I don't find the game to be
that ugly, but I really enjoy Space Empires IV and still occasionally play it today even without all of the community mods that used to be hosted for it.
The UI is a bit cluttered, and at first the game can feel a bit overwhelming with colonizing planets, designing and
then building ships, designing and building space stations and such. Much the same way that Out of the Park Baseball was the fruit of one man's labor, Space Empires was really driven by one man. Unfortunately, there is a sequel that attempted to bring the game a more modern 3D look, but it killed the franchise pretty hard.
What I really like about this game is the diversity of technologies and space ship designs. There were also some cool mods that turned the game into a Star Trek-based strategy game. Nothing quite compares to a stack of 20 Borg cubes entering your sector on a path for your homeworld!