Reubberjello, I know exactly what you mean. After a demoralizing day at work, I went home and started a WARLORD (or whatever that level is called in Civ3) game on a huge archapeligo. It was fun to not go too seriously after the tech road, ignore diplomacy, ignore micromanaging, ignore tech priorities and just build a powerfull economy.
No way I'll be able to finish such a game (the mop-up), but I didn't feel like loading up the deity game where I was trailing the ai and managing an army of workers.