Is it just me, or did Crusades seriously make the game less fun to play?  Its all about micromanaging now. You never have enough administrators, running out of food because they killed the farms, I just realized I have to train legions to invade other planets.... meanwhile on the beginner difficulty my nearest other civ is taking over planets left and right, advancing their research out their ass.

What used to be fun elements of the game have been replaced with micromanagement.  And the fact that there aren't any more forever-length planet projects (research project, etc), makes it even worse, because now every so often you'll get told a planet is idling when there's nothing you can do but chain another 20 "aid research" things ...

(Yes, this post is a ranty complaint, let the hate flow through you, yadda yadda ....)