Conflicts can be solved via RTS battles. That's a strong factor that says "not a 4x game", at least from my experience.
Also, it should be noted that Larian developed the game from good and fun ideas, not by choosing a genre and building a game to fit it.
Funny, in almost all of the 4x games conflicts can be solved in rts battles.
The only difference is, that in this, you need more skill than in other games, due to the fact that you can build buildings and units and turn into a giant, sometimes op dragon.
I know that they made the game out of fun ideas, and the game IS fun, its just that the mp campaign needs some more polish in order to make it better balanced and not so shallow. Did they add or change anything in it for release? didn't have the time to play it yet.
Btw, intentionally, or uninentionally, it turned into a game very similar to 4x games(only missing exploration).
However i'm not saying that it needs to become a complicated and/or deep 4x game, its perfectly fine if they only add single player-like features into multiplayer campaign. Something similar to the raven phase and generals would probably make it more balanced.
Also bringing back the turn times for research and unit making we saw in the initial videos would add depth to it, forcing you to actually think about what to make and where to send them and what to research instead of spamming units and research until your enemy is dead.
Note: these are merely my opinions, if i offended anyone i apologise.
