Game Time

Depends on your settings.  The more habitable worlds there are, the larger the economy you can build up, but the more worlds there are to be influenced, conquered, etc.

Yeah, but is there any kind of rough approximation to use?  For instance, it takes me 7 years to dominate the galaxy.  Was I a ravenous cancer gobbling up the stars, or a glacier creeping along the parsecs?  Is Advanced Colonization a decent indicator I have shifted my empire to a whole new level?  Can you measure your progress as a warmonger by the hull size you support? 

I think accurately comparing my play against other players would be both fruitless and embarrassing, but I would like to understand a possible common vocabulary of sorts.

Advanced Colonisation is great if you actually have a lot of worlds that benefit from it.  But you can definitely get by without it until other techs are finished.  You should check out the tech power bar chart to see how you match up against the other civs.

Big ships can be overcome if they're not sufficiently advanced.  it's your ability to wrest control of star systems that is a real indicator of warmongering ability.

The terms "early", "mid" and "late" game are very loose terms to give a general idea of timing in the game. Therefore it is difficult to connect them with certain techs, as everyone uses different techorders to get ahead and i.e. galaxy size and tech speed also has an impact.

That said, here's my approximation:

"early" game = during the colonization wave and the second colonization wave (the extreme planets), warships are small hulls in small fleets with weapons up to harpoon level. War at this point is an annoyance, hardly a direct threat to survival.

"mid" game = after the first colonization wave and usually after the second, medium hulled ships are starting to enter combat, "harpoon" level weapon tech is standard, defenses come into play on ships. War at this point can be very painful and enemies with planetary invasion can get nasty.

"late" game = when you've reached the end of a few tech branches and are far along the weapon, invasion and hull branch. Everything is big, your ships, your planets, your weapons, your economy, etc... War at this point means big battles and invasions till the enemy is dead. The end is in sight, either through conquest, tech victory or other victories.

That said: victory can be achieved under conditions that would otherwise be known as "early" or "mid" game. It is usually a rough approximation of tech level and empire development.

I usually average about 5 years on a game, but recently I played one that took 11 years to complete, so time is really no indicator. You should just be having fun, it's not a race!