If you want to act like He-Man, grab a sword and stand on the peak of one the mountains in Valua then stick your sword into the sky screaming "I HAVE THE POWER!!".Then get struck by lightning just like He-Man.
I only played the demo of Alpha Centauri, because I was too cheap to actually buy it. But yeah, that game was pretty nice. Designing units was interesting, as was the interface for communicating with the AI players.
no it's far more historical and involves a lot of resource management. Lords of Magic (which I have not really played) by the same people is supposed to be like that. It'd be better compared to the total war series, but not quite.