Oh, my mistake then, although I don't get that "cloth map" thing.
It seemed bizarre why would anyone disable all of the visuals or why would that option even exist to begin with so you can't expect people to see through all that strangeness.
Ever use the zoom feature in Sins of a Solar Empire to zoom all the way out to the farthest view? At that point, all the graphics are off, you just see icons for planets and phaselands, and basically dots for ships.
The cloth map is the fantasy equivalent. When you zoom out far enough, it'll kick in and let you see what is going on at a glance. The 3d graphics engine just doesn't work at very high zoom levels, similar to how there's no 3d graphics in Sins at that zoom level.
Once the graphics engine is turned on, at closer zoom levels you'll see the proper graphics instead. That'll be in beta 3 sometime.