For all intents and purposes David, it's imposible to do. And I'm not talking about the average run of the mill start where one player has a huge breathable in his homesystem, and the other guy doesn't and that's the only difference. But the really bad ones where one guy 2 or three times as many usable planets within colonizer range of his homeworld. That kind of a lead is flatly insurmountable unless the player is quite a bit more skilled at the teqhniques of expansion then the other guy. You could play 50 games against similerly skilled opponents with that kind of a disadvantage and win none of them.
But if that is your idea of fun, we could accomodate you. I am sure we could design some maps that would be quite sufficently painful for you.
Not all Se4 has to be competative. You can have fun role playing or whatever. But the idea of Koth and the Se4 Ratings systems
are for competition. Testing one anothers skill against each other. If the players cannot be given at least semi-equal playing fields, it's not test of skill any longer but who gets the luckier start.