My experience of the single-player game was that it was fun, but the AI was sufficiently stupid that (a) it was trivial to beat unless I was extremely unlucky in the first twenty years or so, and (b) it rewarded tedious amounts of micromanaging. There are various "play with one hand tied behind your back" style variants that can extend the fun for a little while, but that sort of thing only goes so far.

So, no, it wasn't especially addictive... I played it a lot for a little while, played it a little for a longer while, and haven't looked at it in years.

I never got into the multiplayer version, but can see where it might be a lot more addictive.