Okay. So. Many points to answer, I'll do my best. I'm assuming from you mentioning the mist you're on V10. It's unfinished but none of those issue are related to its unfinished-ness so they're all still valid.
Repeated clicking in politics: This is an issue, although it's possible it's an issue with me communicating the mechanics. It can often be faster to impassion a dude, making him a better spokesperson for his views, then use him to spread them, than to repeatedly have him spread them at low levels. That's why impassion is so cheap, at only 3 power, to make it realistic to use instead of just spread views repeatedly.
Enthralling in a single action: I'm not opposed to the idea of a system to replace "just spend power" but I can't think of anything which wouldn't just be an artificial tacked on bit, with no connection to the rest. Plus, you don't have much to do with your turns without an enthralled or two, so it would just be dead time.
Character creation/Pre-game planning: Definitely something I want. A variety of things are possible. My basic idea is you'd see the board to begin with, then get to pick which tools you want to deploy. It may be a kickstarter stretch goal, though, if I run out of time, since I'd want to do it properly and test it for balance a whole bunch.
Buildings: They're not perfect, but I'm okay with buildings as they stand. Having just a single building slot and upgrading would be pretty similar to how they are now, but would prevent you from mixing and matching. For instance you could decide to have a fog+fish person build, if you only want a couple of powers out of each. I think it'll make more sense with more buildings being introduced, but we'll have to see how it works out.
Military: You're explicitly not supposed to be able to command any unit. This is a design feature, not an oversight or a feature coming later. I simply don't have the time to design and build a tactical AI system able to respond to what the player could do with full unit control. The player would have an unbeatable advantage as a result. It's not that I don't want tactical combat, it's that I don't think I can implement tactical combat. Firaxis have been trying to get hex-tile turn-based combat working since Civ 5, and it's like eight years later and they still don't have it. I've no reason to believe I can do better, so I simply avoid the issue, despite the loss of gameplay that causes.
Hope this clears things up a bit. Thanks for the feedback, though, definitely useful to know what needs another look at.