I was speaking with a Dev on the AoMH site and he said that at the beginning they'd setup their entire way of gameplay very similar to the Settlers of Cataan board-game style. Then they went back and changed a bunch of things to give it a half-way between AoE style and Settlers style.

It'll be good I'm sure - ES has yet to thoroughly dissapoint me. AoM was a small let-down, but it was also great fun to play... just not as long of a staying power on it as AoK.