There's another game being made with a strong inspiration by Master of Orion 1 & 2....it's still an early alpha but take a look.
http://beyondbeyaan.blogspot.ch/ (http://beyondbeyaan.blogspot.ch/)
Cheers
Hmmm...the trailer shows some of the races being parrots, hamsters and trees, with very cartoonish looks.
Its been available on Desura for alpha buy in (and free demo) for quite some time, I think it's trying to appeal to the retro indie crowd with its artstyle, plus the homage to MOO.
http://www.desura.com/games/beyond-beyaan
I think a parrot race would be awesome. We could call them the Pollygarans and work in all sorts of cracker puns.
Of course, the Human delegate in these games is almost always a white guy, so "cracker" references there might be appropriate as well...
I see you've got the New Yorker calender 2013 as well ;)