Are you kidding me? I just bought my first Sins game, Rebellion from steam, tried easy with an ally and the ally spammed and won in minutes.. So googled some things and found a map forge map that allows me to take my time, with the AI kept at bay and able to focus on pirates.  So.. I maxed out all my research and threw like 5 fleets of well over 1500 ships of all types including titans at the single pirate planet and am decimated in seconds by the pirates and their titan. 

Really, I've never seen a tougher game in my entire life time.  There is no game that has anything on Sins in terms of sheer difficulty and learning curve.  This pirate faction and their giant pirate Titan that basically destroys 1000 ships in seconds is just absurd.  I've read in the wiki to try to get around it its forward firing arc.. yeah like that does any good at all...

... so basically the whole game has come down to me throwing fleet after fleet each 1000 ships strong at this single pirate planet and getting killed outright every time..  in seconds..  and this is on the easiest custom map ever made on the easiest game settings.. and i still cannot do ANYTHING to the enemy which at this point is just pirates.  My god.. how are you suppose to kill that pirate Titan when it destroys everything outright?  This is just so rediculous I've spent 10 hours attacking one pirate system and can't do anything to take it..

Other than the game being hard as nails, my big issues with this game is Rebellion's tutorials miss some major talking points: like 1: you will die many many times in your first games.  2: Disable pirates if you want any chance at a victory.  3: It's missing the easy custom campaign that is designed for noobs which is DETREMENTAL for the retail game of Rebellion not to include as the recommended first map to play, a map that eases new players into the game, and allows them to get a handle on the mechanics without a gun to their heads.