macOS and Linux

Also in v0.5.0

• Air & naval overhaul: targeted air missions, airfield basing limits, layered fleet air defence, and fleets that intercept each other in transit
• Missile basing: batteries and silos only in fully controlled home territory, and strikes that validate launchers and targets
• Census-accurate populations for every province in all 221 countries, plus smarter capital resolution
• Trade blocs now need at least two founders and dissolve when only one member remains
• Modding: custom national goals in scenarios, and Doctrine "Replace Mode" for total conversions
• Performance: faster pathfinding, leaner caches and smoother camera movement

What's next

We're still in Early Access, and your feedback decides what comes next. Did you know our development roadmap is public? See what we're working on and what's coming on our website.

Read the full devlog

Want the whole story, including the performance bugs that taught us the most? Read Devlog #1 on our website.

Thank you

Seven months ago this was an empty project and a map. Today it's 221 nations, a living economy and a world you can share with your friends. If you're enjoying the game, a Steam review helps a small team like ours more than you know.

Find multiplayer partners on our Discord!

See you on the world stage — bring a friend.

— Ozan Kanık, founder, Dorlion Interactive