In a strategy game, you have multiple players whom each control their armies. These players can be human or ai. The problem I have is with the signification of the word player. When we talk about characters that are AI in games, we say NPC for Non Player Character. This implies that a player cannot be AI. In this context, we have characters that are either player or AI.

In a strategy game, the player and ai are not characters as per se, but invisible beings that oversees to their troops.  What is a word for that overseeing entity that can be either player or ai?

What about actor or commander?

Yeah, commander, general, leader, etc...

You are still the player, and you wont call other classes the player, so why not call it player.

Player controller and Character controller seem popular. But controller is used so much in coding that it gets confusing; maybe something like general or commander would be better.

"Player" should be strictly used to mean the human who's enjoying the game. Other meanings of the term cause confusion.

Well, most of the games use word "player". 
But it always depends from the topic of the game. If the game about war, or smthg like that - you can call the player:
-Comandor
-Soldier
-General
-Officer
etc.
 

Please don't necro. The thread had been dormant for almost 4 months! Locking thread.