It helps that they were giving it away for free. :)

Still, good to see Amplitude getting more attention.

I just came back to this game after years and it felt as refreshing as ever. Imo, this is one of those rare, timeless 4x games that continue to captivate players because:
1. Few 4x games have factions that are truly unique in their fundamental mechanics that allows for asymmetric gameplay like this one.
2. Many 4x games feel draggy because you often have to explore, mine tons of resources and go through a huge chunk of the tech tree before you can sustain a serious war or economy. Early rushing opponents often doesn't work and even when it does, it feels cheap. Not so here because the game challenges the player to make meaningful choices very early on. Even when you're mostly peaceful, there are lots of quests and challenges from winter and unique faction requirements to keep you busy throughout the game.
3. There's a lot of flexibility in shaping factions to your play style. Even factions that are built for peaceful victories can take the militaristic path by say assimilating tough units from certain minor factions to make wars viable.

While the AI isn't very smart, the same can be said for many other games as well. The difference is that this game doesn't depend solely on the AI to present a challenge to the player. The meaningful choices you have to make to effectively exploit unique faction mechanics means that winning isn't just a simple case of capturing tons of resources and going for aggressive expansion. So the fun here comes more from meaningful planning and seizing advantages from random quests than having an AI that can challenge you like a human player imo.