The idea behind the game was to combine a Turn based Strategy game
like Civilization 4 and mash it with a Real-Time Strategy game like
StarCraft, AoE, C&C etc... ... and place the game in space...
the end result? ... its amazing once you spend 2 hours getting to know it.
I haven't actually played the game, but from what I've read, I don't think it's really anything like EV... one reason being that EV focused on you controlling a single character.