And your 2c is very valid currency

If you played Endless Space a lot of the UI elements in EL feel comfortable, because they are very similar.  However, in both ES and EL Amplitude took a bit of a deviation from your 'typical 4x'.  Some love it some don't, all about what you want out of your game, not everything is for everyone afterall, I simply cannot see any reason to play AoW3 at this point, but that's just me

As to character movement issues, there are a couple things to be aware of.  1st there are levels to the terrain and some hexes are not accessable from neighboring hexes if there is a cliff there.  Sometimes this is hard to see, especially if the cliff runs East-West because you cannot rotate the map (this is something I hope they figure out how to do, or at least flip the map).  You also cannot enter ruin or village hexes, though if you have the movement you can move through them.

Combat is the other 'confusing' place.  You don't control your units directly (currently, there is discussion about changing this), so you have to give them one of 3 stances (attack, defend, hold position).  Then you assign them targets (or if you hold position you don't).  You can always give them direct movement orders as well which should override the other orders, but I suppose its possible it doesn't sometimes (though I've seen this happen, but I wouldn't rule it out).

Also on your set up turn you can move your units to any of the shaded hexes, though with some terrain it is very difficult to notice which are shaded and which are not.

Game is out of alpha and now in beta.

http://steamcommunity.com/app/249050/discussions/