You should be doing everything right, it's just that less and less people are getting online.

You probably got on at a bad time. Try Saturdays. I can almost always find a game.

BTW, if you want to play, ever, my Ironclad Online name is Syneptus

I only have entrenchment right now, so that would be a slight hindrance.

Ok thanks guys, I will have a try later.

Unfortunately this game has just always had low player counts since 98% or so of all purchasers only played it in single player, which is too bad because it's a great game for online multiplayer.  Your best bets for finding other people are on the weekends and during the North American prime gaming time, from about 7 pm to Midnight U.S. Eastern Time.  There are still 4v4 and 5v5 games every night on Diplomacy.  However, you're more likely to find newer players (who you might actually have a chance of beating) on regular vanilla Sins.

By the way, if you want to play online you will need to fix the dreaded Mesh Error, which is a huge eyesore that needs to be patched up IMHO.  You can learn more about it here:

http://tinyurl.com/Sins10