Best 4x Space game for newbies?

My son loves strategy games (plays Empire at War, Warcraft 3 all the time) and he also really likes Civilization Revolution (title might be wrong, the Xbox360 game) as well.

Is there a good 4x space game in the mold of MOO1/2 that is gentle to newbies. Doesn't need to be simple, he's 9 but picks up stuff fast, but it does need to be either very intuitive or have a real tutorial (Hated Endless Space's "tutorial", a series of one time static pop-ups describing the screen once does not help you organically learn to play the game.

Is there anything that is good out there that does walk you through playing a game that a younger kid can really enjoy?