Even though you may not feel the need to fix the problem anymore, it would be handy if you could answer these questions please:
1. Can you do a scenario?
2. What happens when you try to run a tutorial (error message, crash, etc;)? Be sure to switch to windowed (not fullscreen) as I've seen some crash messages don't display in that mode. Alternatively, run glest in a command line (or whatever linux can do).
Interesting tactic, but don't get your hopes up about needing a good strategy. Glest's AI is actually somewhat poor...
Maybe it will be improved sometime in GAE (looks at silnarm hopefully, sets alarm clock for 1 year ahead, and goes to sleep

)