Lots of removing buildings to gain diplomacy to research, and then rebuilding. When something is ready to be researched, you remove all the buildings, place diplomacy ones, complete the research, remove diplomacy, and restore the previous buildings. This is happening for every research. It hasn't been this bad with Vikings or Feudal Japan.
Also, there is too much time spent gathering goods. Lots of days are spent just opening the settlement, collecting, starting productions and checking back later. This is quite boring for a new settlement with wonderful graphics, I expect it to be interesting and worth spending time in. Repetitive work takes up 80% of the time spent in the settlement with nothing else to do. This can be reduced by reducing the number of goods required for research.