rather than an rts with 4x elements
Who says that's what Dragon Commander has to be, though? It's a dragon-emperor simulator, not just a 4X/RTS.
Not saying that the RTS and Risk modes couldn't use some work to make them as fun as the politics, but I don't think the game was intended to be an RTS with 4X elements or Civilization with RTS elements, or whatever [main genre] with [side genre] elements combinations you want to use to describe it.
