Does anyone have any tips for maximizing your game score? What exactly can you do to increase it over the course of the game. I'm not entirely sure, but I think I remember hearing that building nukes can help boost your score...

The more population, technologies, territory and wonders you have, the higher your score. The sooner your victory, the higher it is, to offset "milking" (delaying victory just for the sake of increasing your score). Higher difficulty levels also boost your score.

Emperor-level start on a tiny, pressed, high-sea-level pangaea against a single AI (probably not aggressive or creative), and yourself playing as the Inca. Quechua-rush for a conquest victory before 3000 BC, and you can get around 50,000 points I'm told.

To expand on Hans' comments...

For maximum score you'll want to take over around 55-60% of the world as quickly as you can. Definitely play on Pangaea or some other single landmass. Higher difficulty is better, but there's going to be a "sweet spot" given your current abilities. Fewer opponents may be quicker, I'm not really sure. Once you've conquered all your land, quickly research to biology and start spamming farms and cities. The idea is to push you population as high as you can as quickly as possible. When your score velocity starts to slow (you can view your current end-game score by hovering over your current in-game score), start pushing to win by either domination or conquest. Ideally, on the turn before you win, complete the hanging gardens.

To expand on Hans' comments...

For maximum score you'll want to take over around 55-60% of the world as quickly as you can. Definitely play on Pangaea or some other single landmass. Higher difficulty is better, but there's going to be a "sweet spot" given your current abilities. Fewer opponents may be quicker, I'm not really sure. Once you've conquered all your land, quickly research to biology and start spamming farms and cities. The idea is to push you population as high as you can as quickly as possible. When your score velocity starts to slow (you can view your current end-game score by hovering over your current in-game score), start pushing to win by either domination or conquest. Ideally, on the turn before you win, complete the hanging gardens.

Come again, "quickly research biology", and "complete hanging gardens one turn before victory" dont seem like sumultaniously attainable goals....

Come again, "quickly research biology", and "complete hanging gardens one turn before victory" dont seem like sumultaniously attainable goals....

don't forget to keep a massively dominating position ;)

hanging gardens are no big deal, no AI goes for it
You may have a tougher time, killing off every AI but one and leaving this one only little room

Of those, in my experience, time is the biggest factor. Even more than difficulty level. With population and land area running close behind.

My best score is STILL a Domination win at Warlord level (!) that finished in 1937 (Rome, Continents, in case you're wondering). I've won a few games on Prince by the 1970's and haven't come close to displacing it.

Of those, in my experience, time is the biggest factor. Even more than difficulty level. With population and land area running close behind.

My best score is STILL a Domination win at Warlord level (!) that finished in 1937 (Rome, Continents, in case you're wondering). I've won a few games on Prince by the 1970's and haven't come close to displacing it.

same for me (except a game where i did a pale copy of hendrickzoon's GoTM2, thanks again :) ), best win is a chieftain domination (in the 1800's) for somewhat more than 50 000 points.

Thanks for the tips guys. I'm thinking less along the lines of trying to maximize my score after a victory like space race or domination and more along the lines of trying to win a time victory.

I've found myself in a few situations where I'm only a few points behind the leader but he's on the verge of completing his last few spaceships parts and winning the game. I've gone to war with him to try and delay his production until the turns run out (I know it's a cheesy way of winning but any win is a good win isn't it?) The only flaw in this strategy is I'm not entirely sure what I can do to maximize my score in a short time span, say 15 - 30 turns. Boosting my population is an interesting idea in that I could simply scrap alot of my cottages in favor of farms and gear my cities towards growth. However, if what Hans says is true I would be stunting my technology growth and my score would suffer as a consequence. At this point in the game, the fact that I may fall behind in the tech race isn't really relevant as there aren't many techs to research anyway and I'm going for a time victory.
What about my military? If I just cranked out a ton of units to improve my power score would that have an affect on my game score? Any ideas would be appreciated...

...Boosting my population is an interesting idea in that I could simply scrap alot of my cottages in favor of farms and gear my cities towards growth. However, if what Hans says is true I would be stunting my technology growth and my score would suffer as a consequence. At this point in the game, the fact that I may fall behind in the tech race isn't really relevant as there aren't many techs to research anyway and I'm going for a time victory.
What about my military? If I just cranked out a ton of units to improve my power score would that have an affect on my game score? Any ideas would be appreciated...

Population is the single biggest contributor to your in-game score. Territory is the next biggest, followed by techs, and then wonders. Military power has no bearing whatsoever. Growing your population and territory is definitely the quickest way to increase your score. Just remember, there is somewhere around a 10 turn lag between when your territory expands and when you get to count the new territory in your score. As such, at the end of the game, to build up your score, start working those farms. Nothing else will matter as much most of the time..