An ambitious project with a lot of creative ideas. It is undeniably addictive to build your dark lord and experiment with who you influence, how you build your army, and how you handle different scenarios that come up. There are issues though; progress can feel slow and it is hard to tell how powerful you really are at any moment, as your stats only go up by 1 each time unless a random event goes in your favor. As such its hard to tell whether raising influence is worth it versus raising your army and vice versa; both clearly have benefits, but you won't know what those benefits are until a random event goes in your favor due to either number being high. Finally, the AI art is going to be an instant no-go for many people, and I would encourage the developer to exchange it for royalty free work, symbolic artwork rather than direct depiction, or just rely on their own writing to best paint the scene they want to present.
That said, I can't deny that I enjoyed my time with the game, and with a bit more hands on control and a clearer sense on what my empire's growth really means, it could shape up into something special.