The closest game I have ever seen to SpiritWars is "
The Far Wilds". Believe it or not, SpiritWars is also the closest game I have ever seen for The Far Wilds as well. I started playing it a few years ago when I was looking for a game similar to SpiritWars after the game was taken offline. I think SpiritWars is the better game, hands down. A few years ago, it wasn't uncommon to see 30-40 people online at the same time.
It is a CCG with a map, but it's basically in the same state as SpiritWars right now. The designer was working a full time job IRL and didn't have the time or money to put into the game and walked away from it. The game is actually still up and running and you can play against computer opponents or other players if there's any online. I've logged into it for the first time in a long time a couple days ago and have only seen 2 people online in the 3 times I logged in.
The game has a 13x12 hexagonal map, simlar to SpiritWars but a little bit bigger (154 tiles vs 86). The object of the game is to score 20 points before your opponent. In order to score points, you want to control Flux Wells. There's 5 Flux Wells on the map in the same place every game, one in the middle and one in each of the 4 corners. Any round in which a player controls more Flux Wells than their opponent, they score 2 points. There's also a couple other rare ways to score points, but I can't remember them off the top of my head.
Flux Wells are controlled by placing buildings (cards) nearby. The gameplay is a lot like SpiritWars (buildings have a vision/capture range but don't do much else except for some rarer buildings). Anyways, that's kind of a quick explanation. I believe there's still a tutorial up and running.
Also, there's 2 different versions you can run... one is the flash player which allows you to play through your web browser in 2d, the other is a client download that is in 3d. The 3d version is 100x better imo, but I'm not sure if it still works or not. The browser version does work still. In fact, I played a game about 30 minutes ago against the computer.
If anyone tries TFW and would like to play a game against someone, leave me a message on here. I wouldn't mind playing against another human. Run through the tutorials first though to learn the game and see if you like it.