The characters really are well done. Great voice-casting all around. The interaction between these characters, albeit indirectly through you, creates an atmosphere that feels alive and connected.
It's not just npc A and you, npc B and you where both are only interested in helping themselves and perhaps you. It's something I find many recent RPG's fall victim to.
But I have to say, I find the RTS gameplay (speaking for act 1 only) rather easy. Even though I know that I'm usually bad at RTS. (playing on Normal difficulty)
But perhaps it has to do with picking your fights carefully on the board. I completed the first act with not one battle which had less than 60% victory conditions.
Though I will add that looking at all the futures possibilities in units and unit abilities that were not yet available in act 1, it might become really difficult later on to manage all your troops in the fast-paced RTS.
Even in Act 1, I hardly used any abilities (neither the units' nor my dragon's abilities). I was constantly too busy handling the placement of the troops, building turrets - etc... and intervening in fights as a dragon by blasting the enemy to damnation with fireballs (really fun part
).