As a noob player myself, who hasn't joined an online game yet, I'd have to agree that the community honestly makes me cringe in the sense that for a game that wants more subs from players as a whole to make a better environment for all, you'd think as a whole, a glance at your win/loss ratio, or games played period might pull some sort of "Lemme teach you the ropes" kind of thing, but maybe it doesn't... I know that it's not all encompassing, not everyone is a leetist asshole, but you'd think that the community as a whole would be more helpful, (especially since they can check out how many matches you've played and see), rather than kick your ass the entire game about what kind of nubtastic shit you do out of habit from playing the normal/hardmodes against the AI.
My suggestion is to read all the strat literature too, so your're prepared to run away rather than expect miracles to happen.
Take the forums with a grain of salt, there is definately a learning curve when you play online. Even if you played on Nightmare, I doubt you'd even be remotely ready for what an actual thinking player can come up with. I think the best advice I've seen so far is don't feed your enemy, in other words, "I'm a noob" at the start, then run ALOT.
I've been playing hard AI for a couple days now, (was playing normal off an on just for kicks), and just telling myself that my AI teammates, and the AI opponents will never generate the kinds of circumstances and environment I need to work well starting off against seasons players.
My conclusion is just to bite the bullet and join online games, hoping to god I don't experience what you did. I really don't want the community to turn me away from such a great game, I'm hoping they realize players with less than 20 or so games need a hand in the advice department.
Over all, my advice is what I'll be doing, ignore most of their BS and learn by playing. About 50 - 100 games in, you'll start getting the hang of it, is what I'm thinking.
Being that as it may, look me up or lemme know when your playing, we can start a "noob" match and make sure we're at least closely matched before we play. At the very least we can get a few seasoned players that are awesome, (many on these boards from what it sounds like, that's what gives me hope, I'm just intimidated) that might be willing to use that game to teach us some ropes.
From what it sounds like though, alot of what counts is just knowing how to run away and not get too greedy.
