Governors

Hello all, I've just gotten into this game. I enjoy it greatly. A simple question I have though is how do the governors work? I see how they are instructed to build social projects, but what about military? All I see for military projects is some sort of 'swap out' thing. I don't understand it. Also - I can't get anything to go into the priorities list...the arrow does nothing...and when I click on various items, they never show in the priority list. The game is fun, but as my realm is expanding, the micromanagement is getting out of hand.