Does that remind you of anything?Think of Galactic Civilizations as a giant mod on a fairly generic 4X game engine. You can make it into anything you like without being a techie.
I found a really neat RTS game called Galactic Civilizations II, and I found the modding system to have some interesting parallels with Transcendence. It's not free, but it's not a lot either and it's certainly worth more than what you pay for it.
It's your basic 4X game, eXplore eXpand eXterminate and something else with an ex at the beginning. eXperement maybe. Anyway, you should take a look at it.
http://www.galciv2.com/