Another great release! The changes to the population and sea routes display are fantastic - they make a huge difference.
No idea if this is right, but I suspect what you are able to do with the information presentation and interactivity will be a big part of how successful the software is. My only evidence is personal and anecdotal, but it seems like even though the attraction to these types of games is the joy of watching worlds evolve and history be written (and rewritten) - i.e., the *model* you've built and we can play with. Nonetheless, the most intuitive way to actually interact with it is through the informational displays - both static views of historical data and real-time windows into the current state. And your new views hit the nail on the head, from my perspective.