Yes, it's vexed a number of folks over the years.

Eventually, can't remember exactly when/what-version, the devs added a UI toggle so you can click the (confusing to me) calendar date at the top of the main game window and it changes to displaying turns. Unfortunately, the setting is not sticky, so you have to do it for every game session you start.

The timescale thing for Civ-type games has never been ideal. No one's managed to come up with a good 'temporal transmission' mechanic that lets you both manage the rise and fall of a civilization while also managing specific battles and construction projects. 

I actually like the weeks measurement in GC2 better than other 4X games.  It makes sense to me that it might take a civilization five weeks or so to build a ship.  I just assume they have a large, advanced factory.   In Elemental they changed it to "seasons", basically 4 turns is a year, and I feel like it cranks too fast through the years.

Akka, I understand how Europa Universalis might work but I said "Civ-type" and to me that is TBS by definition. The only 'real-time' stuff I've ever enjoyed are sims, not combat/war games.

Not holding my breath to see something revolutionary any time soon, but whatever genius works through the problem for the TBS genre should be richly rewarded with admiration and cash. It's probably a single-player thing, too. I want a game that can sense when I'm in a low&slow phase and move development tasks along 'briskly' while maintaining a connection to the AIs so that it can interrupt to inform me it's time to get busy dealing with a diplomatic, military, or trade problem.

One thing i have found to be a bit more 'interesting' was to change the english.str so that weeks became cycles. It doesnt effect the game but if you change jan-dec as well to other names it adds a bit more of a 'spacey' feel to the game.