This is why I think Science Victory is interesting for speed runs. Domination, Religion and Culture victories obviously benefit from specific settings (like only one opponent or a tiny map), but science could be approached in many ways...
- What leader should one play? There's a few of them that are obvious choices, but I wouldn't be surprised to see someone nail it with a leader I hadn't considered before.
- What AI opponents and how many should you choose? Taking over cities really helps for a SV and trading is always a part in my games. Therefore I wouldn't have too little AI, too many and they take all your suzerainties and early expansion land. What is the optimum? I couldn't really say yet. During the Peter game I realized that it probably would have been better to get more science and gold focused AI as opponents. (I chose mostly faith focused ones). To get more trade routes and campuses, and to be able to pillage more science in the mid game to get to one science per turn earlier.
- How many and which city states is an interesting one as well. I think as many as possible and all of the science ones is an obvious choice. You need a bit of a mix though, some give very good extra culture and as most of us know by now: culture (especially in the early game) is key for a fast SV. So which CS you pick is an interesting choice to make. This game I realized I should have scouted more (maybe six or something?), some of the good ones I found too late and were harder to suzerain because some AI had invested in them already.
- Disaster intensity I leave at 2, you want the yields, but not the broken districts... Maybe 0 would be better since you rely on yields less in a speed run?
- Which map type is interesting as well. Depends heavily on your strat. For Peter you want much land and tundra. I tried inland sea first, but after a few rerolls I noticed I somehow got too little woods (even with rainfall on wet) every time, where I was expecting dense tundra forest. (I just checked my screenshot above and see that I posted the settings screenshot using inland sea by mistake), I used Lakes (large one) eventually and that seems to work well.
- Map size standard or large will both work fine I think. Huge might be useful for some strats?
- Resources abundant and start location legendary I think are the obvious choices. In longer games I sometimes find the abundant resources to be in the way of district placement, so that might be a reason not to do that. Legendary start can really help for a kickstart (especially with a natural wonder e.g.). It's cheesy, but that's what we're discussing here.

- Selecting the right natural wonders for your strat can help, but likely you won't make much use of them. So matters less I think.
- Extra hills and mountains can be useful sometimes (new world age), but they also really slow you down, so I typically leave the world age on standard.
- A cold temperature is good for Peter, other strats might like it hot or standard.
- Rainfall should be wet in most strats I think, extra chops are very important.
- Sea level can be important. For Peter I wanted more land, so a low sea level.
- All the NFP modes can help a lot for faster wins, I think:
- Apocalypse NO
- Barbarians YES
- Dramatic ages NO
- Heroes YES
- Monopolies YES
- Societies YES
- Tech and civic shuffle NO (but you could get lucky..., most are harder to get properly boosted imo than the regular one)
- Zombies HELL NO
What do you think?
I agree to most of what you are saying here, but there are so many variables, it really is not easy to wrap your head around it.
-What AI and the number of AI: If you have only one, you will get all suz of all CSs, free choice of religion and all the space and Great People you want. But you will suffer for lack of gold and cities to conquer. Best AIs should be ones that builds the districts you want to steal or someone that pays for dipo favour (If any still do).
-CSs I think you just max out with science, culture, and fill inn with the best of the others. The alternative would be a small map with few CSs to ensure some kind of combo. Volcanic map with Rapa Nui, Kandy maybe?
-Disaster level I agree with your assessment
-Map type and size needs to be tweaked to the strat. I dont think there is a one best setup. But Large map gives a lots of CSs and space.
-Resources I agree on. The only thing I wondered was if you had a small map, could it be worth it to have few resources to get many monopolies? It is probably not good, but worth a think.
-Natural wonders I agree.
-Game modes:
-Apocalypse? Would it work with the great bath cheesing?
-Barbarians ? Not sure if we want this. It seems to lessen the number of barbarian camps, and we want to clear one to get the Vampire.
-Dramatic Ages ? I think yes, but never played a game with it before. How hard is it to get golden ages connected? If that is easy at least it seems good to have extra movement on settlers and the +4 culture per wonder would be good for China.
-Heroes: Yes
-Monopolies: Yes, although at first glance I can see that much benefit from it. It will be coming to late to matter much?
-Societies: Yes- Vampires seems good. All the other seems to come to late?
-Tech and zombies: No
Then the fun part! What civs and strats? Some ideas:
Babylon and Norway- games will still be the fastest, but boring.
China - Only one oponent, and expand peacefully with all CSs in a Large map. Religion of choice, 19 wonders to boost. And maybe the +4 culture per wonder card in Dramatic ages?
Teddy- With the boost of a early vapmpire castle, and Granada should be fast.
Pericles- One of few leaders with a unique ability that directly benefits from the 20+CSs in his 5% culture bonus.
Hungary- Combined with Himiko could suz many CSs and probably do a good war game. You will have plenty of envoys after a while!
Alexander- One of the civs that I want to work, but am very unsure if it can work. With the right setup he can get all the boosts and will require less science than anyone except Babylon. Can also produce instant science, although it is highly questionable how well that can work.
Gaul- On the highland map they will get 1000 culture bombs, and have access to tons of chops.
Ethiopia- Should generate tons of faith on a highland map, although I think Voidsingers will come in to late for this to work...
Aztec- Again another civ that could try something different. Small map, war on everyone and get all monopolies? I have no idea if this is viable, but would be fun to try.
Maybe also some CS combos can work?
What we need to answer is what civ will benefit the most from our freedom to tweek settings? And that might be narrowed down to what civ benefits the most from having 20+ CSs, endless space to expand, the terrain of our choice and the boosts from heroes/Societies?
All in all very many things to consider and try out! =)