It looks very cool, indeed. However, as you said, Empire had numerous bugs, glitches, etc. I'd rather them push it back a month to polish, but as CA's blog told us, SEGA's calling the shots.
At any rate, I'd love to see some of the concerns that I've seen addressed, especially involving the smaller bugs that really dull the shine of the game (I, for instance, would love to see the return of the crossed swords to mark heroic victories, and the reduction of such victories to rather rare; repairing forts would be another thing to be solved; diplomacy needs no mention [number one on my list to be fixed]).
Nonetheless, it's nice to see some updates! Thanks for posting this, Astor.