I have a game going @470AD where I'm headed to a 690AD finish (if I either get Fission or trade for it through the Big Picture). That's because my Palace has 22 turns left on it, even though I am researching Flight in 5 turns (golden age just ended, or I would have been able to 4-turn Flight) and just have Mass Prod and MT left, so 13 turns of research left. I am building the Palace in the Colossus / Cope / Newton science city, and I did build a Factory but didn't squeeze in a Coal Plant because I didn't have enough gold to rush it (I have been running deficit to get to 4 turns on a lot of techs). I thought after the Golden Age it would still have about the right amount of shields to finish on time but I was way off.
I have Hoover Dam finishing in 14 turns in one city that has been building some other wonder for a while, and that might cut 1-2 turns off of the Palace, which would bring me to either a 680 or 670 finish. If I am producing 31 shields (2 wasted, 29 produced), how does the Hoover Dam boost that? I've never quite understood the Factory / Power Plant calculation. Is it just 31 * 0.5 as a boost? If I go from 31 to 45 with 4 wasted, that's 41 shields per turn and it would be a 2-turn reduction to 670 AD.
Those things turn out to be a big deal. Here's the Small Warlord chart:
It is possible that with production inefficiency rounding (I might be at 21.2 turns) I might be closer and therefore the extra shields will get me to 660 AD. I am at work and can't check CivAssistII, so I'm not sure.
BUT, I have 3 techs left to get an SGL, which I could use to rush the UN the turn after I hit the Modern Age, i.e., 610 AD. I have a 14% chance of that. I am 100% counting on either pulling Fission or being able to trade for it on the Big Picture, I didn't save ToE for Fission as a tech.
This game is 25 turns faster than my 880 AD game because although I didn't pop a settler, I did hit an SGL with Horseback Riding and had the Pyramids built in the 2000's BC. That makes the biggest difference by far. I didn't wait to pop huts until I met other civs (2 of them took a long time to find, including the Byz with Alphabet).
But its still really bad that I messed up the Palace build on what otherwise would be a 600 AD / very solid 3rd place finish. I mean,
@Lord Emsworth and
@PrinceMyshkin are no slouches - so being around their finishes is pretty good in its own right, but can't help but to be frustrated with myself on the own goal here.