Does everyone else go for a quick military victory, ending the game before any empire gets >50 colonies?
I ask because I've been trying to play an economy/influence game and on larger maps it just turns into micromanagement hell. I've got 117 colonies, 106 ships, 305 starbases and a couple of hundred unread notifications. I'm popular enough that the other empires don't attack me, and I don't go looking for a fight.
I'm in hour 26(!) of my game, Turn 228. Each turn is taking ~20-30 minutes. It isn't fun any more. It feels like a job. About 90% of my colonies have starbases. Every turn I have ~30 new constructors that I have to send to improve an economy/influence/mining starbase. I have to couple click each starbase to find one that needs an upgrade. I thought this was going to be easier using the starbase screens and selecting "request constructor" but half the time it just says "you can't build a constructor at this time" and I have no idea why. So it's all micromanagement.
I've also never finished a game. I always give up and start again as it's clear I've won, with a power rating of 10x the combined total off all the AI empires. Simply because after turn 150 or so it's 20 minutes of empire starbase civil servant for every 1 minute of space emperor.
I see from earlier betas that there was going to be a AI colony governor but any mention of it looks to have been dropped but the current beta.