Frater,
Check out the Starfire forums for ideas that can lengthen the time till your empire (Solo or multi-player) gets big, bigger, too big. These house rules are often listed under 'time decompression' and can be "searched'. Procyon, a name well known for his write-up for his Nemesis campaign on both this and the SDS board, has a lot of ideas that have allowed his family run a long term campaign that the Nemesis campaign is based on. My current SOLAR Starfire campaign uses some of the ideas Procyon and others have discussed. I didn't go and cut good systems down to 10% of the normal rolls but even the 40% reduction I used has made a difference. Plus, the great systems are really worth fighting for and protecting compared to a standard campaign. A few other things mentioned in the SDS Starfire forums also have helped, including not having your colonies grow as if you were part tribble. In other words switching to a population growth rate that is more realistic, hence the term 'time decompression'. Still, many fine players of starfire want to field a fleet of multiple Juggernauts to go and wipe the enemy from the galaxy, and that can happen a lot faster if you play without using some home rules. There probably will not be a computer version of SOLAR Starfire soon, so I do use some House rules to keep the empires smaller. There is no SA to help me do my spreadsheets. But worse is that I just don't have the time to do the grand battles I've read about, I'm not retired yet.