Thanks for your questions.
- The game is made with python, using pygame as a graphics library.
- I promise you that the game is safe, though it is a random executable from an unknown developer so I feel that it would trigger as a virus regardless of it's content. You can look at the community for conformation (if there was something malicious I'm sure it would've been commented on by now), but if you don't feel comfortable downloading it, don't.
- The game is free; the popup that comes up when you download it is prompting for donations. Don't pay if you can't.
- A bordering faction can invite you to join them if you are the same ideology, though it is random.
Also, you are right about a lot of the lag issues. Python is not fantastic for rendering, and it is the cause of the majority of the fps issues. I'm exploring using caching in more parts of the game to speed it up, with some good results (ex. right now, opening the side bar will halve the fps. Simply not rendering it every frame has gotten it up to 120 fps). For the crash issues, I am looking into improving error handling, which is basically nonexistent in the current build, as well as fixing the issues which cause the crashes in the first place.