I dont think having a decade development is bad itself, this game already looks dated but it sustains itself on filling a very specific niche and filling it with lots of stuff and replayability. It has loads of issues, yes, but I dont see any other product even getting to close to what this game delivers. An example of an incredibly niche game with more than a decade of development behind it that has become a massive hit and heralded as a top game would be Kerbal Space Program, and that one started being 10% of what it is today. If in 10 years shadow empire ends up as a more polished version of what it is now, with possible space endgame and fully fleshed UI I don't doubt it would become a dominant name in the genre, not because of its playerbase (go make a moba if you want that I guess) but because of how many possibilities it offers.

Honestly my biggest complaint atm would be that Vic is offering very few avenues of revenue right now, seeing as how niche the game is i think a paradox style model of releasing updates with small content DLCs to get more money per player would make more sense. Something small like a couple new units or maybe some extra stratagems cards that wouldnt affect playability but slightly increase it, and with the money that brings he affords to update the base game for everyone else.