Well since you already whined you don't want to "wait for the next patch" then I don't know what to tell you to help you. Go look at mods maybe? The next patch that the devs claim makes AI way more challenging comes out within 2 weeks for sure so just be patient.

then tell me what you did to win your games.

I REALLY want to know; I'm getting mauled by 2 AIs who decided I was The Enemy.

Most RTS are only challenging not because of a good AI but you have to learn to smash key like a madman. It's because SotSS has a descent AI you can leave the battle scene and do something else more than other RTS.
There have been four Total War series (which would be a good comparison as a TBS/RTS hybrid without as much key-smashing) yet the AI hasn't been improved much.

About 50% of the posts in this thread make me wish spell check was mandatory for the interwebs. Funny/Sad that the Euros posting on these boards have better English skills than the average 17 year old American kid.

Ok. I felt like letting off a bit of steam. Sorry to offend. I do think the game is very appealing besides that I didn't find much challenge. It's perhaps that I see so much I like in the game and then to find little resistance that I've voicing disappointment. I apologize for my bombastic post. I wanted to hear how it could be defended.
There is spell check in this forum. At least for me there is.
I don't know what "Hello Kitty Island Adventures" goodgimp so I guess I don't get the joke. I told you I'm not that smart.
I will wait for the patch and hope that I'm still interested in the game then. I spent a lot of time playing 4 games and when I found they offered little resistance it felt anticlimactic. I felt somewhat duped. I just feel it should have offered some challenge out of the box. But Ok... I'll stop crying and wait for the patch.
To answer Danmax's question. Most recently I played the humans (TEC?) against the Advent & Vasari on one of the only 3 player maps available that I could see. I did the requests of the Advent to keep them from bothering me much, finished off the Vasari easily, and by the time I torqued off the Advent I owned 3/4's of the planets. Besides that I just did the normal tech upgrades and grabbed planets as best I could. A bit of strategy but the AI offered no interruptions in my little plan.
I've never seen the AI take a planet away from me or even start to try that. How about sending reinforcements being built into a battle? I didn't see it if it can. The smart thing I saw it do was run away when my fleet came.

I did but the first time it locked up and the second I didn't see anyone. I'll try again as I should have seen people there I presume. I am more of a single player gamer but I'll try again.

Huh? There are over 2 dozen maps from small (1 star/20 planets, 1 to2 AI) to huge (6+ stars and over 150 planets with half a dozen AI or more). Plus the random maps. Plus the fact you can easily create your own maps to your taste.

Methinks you might want to look at your options a bit more.

Ok, I have a registered copy thank you, "orangeJumpSuits". The cheap shot apparently must be symptomatic of the fact you don't have any real defense against what is an admitted short coming of this game by the developers no less, that it is too easy. Otherwise they wouldn't have addressed that in a patch to come.
For those of you who have offered insight into what I may have missed or what is to come in a patch, thanks. I don't see how I've missed the maps & options but I must have. That would likely add some spice (although I don't want to drag out what may be an easy win again even longer). I did play it on hard more than once and went numb beating it easily in my defense. I will look again at the maps & options.

I was half serious for starters. But the ranting and raving coupled with poor spelling immediately conjures an image of some mole rat sitting in his parents' basement suckling off the tit of the internet for free games then complaining about them.

At least for me.

I think this is a game more catered to multiplayer than single player. Further evidence for this is lack of a campaign.

Yeah, the AI is no challenge at all. However, come online and be a little patient... a game will show up. At this point, there's still a lot of people figuring how to play the game, but for the most part, you'll find a greater challenge online.

Hosting can be a problem, follow Monk's guide - it explains which ports you need to open and various other pitfalls you may encounter, like making sure you disable upnp.

Best of luck.

this is one reason for a forum

still you have not the full program in terms of hard sins-game as far as it goes with AI

some tips for more hard SP-games:
- no locked teams
- ignore the diplomacy (not hard to do that one)
- if you use pirates on your maps, do not put bounties on AI
- use more then one Star and at least 20-30 planets (more recomended)
- definitly more AI's (at least 4-5)

reasons:
the AI tends to clump together against the human player if the teams are open for change and you are unable to manage (or simply ignore it) to get at least ceasefires with the AI. then the travel between stars takes much more time, so your fleet(s) will be occupied with traveling

regarding the AI-problem (to easy)
i think the developers did not realised how many people might prefer to play SP and maybe other reasons

i for myself managed to end maybe 2 or 3 games till now... well, i do play maximumsized randommaps, tend to start over again (for example thanks to the mars-effect-mod) and am playing other games between long sins-sessions (cause bigmaps with many AI tend to be long, and the AI tends to be very annoying if there are a couple of them ... meaning more then 1 or 2)

To the best of my knowledge, the AI in this game doesn't cheat, unlike most other 4X games at higher difficulty.

Have you try 1v3 hard locked opponents or more without using turrets or defenses? i avoid using defenses because they are effective only against AI so i consider that cheating. it still shouldn't be too difficult, but i gave the developers credit since the AI doesn't cheat.