These games are the blast, I seriously recommend it to everybody who likes the 4X genre and turnbased games. It's a must buy and definitely worth the money. It's addicting and you will play this a long time.
There are a lot of good things about this game, it's not hard to learn the game but it's difficult to truly master the game. There is a lot of space for tactics and strategy, the game gives you the possibilty to create and rule your kingdom on your own. Either peaceful or militaristic.
The menus and the mechanics are unique and work very well and you don't loose the control of your empire. Everything is properly shown on the map or in statistics which can be displayed at any time. The graphics are nice for such a game, everything has a lot of detail. The menu panels are nifty and just fine.
The mechanics are easy to learn and customizable, the player isn't constantly being bothered with sliders and overly complex decisions. Furthermore everything is explained if you right click the button or object.
Another great thing is that you can design your own starships, the equipement and weapons can be chosen in the Design mode. All the changes and different options will vastly change to course of the battle, which can be played in a turnbased mode. The only thing that bothers me are that the battles are a bit rubbish and look kind of bad. But it doesn't really affect the gameplay itself.
This is a perfect game for you netbook and it will get you hooked up for a long time. I definitely recommend it.