Multiplayer might not take as long as you think.  Consider a 4v4 game.  Instead of only you being competent to beat or mop up 4 defeated opponents (since youre AI teammates aren't real worthwhile), in online multiplayer you'd ahve three human teammates to help you clean it up.

A 3v3 on the large rand single star is normally decided in under an hou-and-a-half though it might take a full two hours when the enemy mop-up is included.

To be honest, I don't really enjoy multi-play all that much.  I prefer to play the single play game.  If asked why, I'm not sure I'd have a good answer.  I've had good experiences in MP in the past, but almost always when I knew my opponents personally, i.e. in person.  Playing anonymous users over the net just doesn't appeal to me very much.  Call me old fashion. 

TKins - they are better because they know what works and doesn't and can adapt better. That isn't cookie cutter - that is just being a better player then you.... Quite often the new players DON'T have different/better strategies as they are still learning the basic game mechanics, let alone producing some exotic tactic!!!

I played a game last night with GonzoHard. He lost. But we spent a good 15 minutes talking afterwards and he said he learnt enough. I asked him if the loss was worth it for the lessons he learned. He said for sure. We will play together again - both on same team and against each other....

Just accept that better players will usually win. But you can learn more from them in the process - replays AND chat....

I clearly said "Those strategies are great for winning, but not for having fun." I am admitting they are better for sure. They aren't winning because they use adaptive strategies though. I have yet to see anyone who has played many many times use a strategy I haven't seen before. They are typically some kind of spam, weather it be a long range frigate or a carrier spam.

I never said the new players have better strategies. Only they use different ones. I would argue completely opposite to you though and say they typically use exotic strategies all the time because they haven't found out what works and what doesn't.

I'm not sure if you misunderstood cookie cutter as much as the rest of my post so I'll elaborate...

Cookie cutter means the same pre-determined strategy that can be easily replicated. IE. build cap factory, build cap ship, scuttle cap factory, buy 100 crystal, sell 100 metal, upgrade Planet.

From a military standpoint, the most common ones I see are LRM, Illum and now Carrier spams. It isn't so much about having well rounded fleets and battles being dependent on when, where and how you attack, i'ts much more about how fast you can research a certain ship and pump it out as fast as possible.

This isn't sins specific, this is with many many games out there. AOE 3 had tons of problems with spam attacks. This is exactly why IC has released so many "balance" patches. It's to eliminate these spam tactics that dominate online play. The only game I've ever played that managed to be almost 100% balanced was Rise of Nations. There were no cookie cutter strategies at all. It was all about map control, pressure and being able to adapt throughout the game without depending on a single pre-determined strategy (ie illum/scout rush).

From my personal experience, playing with newer players is more fun, losing or winning, because they don't use the cookie cutter strategies. Sure they aren't as good for winning, but the games are more dynamic and a different experience.

I've designed some good maps that eliminate early game frigate spam. Make a huge 7 star map with one unihabited system that controls all the resources and plug it full of pirate bases so nobody can get a secure grip on it. That way you'll have enough time to think of a good and fun strategy that doesn't involve zergling horde tactics. It also forces people to build some civilian research because you need it to let your ships jump out of your system into enemy space. (long range jumps)

yeah auto map download or auto mod download between people who join games would be pretty awesome.

it should b an optional thing. "Push button now to download mod"

"mod size Xmb:eta Xminutes"

I like it when ships must take between 2 and 5 minutes to traverse between star systems. That way each system has some very important strategic value and you can't depend on constantly pumping out a stream of frigates from one phase jump away. You have yo calculate what fleet size you will need as u won't have immediate access to backup, and people won't take every one of their ships with them on map rampages. What kind of sane commander would leave all of their populated planets undefended while going on a rampage anyways? The strategy works in most map types, but isn't much a strategy, it's more of a contest to see who can click their mouse the fastest.

yeah... hmmm... inconvenience vs inconvenience

really? u think impulse is convenient? I guess compared to editing sourcecode it is. However most people, and by most people I mean myself, just don't want to waste time browsing around impulse's shoddily organized and rarely updated mod pages.

go to their mod section for sins and you'll see what I mean, they should really add in graphics of spiderwebs to complete the image.

I want to point out that in a team game, there is somewhat of an obligation to other members of the team to knock out the opponents on the other team, even if it isn't a fair matchup skill-wise or even if the player on the other team received a bad start on a random map.  Isn't your team winning the goal of the game?

Did the alleged skilled immature jerk bail in a way that injured his team's chances of winning the game or had the game already been decided?  Was it just a mop-up job at that point?  Many experienced players will take off once a game is essentially over if they are on the losing team in the hopes of skipping the boring mop-up part in order to play the fun, competitive, intense part of the game in a new game.

 

I can respect the sentiment of someone who tires of immature jerkwads, but speaking for myself, I just don't get much enjoyment from playing against the AI.  The feeling I get from playing against the AI just doesn't compare to the intensity, suspense, and challenge that comes from playing against human players.

Anyway, I hope you'll reconsider and consider playing against real humans again.  Perhaps you could set up a "30+ years old only" game?  You might be able to fill that when over 100 people are online.

This thread needs a bump so that people who bought the game recently can read it and reconsider their decision to only play it in single player and not online multiplayer.