Its because online mp balance is so messed up right now. No word on a fix ether.

You say that, based on playing how many games against other people online?

I'm guessing that Sins has actually sold about one million copies by now.  (Last number I heard was 600,000, but that was about a year ago.)  The online player counts are pathetic.  I think there are a number of reasons for it:

• It takes a while to play, sometimes more than 2 hours.  Also, many people who play it in single player might not realize that the online games only take 1.5-2 hours and not the 20 hourst that they are used to with single player.
• The minidumps, desyncs, and ICO disconnects that the game suffered from earlier really hurt.
• Some people just might not have the computers needed to play it online; they lag the game.
• The "Online Multiplayer" button is misnamed and brings up the LAN connect screen.  People have to figure out that they need the "Ironclad Online" button.
• Custom maps and mods will not auto-download.  Also, many mods are incompatible with the latest versions of the game, so if you want to play them, it's hard to play on ICO since you'd need an earlier version of the game.
• The level of competition online is very high.  I can imagine that it must be very frustrating for new players to try to break into the online game.  They also get booted from games so that people's friends can join.
• The online community was split up between Regular Sins and Entrenchment, effectively reducing the number of games people see resulting in fewer available games for people, decreasing people's interest in playing online.
• Ironclad and Stardock haven't done much (if anything) to try to sell online multiplayer to single players.

We are always looking for players and we keep spamming to a minimum. We do direct IP which helps keeps desyncs down and we plau with a mod. anyone interested PM me.

-Aaron

its because when there are no games up hosted, people dont wanna wait so they just log off.

Well atleast thats what i do.

MP players mostly play the different sized randomly generated single star maps, which DO end up going a small variety of ways. As n3rull stated there are specific strategies people HAVE to go with in these types of games to survive, because all players are generally within a few phase jumps of each other.

However, I don't agree with this assessment DEFINING MP. THis is only one type of game (albeit the most popular on MP). If you want a game where you can feel free to exercise many different strategies, play something other than a random single star map. Play a multistar map, or one of the many interesting pre-made ones.

My suggestion would be to find a few people online with plenty of time, and play a long game. You can always save and come back to it later if it goes on too long.

They are only rare because they are rarely used, hence their rarity. My favorite rare strategy: Double Sova rush.

MP3 player? That wouldn't work, as all of Sins sound files are in the .OGG format. Just run Windows Media Player in the background, that should work fine. I've done it before (albeit having a LITTLE bit of lag, bu only occassionally I believe).

ah so thats why not a ton of people are playing online, its cause everything is shit....and diplomacy is supposed to fix some of if not all of the problems?

Yeah, bad online support. Bad balance. We're all here because the game engine is magnificent, the devs totally blew us out of the water with the possibilities o this game, but have since left us with our thumbs up our asses.

To play a balanced and fair game, it requires modding, and even more, to get graphics for a super computer you need to use other mods. It's a gigantic headache, because those who look to play against other people are left using a highly imbalanced game. It's not really up for debate. It's been confirmed time and time again.

I thought I'd start playing again after I moved. To be honest, I'm not that interested. I'm waitin for diplomacy. Time to see if Ironclad will give a crap about their own diamond in the rough. It's a shame, diplomacy to me is where this game is either going to take a gigantic step forward, or fail abysmally. Should be interesting.

I was so sad when i heard Diplomacy will make the single player game improved just because most of the people play only singleplayer.

The people who play it online regularly sure do seem to like it.  I think the real problem is that for various reasons, 99% of the people who bought the game seem to think that the AI is a challenging and sufficient opponent.  It may not be perfect, but for the handful of the game's online multiplayer regulars, it's still a fun game and worth playing online.

The only things that makes the AI stronger as you go up in difficulty is the amount it cheats(gets more credit/resource income than you). It still uses the same predictable tactics, which is what annoyed me into going MP. I don't get gratification out of beating an idiot with a handicap. I'd much rather play against real people, where everyone has the same chance of winning. Unfortunately the games balance issues are skewing MP, but its still beats playing the AI.

I agree with Shunmaha, i feel that when new players get the game and hop on and notice small number of players, they will quickly get discouraged to play online. Plus coupled with the fact that games can take hours to play, there could have been several players and now they are all busy in a game leaving the lobby empty.