I'm pretty sure you can just tweak that in the XML files. There were a few good posts on the SomethingAwful forums about tweaking the game unfortunately I don't think they're open without membership
I'm fairly sure Civfanatics would have something about it though, from what I remember the game was written so that almost everything would be customisable, you can definitely change the pacing of the epic games by fiddling with the build times and research rates.
Baron Morte you're managing to sound an awful lot like the "11 year olds" that you’re actually moaning about.