I’ve done the tutorial, and I have to say I like a lot of the concepts. It does a lot of stuff that I’d always wished MOO and MOO2 did. And making combat just a part of regular gameplay on the regular map is a nice touch too.
Considering I don’t really play 4x games for the challenge – I just like exploring, building my empire, and then flattening everyone when I’m powerful enough – I feel like the dinky AI isn’t going to bother me.