The simple solution is to host your own game with a password and invite/accept only those whom you wish to play with.  that's why the feature is there.

And smurfs are yotz's...I agree.

You would have a few more SP players join yall on ICO, if smurfs didnt invade our causal games, trash talk us, then ruin our fun. Also if the current MP croud would branch out and use more than Single random map and fastest settings. Yeah I know alot of yall feel that SINS is too slow as is. *shrugs*

Its the players IMHO that are strangling ICO. Yes desyncs, split lobbies, and other problems have not helped. But there has been other games with other problems that have decent communites with 'buggy' games.

I really think there is a need for player websites promoting specific maps, mods and game styles would help.  Sort of "communities within the community".

On the other hand, when I log onto smurfville--I mean ICO--I leave immediately when I see:  random Map, 5v5, all settings fast.

As opposed to what? Boringly lame and slow?

I really wouldn't mind playing games w/o quick start, with pirates, or on one of the premade maps.  However, I don't see a reason to not play on the fastest speeds -- the game is already far on the slow-paced end of RTS games.

There's also a limit to map variation, since player-created maps can't be transferred via ICO.  It's really too much of a hassle to download a wonderfully player-made map, then tell enough other players about it (and make them listen) in order to get a decent game going, only to repeat the entire process every time the map gets tweaked for improvements or a completely different map gets made.

oh and responding to SIN-Imperian there are not enough players online to do anything you are suggesting LOL

and to VarekRaith ... are you implying that long/slow games are exciting and not lame? if so then also LOL

Would be nice if the devs could fix all the goddamn problems with ICO that is the main reason why the community is so small... -maybe strong language will get their attention lol

Since Diplo and Trinity release I noticed influx of new players online. They weren't smurfs.

The problem was and still is that in most games there are able to join in against skilled there was at least one player that insulted their playing style and lack of skill, some even went so far that they insulted their intelligence. PLEASE DON'T DO THAT (yes u are better but thats obvious isn't it)

I always opt if i see a noob on my opponents team and there is one on my team to try to convince other players captains and skilled players to let them live so they can get longer reply. After the game i advice them to go watch reply  and point out how skilled planets colonize and what they research at start. If they make noob mistake in games i point it out to them  as well and give them alternative what they should do in my opinion.

The thing is if we try to teach new players eventually they will get better and more better=skilled players means bigger community and better team games.

Would anyone want to play a game at which he sucks and in addition to that gets insulted????

I think thats main reason why online community is so small. Yes all MDs, desyncs play a role in that but in my opinion it's not the biggest problem. I think it's even below smurfing problem. 

Lately I hear that even some regular and skilled players are going to quit SINS because of smurfing and team stacking.

Lets face it we all like to win. It's in human nature. And if u stack teams the other one gets owned in 30 min. Where is fun in that. When I joined sins I heard people saying What a great game so many ups and downs in one game. Now I don't recall I've heard that in last 2 or 3 months. The team thats on top early in stays on top. And I wonder DOES IT HAVE SOMETHING TO DO WITH SMURFING???

So many people saying the same thing, so many people saying that smurfing has caused them to quit the game.  DT and the other smurfs continually deny that its their actions are doing it so they can at least partially try to rationalize their actions.  As annoying as minidumps, desyncs and such are, it is the smurfing that bothers me worst and its the problem the community has the most power to do something about.  Soon there will not be a community left to smurf and screw over but it would seem that most of them could care less.  I honestly believe that a lot of them are in fact DT players(at least the skilled smurfs that are out there).  The actual presence of 9 or 10 of them tagged the other day as was demonstrated in another post here tells me that they are actually still active but only in blue form.  I truly wish they would see the error of their ways and stop smurfing but at this point I see it as doubtful.  At this point it may be closing the barn door after the horses have all escaped anyways.

[_]-Greyfox

i'm not gonna waste time teaching new players. its not worth it.

here are the reasons, people are stupid, and it takes too long to teach people in sins.

and even when you are going to try and teach them, 50% of the time the game you host minidumps or desyncs. and because they don't understand why this keeps happening they will get discouraged and leave just as soon as if we stacked the teams and rolled them.

this game is going to do die because ironclad/stardock never really cared about ironclad online. they were profit hungry, went for the money they could get from single player, and never made a decent effort into solving minidumps and desyncs.  it was their own poor planning and lack of problem solving and common deductive reasoning over the now 2 years they have had to fix technical problems.  I have never seen such a lackluster performance to fix technical issues.

No sense in complaining now, the folks at ironclad will read this, and not post back because they are too afraid to make a stand, and even if they aren't too afraid, they just don't care enough to help us out. case closed.

I must say I agree there have been issues with sins MP from day 1 that have yet to be addressed. I had 2 games of Diplomacy MP, both ended with a crash of sorts, and there is no way to rejoin ater that so GG indeed.  I also been playing League of Ledgends lately, and there you cannot leave a game. If you try to go play another game while a game u left is in progress, it will connect you back to it It's kinda awesome, punishes quitters at the same time

I think they cared enough about multiplayer to enable it and make a pretty decent user interface for it.  However, I do agree that they may have had a, "Why spend 33% of the development budget on a feature that only 1% of the purchasers will ever use," type of mentality.  The problem with it is that it is a self-fulfilling prophecy or a vicious circle in a sense.  By not fixxing and promoting online multiplayer problems fewer people play online, which makes fixing and promoting the online multiplayer game less worthwhile.

Generally speaking, this is true and why I like to play RTS' competitively online.  The problems arise when balance is poor and/or the online system isn't healthy.  When playing friends, you don't have to worry about them abusing the OP strategy of the patch, stacking teams, or quitting early.  Sins has always had weak balance, and ICO has suffered from minidumps for a large chunk of Sins existance.  The lack of an automatcher never helped either.  There's always been at least one unit heavily imbalanced to the point that dominates all games.  Early on it was LRF spam, then carriers, then back to LRF, then scouts, now carrier caps.  We tried to play against strangers online, but 9/10 times people online would just spam the flavour of the month imbalance.  Sins is still a fun game when played without being a cheesy asshole, so we just abandoned ICO and played with each other.  And with 4 people, you can simply mix up the teams and get very different strategies; people work differently with each other.

As for 4v4 and 5v5, none of us have ever been interested in that format in any RTS.  There's absolutely no skill required when every player can just specialize and spam one thing because their teammates will cover the rest.  Nothing of value lost to us there.  3v3 is about the largest limit at which you can still get a somewhat interesting game in an RTS.