Hey people,
I was not playing for awhile, but finally came back.
The first map that I decided was good to shed my rust on just produced a record

The slot : {Duel, Noble, Space Colony}
The Record : 1200AD on FLAT Terra with Pacal. That's a 24 turn shave off the current record (was mine 2).
Some fresh thoughts :
I planned on a fast worker start and wanted to settle on at least 2 hammers to produce the worker with my Maya advantage, but found a start that was too good to miss. Without the hammers.
I NEED marble and bronze working to even consider the game -
The conquest of Ghandi was before turn 10, and was immediately followed by Bronze working.
Also, both my capital and Delhi were on a good place.
Marble was far but manaegable.
The rest of my continent was not so good, and would eventually host only 8 cities, some not so great.
That was a bad sign. But then I also got sailing and thought... I can do this anyway.
I was very minimalistic with cities - building the first 4 to completely beeline to 4 universities and Oxford.
I did create a settler to start a 5th city (which will become Ironworks) because I felt it had a good location and 4 is too small..
Academy was built at turn 163.
Oxford was built at turn 223, without stone, which was in America...
I regret not building the great lighthouse, but felt there was always something more important.
Soon after, I expanded to 8 cities and went to explore America.
There, I DID find Astronomy

, which is one of my major hopes in random events.
First and most important mistake of this game was my rusty mind deciding to start the first GA right after banking.
Yes, I need to go to mercantilism and Hereditery and Serfdom.
But I should have waited a few more turns to be able to end the GA with Constitution (to switch to Representation at the end)
Sometimes Mansa will have philosophy on a plate for me to shorten the way, but not this time.
Plus, I didn't have enough cities and size to reach it in time.
So I was in mercantilism without representation for around 80 turns.
Happiness wasn't an issue this game, but every specialist did NOT produce 3 bulbs for a long time
My second and most important bet for the entire game is getting an Engineer for Mining Co.
I have a "national" city which produces 2 GP after the academy scientist and before Mining Co.
Each has about a 50% chance to be engineer.
The best possible option happened:
My first was a priest (wanted engineer, but now started dealing with religious money early

).
My second one was an engineer. Yey!!
Moreover, the third was a scientist to place the second academy in the national city.
The rest of the game was quite smooth, with only 6 off-continent cities.
All in all : 14 cities, 20 workers.
Mining (11 resources) and Sushi (13) were set up as planned.
In fact, I don't remember any executive failing to expand his corp.
Superconductors is my "bell" to start a double GA and end the game.
I was short of a few turns, and also had a huge mistake -
I switched a city from SS Casting to something else to test the SS Casting production of another city.
I forgot to return it to SS Casting.... by the time I found out I could either lose around 5 turns in the game, or not produce one SS Casting and take my chances...
I took my chances.
Held tight as the last GA ended too early, and sent the space ship with 80% chance of arriving :O
It arrived!!!
Loved the round numbers... sent the ship at 1050 AD , reached 1200 AD.
I can do better - there are much better maps, and I can improve. Please let me!
Oh, yes, SARS-2-Covid19-Corona!!!!
I don't have it... yet!