It could be excellent if done right. I like the idea of a seamless transition between a huge interstellar expanse, and the tactical combat between ships. There's been a fair bit of games with turn-based grand strategy and real-time combat but the sync-up between the different modes is hit or miss.
There've been largescale tactical space games like Homeworld, good in their own right, but that have always seemed to me too small and mission-based-- you'd either have a campaign where you could only research a few things in the span of each battle and be confined to a given space until the fight was finished, or you'd have a skirmish mode with all the research available but no continuity between fights whatsoever.
Then there's other games, like Star Wars: Empires at war that came at it from the other direction, making an empire-centric game that had a real-time battle component. What I don't like is the weird mismatch of time. You'd build up a big force and run your empire, then when a battle began you'd be trapped in it until you were finished.
It'll be interesting if they manage to capture the feel of an cerebral 4X strategy game where you can make interesting decisions about leading an empire, and allow you to move back and forth at will to the tactical scale where other vital decisions are to be made.
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