New players go where?

What's the average game duration? I've limited time to play, and would like to know if it would be feasible to go online.

Depends what you are playing, either single player or mutliplayer. of course in single player you can go for more than a dozen hours just for one game, but for multiplayer, 1-3 hours (no clue cause I rarely play multiplayer)

Is there an active community I could join (newb friendly then), preferably composed by european players, so I could enjoy compatible timezones and better connections?

Not really since this is a small game.

If so, is it using any tools to facilitate game scheduling, like Steam?

What do you mean scheduling?

Steam allows (hopefuly Impulse too, in the future) to create a group of gamers, and use a calendar to schedule "Events".

Example: "Let's play a Sins Game" on September 9th, at 21:00 GMT.

That way, players inside that Steam group can easily know when, what and where to play and just show up

I figure that a tool like this helps a lot in a game like Sins. Gather a group of players, schedule a gaming night and just play. Maybe even using game saves and going for a multi-session, 10 hour game

Why not just post on here instead.

Not as easy to find, since newer/updated posts may send a game schedule to another page, and not everybody may be interested in knowing that some dudes in europe are planning a game night

But here works also. So, anybody scheduling regular games?

1. Game times are typically around 1-2 hours, rarely longer.  The reason is that (unlike singleplayer with an AI) there is usually a gentleman's surrender by the losing team once they know it's only a matter of time before they're defeated.
2. There are good mannered players... and bad mannered players.  If you can take those things in stride, you should be fine.  Above all, just keep an open mind and take the suggestions of your allies.  If you take some time to browse the strategy forums you should get your bearings fairly quickly.
   
3. Presently?  No.  I believe that feature is currently in development.

There is "Resurrecting Steel Command" on the Multiplayer Organizer forum, but you might be interested in this. A training school for new Sins players. I'm not exactly new but it'll be an opportunity to play a few games and learn some more of how to play against humans.

If that's not your idea of fun, then add me on Steam or ICO (DrazharLn for both) and I'll invite you to the games that I play with my other friends.

Most games, at least the ones I've played, don't last more than 2 hours and those that do tend to be epic games which you won't mind playing for a third hour anyway.  As a general rule of thumb, you should count on having 2.25 hours available before you join a game unless it's a 1v1 or 2v2.

Your best bet for finding new players would probably be to look for games in Regular Sins.  However, most of the action is for Entrenchment which is where you'll find the experienced players and the 4v4 and 5v5 games.  Note that you can also play humans v. AI games (also known as "comp stomps"), which might be a good way to chat with other people and ask advice and to watch what other players are doing.

Thanks a lot for the tips, but right now, committing more than two ininterrupted hours to play a game is quite impossible. Half-hour to and hour and a half sessions may happen, but more than that only in the rare weekend when there's no family to visit, no house parties to host and no cleaning to do

The training school idea sounds downright awesome. A damn shame I can't dedicate more time to this.

OTOH, the Ressurecting Steel Batallion idea sounds awesome, and I'll keep an eye out to that. Maybe, in the future the Command could use a skirmishing commander for half hour missions,