I find micromanaging to be entertaining in the start of a game, annoying at best by midgame, and an utter pain in the rear by the end of a game. What I do not like is how many games have a somewhat linear amount of microing... ie, when you build more forces you may have slightly reduced microing per unit, but overall a huge increase in microing required. Something I would consider a nice addition would be something on the order of a micro stamp... Record yourself doing an action, such as queueing up structures to build, then play back that action automaticly when you tell it to...
In SoaSE, as I steamrolled through a large number of enemy planets, I found myself annoyed at how for each and every planet I had to click all the upgrade stuff, and then build the planetary defenses. These actions were very repeatable, and thus became a chore. Noone wants to take time out of their grand invasion to micromanage the finances of their newly conquered city/planet in a way that could easily be done by simple AI.
Having said that, however, I enjoy macroing in the begining of the game. If we were able to do a micro action once, then an AI look at what you did and be able to do it after that point, it would really help. Say for example, in Elemental, you just finished building your second city and get its production and such all sorted out... You then go to set the trade settings. After setting the trade settings between your two cities, you play for a little while. You then decide to build your third city. After setting up your city, you go to the trade menu expecting to spend a minute setting up an identical or nearly identical trade setting for the new city. Lo and behold! The game set up your city's trade just like you set up the trade for your second city, saving you a large amount of microing in the third, fourth, fifth, ect cities you build. A possible negative to this would be if you wanted to set up a city with very different settings, for example an isolated fort in the middle of enemy territory. You would not want your trade wagons full of goods crossing hostile territory, as the enemy would capture the caravans for their own profit. To prevent this, a single confirmation button could be set up, which confirms whether or not you use the settings the game automaticly set up for the city.
