It's infact better than I thought it was as you can use the tactical map to over view the battle AND issue orders to units as well as zoom in; so you can have one window looking at your base while using the other to get close up views of your mates or enemies bases.. win!
The only 'issue' with it is that you need to click on it to give it focus to zoom about, which removes the focus from whatever you had selected. I'm pretty sure when it was docked on the main window this wasn't required, so I'm kinda hoping it's a beta thing. Oh, and you can forget using your mouse to scroll in the direction you have the monitor on as it just of course skips across to it.
The latter isn't a problem as I'm now pretty much using the zoom out, point, zoom in method of moving around the map (very intuative once you get used to it) so hardly have to scroll around at all [smile]
It's almost a shame I'm going out tonight or I would have played some more... and given I've been going out, come hell, high water, snow and even major illness, every week since June 2001 that's a hell of a draw.. I'll just have to get back quickly and see if I can grab a game at 3am [grin]
Jack