This game is a 4X game (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate). Thus the user will start with a small city and build it up and defend it as time progresses.
One problem of this type of game is information overload and complexity of user commands. Thus the game aims to simplify this by exploring the idea of filtering data in the game. So you can switch into military mode, city mode, worker mode, etc. This allows the user to gain control and see more information, but only when it is requested.