What about an additional time for the very first turn in a game.
This could be very helpful in fast games with 3-5 minutes turn, especially when teams need to review the common start positions and strategies.
This time would elongate only the very first turn in a game.

Furthermore, I can think about an option for the very first turn, that a game goes back to **Open games**, when not all player make their first move in time. (Especially in manual distribution)
In that case, the slot from all players, not finishing are opened for new players, instead of booting them.

This could help, that games start at least, how they are meant by design, and not from the very beginning with broken teams.

Intriguing. Another reason that this would be helpful is the situation where you join a real-time game and are waiting around for other players. Pretty often the first joiners get bored while waiting and are doing something else. If they are not diligent about rechecking the game, they can often miss the first turn. Unless everyone is patient, it can really skew team games. For FFAs not a big problem. This is why I rarely join real-time team games, or only join if I'm taking one of the last open slots. The idea of opening the game up again if you lose someone on the first turn is interesting, but would be frustrating to those who thought the game was starting and then realized that they had to wait again. Also I could only see this working for games where there is not an AI that takes over.

Its sometimes more annoying, when you realkize, that you are in a game, which is broken from start.
With fair game partners a game will be ended by vote, the host may create a new game, where the remaining players met.
It would be much more helpful, when this could happen "on-the-fly", the game will be back in the "open games" tab, and if one of the other players will leave, he is as well free to do so.

----

I should have splitted my post, as it really contains two different approaches. The idea of additional time for turn #1 is (from my point of view) much more important.
This would allow fast pace games, after a team (or as well a single player) had at the beginning the chance of developing a strategy. E.g. a game with 3 min boot per turn but additional 5 min for start would be sufficient for many real-time games.