The shipyard/shanytown look of the game drew me in, but the resource management and tableau building kept me around.
The wife and I picked this one up on a whim, in anticipation of the Panda MFG Challenge Calender August monthly challenge, that involves playing games with a Historic Setting.
I knew of Renegade's pedigree and expected it would be half decent, but turned out to be a solid game with equally solid production quality.
Now to hunt down that expansion...