There's a rather decent set of game mechanics underneath, but the game explains so little of itself that the primary source of information about building something functional is unofficial guides on the web. Tough games can attract by virtue of their difficulty, but not so much when the difficulty is achieved by keeping base mechanics obscure, and designing the levels for "gotcha" factor rather than interesting layout. I don't know if it would spread out later in the game, but ten hours in the quests are still popping up in a pattern of one quest to advance plot, one side quest for grinding. I've seen guides that insist it gets somewhat better later, but with the many options we're spoiled with today, do you really want to invest that kind of time and frustration just to get to "okay"?
In the field of micro-managing 4x games, Space Empires IV and V are probably the best available. The graphics of SEIV are not incredible, and neither is the stock AI, but numerous mods can be downloaded from the community websites. The SEIV user interface is not optimal, but that is easily forgotten when faced with the sheer amount of devious options for undoing your enemies and inconvenient allies.