You need to know their IP address to find them heh i remember when i used to get confused as to why there was nobody around when i first started playing the original age of empires and was puzzled as to why the search wasn't finding any IP games.
Theres :
Hotseat - people using same comp
Play by email (PBEM) - you take a turn, save and zip it then email it to the next player and he does the same. It's "pass the parcel" basically. note, this form of MP game takes awhile (years even)
IP - You're all online at once, and expected to have a few hours spare to get through a quite a few turns. Theres either turn based, you do your stuff then click turn complete and the next player does his. Much like a single player game. Or theres simultaneous which is the normal way of playing IP, here things are much more fast and furious, attacks take place in almost real time so when you're at war you need to be on your toes (though things still build according to a turn based fashion)
If you go check the mulitplayer forum we're starting an IP game 2moro at 14:00 GMT if you're interested.
Yes i'd recommend you get alien crossfire if you can (its quite rare now) it adds more factions,techs etc and the scenario editor is alot more advanced for giving yourself a real challenge fighting the AI.
As for patches most people have upgraded their SMAC to the XP patch as this is the latest and removes most bugs from the game, therefore you should go upgrade to this if you already haven't as your version will be incompatible with others.
Lastly onto connection, any connection to the net will do for PBEM and its not needed for hotseat but for IP its best to have cable modem and a decent fast computer otherwise you'll probably lag the game down.
As for getting a multiplayer game going you're looking in the wrong forum, the names pretty obvious as to which you should be looking at
Well cya around and have fun
