The cloth map look is quite gorgeous, however, for large worlds it becomes hard to read mainly because there's too much information (too many icons at the same time) and because the colors representing different empires and units are not different from each other. Using the current implementation as a base, some options (appearing whenever you're looking at the cloth map and not having to go through the menu) would make it easier to read and help you asses your situation faster.

1. For example, one layer could clearly contrast or increase the contrast to rapidly distinguish the land owned by different factions in (horrible, I know) bright colors. Especially for factions with similar colors, like Kraxis' and Gilden, it would be better to see not just the borders shaded but the whole territory clearly colored. The small map to the lower right doesn't really work for this, at least when I'm playing. 

2. Similarly it would be easier if you could press a button (or something) and highlight the location of all of one empire's units, but not the rest. Also it could enable the option to highlight more than one empire at the same time. You might not care at one point in the game about your weaker allies' units, only about the unit's of the empires you're at war with. Something similar could be done for the monster/wild units. And it would have to work with the cloth map zoomed out so the colors would have to really stand out from the background.

3. Another option could allow you to see only cities, which would help you trace an attack/defense plan.

There are, most likely other layers of information which could be added and subtracted so that the map adapts to what you want to see at one point or another in the game. I'd love to hear your suggestions.