There is single player, there's just no story-driven campaign

Single player is the skirmish, but there's a lot more to it than your basic RTS skirmish of "a map"

Yes, there is a Tutorial to pratice on. Just open up Single Player, and it's there.

You can't really differentiate between single player and skirmish. The specific map types are just pre-made maps, and the random maps are just that, randomly generated based on a specific pre-set parameter. You can also "design" your own map, but all in all, your "designed" map is really just a random map where you define the parameters, like size, planets, resources, etc.

Really, all in all, you can think of SoaSE as a real time version of Civ or MoO. You don't have set campaigns (except vague campaigns defined through the mod expansions, which you can already do on SoaSE), and you don't really have any info on the countries/races, except what you know in stories and history. You just setup a game, and enjoy.

a story is hard to make...trust me...though it would be nice...i got the pc demo and the trainer for it...I LOVE CREATING OVER 400 TRADE POSTS AND GETTING OVER 500 GOLD PER SECOND!!!

I dunno I kinda resent buying an expansion just for a campaign.(I am going to buy though and some of that is because of the good community+ the fact we can have 2 way lans in current game, I just feel thats a company trying to strike a fair balance with consumers ) I would have liked a campaign as well but tbh give it 3 days of dedicated time and honestly theres so much ways to do things IT is really good. The diplomacy is well this is they way I think of it like a really lightweight story, in that they will ask you to help them in various ways, sometimes giving them resources , other times killing various enemy units, plus every game is differant , you have to defend your key assets and the AI is going to be trying to annoy you to death so you are going to have split fleets at somepoint.

The research is great, what I like about it is you cant just rush and expect you will have uber maxed researched within 10 to 20 mins gametime(In fact I havent even scratched the surface of all the reseach yet , IM gonna try huge map and get maxed research maybe) like most other strats, I like it , Its like being some crazy ruler lol building fleets/ecconomy/cap ships ....... dedicating hot zones to secure mining and then taking over systems.

Im not sure if this can be done currently but I imagine there would be a way for modders to tell storys through the diplomacy screen using scripted ai opponents? If not that would definatly be something I would like to see made accesible in an sdk because I would rather make my own storys than be payin for expansions all the time.(I know Im mean Just Ive paid out a massive amount in games - actually pre-ordered spore and now Ive found out that EA is trying to get an extra $10 or so for a stupid creature editor which is a demo of the game, that should have been given for free as it helps the company test [Wont be buying but many will so it will get done again and again])

Sins is really good though , and I know for some theres no substitute for a campiagn but I notice theres an RP guild recruiting and I have seen some great ideas but game users for creating their own storys, really creative. As long as stardock still have some people seriously working on the current game to meet its potential I will buy future products. It is a great game.