There a ton of units. Though, I've primarily restricted myself to playing mostly minors and regional powers thus far. Though am enjoying a go with Italy, lately. I can understand how you may not enjoy it if you have to put your units on AI control because the AI is pretty dumb. But then again, if you don't enjoy managing the troops, I'm not sure what you would enjoy in the game, the rest is pretty simply and I would think boring if you aren't commanding troops.
As for the performance issues, I haven't experienced them too bad.
