Several things I've always loved about Stardock is that they have a great track record of supporting their games, turning out a finished product, and listening to their fans.  So, here are a few of my preliminary questions and requests.

1.  What type of economic system is going to be emplaced?  A  good system of economics can make or break a game.  One reason I like Galciv 2 is because it has an intuitive yet sophisticated system of balancing the very real differences between production, research, and investment in order to produce a fairly intriguing representation of an actual economy.  I hope something more than a "city producing something until it is complete in a set number of terms, then moving on to produce something else" system is in store (some of the initial screenshots kind of looked like that, hence my concern).  A realistic but intuitive economic model can make a good turn based strategy game a great one.

2.  What type of unit system will be implemented?  Will there be hundreds of individuals recruited from your populace, given weapons and then formed into units, or will there be a more Civilization approach?

3.  And finally a request.  In the interviews and previews a system where the player has to balance just how much of "themself" is put into their heroes, cities and their own character.  I would ask that any mix (from entirely focusing on keeping their avatar strong to a complete focus on building the strongest economy/military to a total investment in heroes to a mix of all) of strategies be playable against any other mix.  That way there would be no forced focusing or forced mixing, and a player could develop their empire as they wished.

Given how Stardock has pursued game development in the past I am not concerned that my request is necessary...  I figure that you are already probably going in that direction.  However I hadn't seen it yet, so I just wanted to put that out there.