I agree that the readability hurts the game. It’s something that’s still being worked on. It does get easier as you familiarize yourself with it. The icons start to make more sense as you encounter them more and more. It does work after you’ve let the visuals soak into your brain for a while. I can now tell everything that’s going on in a battle fully zoomed out purely from the icons.
Unfortunately because the game has no budget and is worked on by volunteers only, someone skilled would need to volunteer their work to overhaul the visuals and sound design of the game. The current level of polish is what the current volunteers are capable of producing.
I’ve already submitted a ticket to the github to have all units icons superimposed onto the unit portraits to link them better. That would be a good first step. I’ve considered volunteering to do this myself but would need to teach myself how and haven’t had the time.