Oh it's definitely a great city builder, I quite enjoy it myself! Even when it comes down to putting down housing, you can adjust the size of the plots to perform different functions, whether it is to grow large veggie crops, whether you need housing for specific specialized individuals, whether you just need to cram as many families as you can into one housing unit, assigning specific families to work at nearby locations, I could go on and on!

And there is a peaceful mode if you want to avoid the wartime strategy bits, but even those seem to be rather enjoyable, at least from the initial experience I have had with it. Very much looking forward to seeing what the expanded final product is going to look like, it is definitely a game worth all the praise!