This is a slow game, meant to be hard ... Is is not checkers, it is chess.

So no, I don't agree with you - in fact, I find this latest version incredible - very challenging, with good pacing and balance

You may want to adjust your difficulty and pacing settings instead of trashing the whole game because you find it too slow...

I find it too slow as well, but I keep telling myself that it is for the best.

In Beta 3, by turn 100 I had often eliminated 5-6 nations by conquest. Once I had a population 1066/production 366 city by turn 96. 

In Beta 4, one could get insane production really quick. Once I had a city with production 140 by Turn 35. It had been founded on turn 16.

Clearly, the developers thought that was too quick. There's no argument that it has been slowed down A LOT.

Right now, in .982 my best city puts out 40 production on turn 40.

But, I am happy with that city, I am happy with watching my Empire take off, and am starting to enjoy the new pace. The key is to have something to do while your cities are getting off the ground.  If you have a sovereign that can run around and kick ass, you may be OK with waiting. 

I'm actually afraid that Stardock may be chipping at new players enjoyment a bit too much.  Production is being slowed, which pushes trained troops further in the future.  Unless a player can field superheroes, they maybe stuck. 

If you waiting to research Training and Leatherworking, so that you can spend 10 turns churning out a spearman, while Slags are knocking down your cities, "Enjoyment" is not the word you will looking for.

There is one thing that Stardock must have before release, or the game will crash bad burn:

No Shrill Lord should raze a city on turn 100 on Normal map difficulty, even if the player lacks Master scout, has founded it on the border of Curgen's Tomb, and has had a pioneer lead the Shrill Lord to it.

The above happened to my wife.  She has not played since.

Yes, it would have been a lot slower without Wealthy. But (nearly) every nation has a trick that will take it to victory.  The problem is to allow the player to survive until the nation blossoms...

Which is why Stardock really needs to work on Monster AI. At least at lower levels, it should be deterministic enough so that players get a break.  Even in .98 I've had cities razed by wandering Denizens of the Wastlands by turn 100, and I believe there was nothing I could have done about that. I did not rage quit... well, not at once. I first destroyed the haunter's army.  But I had to design the stack to kill it, recall all my champions, and produce mages for the task.  Then I quit, because I did not want to stare at the hole where my Factory I had been.

When I wiped out that haunter's army on turn 60 in my .981 walk-through, it was because I had learned.  But how many new players will be able to do that? How many will quit when their shiny city is razed on turn 100 by something they could not fight on turn 500?

Yes. FE is too slow with cities and trained units. The only shining thing is champions. Why? Because there are too many requirements for building descent trained units. You should build many improvements and research many technologies to build desired trained units. The most annoying part is building improvements like Workshop to build another improvements faster. Building for building is pointless. Imho if player wants to build descent trained units, the game should provide the opportunity here and now. Trained units should be strong enough from season 1, cheap and have potential for growth. There are shouldn't be "must have" technologies (all early Civilization techs) and building for building (Workshop, Training Yard, ...) to prevent pointless delaying the game.

I like Warlock, because I play MP game within 30-50 turns on average map. The only problem with Warlock is lack of balance.