Purchased it based on what was posted here and some videos I watched. Hope I am not disappointed. I also like long games as I am a big fan of the Civilization series.
Played a couple hours and it's not too bad so far. I had to turn off the pirates because they constantly came with massive fleets and tore me a new one. Seems like my battleships are very weak because they get stomped. I'm playing as the advert race as I heard they are more defensive. I'm the type of player that likes to play defensive, slowly building up my economy and army before I make any military moves.