It does, and honestly this seems to play so familiarly to that excellent title, I think I overcame my “oh, it’s Sci-Fi?” sentiment very easy. Functionally, it’s just Dwarves with Energy Tanks instead of Steam Tanks, so to speak. The factions are still fantasy, just future fantasy, and like I mentioned up thread, we already have the best version of this as fantasy, let’s see if we can have the best sci-fi 4X out there now as well. :)
But I really do like a lot of the changes this game is bringing, off the top of my head I’m really happy with how Sectors work. That’s probably my favorite change, honestly. But I also like they split up over land “spells” and combat “spells”, and what they are doing with diplomacy with using a point system to ensure your actions work diplomatically is probably the best way to ensure things behave like they are supposed to with AI factions. I think that has enough potential I may try to play Planetfall as a proper 4X and not a Wargame with three of the “X’s”. Lots of great little changes.
The only thing I continue to be not sold on is some of the effects and animations aren’t as fluid as I’ve come to demand in my games. You play something like Civ VI and while that game isn’t … uh, great, it does look really polished and has just incredible animations. It’s hard to not compare games in the same genre, especially with the same view point. I mean, Gladius has an amazing aesthetic and animates gorgeously, for that matter. But every new video looks better than the last, and we have 4 months before release, so it’s fair to say a lot of the art/animation/effects are still in flux.