Oh wow, can't believe I missed the zoomed in telescope thing, that sounds great! I admittedly wasn't paying very close attention to some of the messages and instructions in the bottom-right after I felt like I had a good feel of the game ':-)
I may have described it poorly but I actually don't consider turn-based gameplay a requirement of the traditional roguelike either (although I don't think I've played any yet that aren't turn-based). It's subjective, but 1812 falls short of that definition for me more because it plays like a large-scale battle simulator than a roguelike. And that's just in its current form, I could see a game like this becoming something that I'd personally consider a tradtional roguelike if it were expanded somewhat. But that's all semantics to me anyways and I don't find it very interesting arguing about definitions -- all I know is that War of 1812 is a very neat game and I'm happy I got to play it!
I like that insight about removing the tactics from the game. 1812 definitely accomplishes that. I didn't consciously pick up on that while playing, but it's certainly an interesting lens to view the gameplay experience through.