How many people still playing MP?

The player counts are low, but there are normally several 4v4 or 5v5 games every day on the Diplomacy expansion from about 2-10 pm U.S. Eastern Time.  Some days are better than others and it's normally good on the weekends.

its active enough but be warned the players are very good and some have been playing since launch, if you're serious about playing MP, you're gonna need to get your ass beat a few times so you can get up to speed on how the game plays out on MP.

if you do buy the game the classic MP settings are:

5v5- huge single system random

all faster speeds

quick start enabled

no pirates

locked teams

locked allied victory.

enjoy,

[DT]Star Player

Unfortunately with star systems that large, after the first 15 minutes or so my game goes to something like 2 frames per second, making quick commands virtually impossible, especially if they involve multiple ships.

I take it that 1v1 and 2v2s aren't very popular.

Sometimes I wish you could just turn the 3d off entirely to save lots of CPU time. The strategy in Sins is basically 2d, after all, which I care about more than I care about cool 3d looks.

Most players (probably 99%) play single player. Ironclad Online (ICO) is pretty much dead. Most days/hours there are 0 games. If you do manage to get in a game you'll most likely get booted in the lobby for being a newb (-/+ flamed prior to boot). If you do manage to get a game going (without getting booted), be aware most games are 5v5 or 4v4 on faster speed settings (with much of the features like pirates etc. turned off); turning the game into a spamfest with minimal strategy (*note: most games are played using vanilla trinity; this means you wont get the visual/sound improvements offered by the vast mods available).

However, don't despair if you can get some friends together there is the LAN option. There are also some lovely mods out there that you can install to improve the games performance, appearance and sound. Then there are the tools like "Forgetools" that allow one to create ones own galaxies/maps and play over LAN (again the only drawback here is that every player needs to have the same Mod(s)/map installed to play together).

I recently saw Trinity for $9.95 (AU) in my local store. For under $10 the game is definitely worth it. Single player with all the amazing mods out there should keep you occupied for a good number of hours even if you cannot find any good multiplayer games. If you do manage to get some good LAN or ICO games going from time to time then consider it a bonus well worth the $9.95

Spamfest, perhaps; minimal strategy, surely not. There are still quite a lot of counters and counter-counters etc to know like the back of your hand, understanding of the relative usefulness of structures, research, starbases, fleet size, and so on, etc. You can't just churn out a lot of units and win without having a good understanding of the strategy involved (in a competitive MP game).

Assuming that were true, what would be the alternative?  Playing against AI where the strategic requirements would be miniscule?  I totally disagree that the 5v5 games lack strategy or display a minimal amount of strategy.

They require players to dedicate themselves to some kind of task, eco, offense, or um, offense. Bad players go and do whatever they want without team support. Good players will wait and see who is in charge of their team and listen to them.