I think you need to do something with caravans/trade. It's too much micromanagement. First you have to build a caravan for every other city and then you have to sent them to each other remembering or looking up which city does need another one (because it's always profitable). For they can be killed easily, you have to do that some time again (and again).

Here are 2 ideas to make it better:

1) If you want micromanagement then only make some routes valueable (long route, different city production, different faction...)

2) Do it macro: A slider that can be used to invest gildar in trade. Dependent on that cpu-caravans are built and generate revenue. Perhaps add some toggles to include/exclude cities/factions. The more different factions you include the more revenue you generate but the risk for losing caravans increases.

I'd go for the latter.