That sounds like how I played VI, although I only increased research/civic time (I always focused more on units than buildings, and struggled to build those even then.
Everything was incredibly overpriced production-wise in Civ VI.
In VII I am finding standard speed/eras/map to feel just right (not that I have tried anything else). I have to choose what I build, but there is time to pursue a legacy or two, and it keeps games feeling scrappy, which is my preference.
I keep completing most or even all legacy paths, and in Exploration I find the Age ending after just 100 turns (with Long Ages), and the Modern Age lasts even shorter. Hence the changes - I want there to be like 120+ turns per Age.
Has someone found out what the actual difference between long and normal ages is? (Specific numbers would be most helpful, but even knowing what the difference is mechanically would be great)
Iirc it's not actually labelled as a percentage? It just says 10 era progress/score, which is very helpful when it doesn't seem to say anywhere how much is needed to end the era.
(note: everything here is normal game speed, and I use Long Ages as default - for Epic, Marathon or Online game speed, I don't know the precise math, although I'm expecting a modifier directly related to the overall game speed modifier)
A normal age takes 200 age progress to complete, a long age takes 240 age progress. You can see the current and required age progress by hovering over the percentage in the top left of the screen.
Every turn adds 1 age progress, completing a milestone in the Antiquity Age for the first time adds 5/5/10 age progress, completing a milestone in the Exploration Age for the first time adds 5/10/20 age progress, and completing a milestone in the Modern Age for the first time adds 5/10/0 age progress (was originally 20 but they changed this in one of the patches). 10 age progress also gets added whenever someone completes a Future Tech or Future Civic (although I should note I haven't seen it tick up from AI doing so, even in games where I felt the AI should have reached it - but maybe it stops researching entirely or something?), and some age progress is added when a civ is completely eliminated, with the amount depending on map size. For a normal-sized map, it's 20, and the number goes up for smaller maps.
If all golden ages are hit by at least one player, but no Future Tech or Civic is researched, and you are playing with Long Ages, the Antiquity Era ends on turn 160, the Exploration Era ends on turn 100, and the Modern Era reaches a score victory on turn 180. For Normal Ages, subtract 40 turns, and for every Future Tech or Civic researched, subtract 10 turns.
Also, a crisis starts at 70%, intensifies at 80%, and culminates at 90%. Additionally, a crisis cannot progress towards the next step in fewer than five turns, even if the age progress requirement is met, however the age (and thus the crisis) ends immediately when the progress reaches maximum value.