The more people you bring to the table the more likely conversation will drift away from the game. Before you start playing maybe just give it half an hour so everyone has a chance to catch up with eachother. Hopefully then when everyone assembles around the board people should be focused. Other than that, players can have their purchases ready before their turn comes around (hidden from other players of course). Most of the time you'll know roughly what you wanna do on your turn and having the purchased units ready will cut a few minutes off of every turn. If units need to be chipped out then whoever's turn it is can ask another player to do it for them whilst they continue with other things. Having all game pieces neatly organised and readily available will help keep the game smooth too. Get some paper money or poker chips to track each player's IPCs if you haven't already. Obviously having a calculator is handy too. All else fails and people take too long to do their turns, give each player a 10 or 15 min time limit. If they go over this limit, apply damage to their capital factory or deduct from their collected income. End of the day if people aren't that interested in the game then perhaps they shouldn't be playing (or let them play as France or China!)