Any good Mods to try?

[Will]

I'm going to second the Carrier Battles recommendation. It's still going through some balance issues, but for the most part, battles are really big slugfests, and a few tweaks to combat strategies for individual ships or fleets can make all the difference in a battle.

Ground combat just takes a long time. There's only one ground combat round per turn, and troops can take a lot of damage, but dish very little out (on the order of, a light infantry troop can deal 4 damage, and take 50). It can take several turns to capture even a small colony.