Sadly, the game just has low online player counts, which is too bad because Sins is awesome for online multiplayer PvP.  For some reason this game just never sold to the online multiplayer RTS crowd and it seems like 99+% of all Sins players only play single player.

The good news is that there are a couple 4v4 and 5v5 games every day on the Diplomacy expansion.  Activity for Regular Sins (aka "Vanilla") and the Entrenchment expansion is pretty dead; just groups of friends playing comp stomps.  The real action is on the Diplomacy expansion, which is on a separate server.  The best times seem to be from 2 pm to 11 pm U.S. Eastern Time, and there's more activity on the weekends.

It doesn't really take that long to play a PvP game.  They last anywhere from 45 minutes to 2:15 with most lasting about 1:30.

That it takes hours and hours to play is probably a popular misconception that hurts the online player counts.  People play FPS and other games for hours and hours on end, so I don't see why most wouldn't have time for an online Sins PvP game.

hi i have a new hamachi network ppl can join if they wish

Network name: sins 1

PW:123

download hamachi here:  https://secure.logmein.com/products/hamachi2/download.aspx

Sins of a solar empire is a much bigger game than supreme commander 2 and starcraft2 but it isn't as advertised as scrft2 because it aint got expensive cg trailers/videos depicting a story etc. If it went down that route we would see a bigger budget for the game which they are avoiding but could increase peoples awareness to a much appreciated gaming universe sins offers. More multi-players would rise to the occasion.

<is it too early to ask for some karma?>

Do you have the Diplomacy expansion?  You'll need it because that's where the People v. People action is.  Vanilla Sins and Entrenchment are pretty dead as far as PvP goes.

iam new and i dont have any expasions should i just buy the diomacy? it does look more fun

damn it i knew something like that was gunna happen when i had to buy all dlc. ok ill try get money to buy all dlc

Very few people, besides groups of friends, are on the original (commonly called vanilla) and Entrenchment these days, all of the player vs. player action is on Diplomacy. This is for numerous reasons, including the fact that Diplomacy is so far the only one being actively patched at present, and Diplomacy ends up playing very similar to Entrenchment with some advantages. The diplomacy system in Diplomacy is quirky, but most people just ignore it.

cant buy th ewhole bungle epxsions so i have to buy entrment today and wait some other time to buy diolmcay

aright thank you man that is a relif and it looks good might think of buying it 2

Create an account for Ironclad online and log in. The busiest time for you would probably be late night, there aren't as many players on in the European afternoon but you should still be able to find a few at that time.