Your experience makes me feel much better about some of the games I've suffered through recently. I had the same problem going back to AOE once...trying to queue up villagers and ending up turning off the pipeline altogether by clicking production off by mistake.
On another AOE/RoR tangent, is it just me or does there seem to be a lot more wildlife in RoR? I seem to be almost constantly harrassed by crocs and lions and I don't remember it happening that much in AOE. It actually has me wishing nasty critters were an option you could toggle on and off.