Science Strategies

[BaneFire]

I've found that the science UHVs are often the hardest for me to get. Whether it's the Chinese getting beat to Compass by a runaway Byzantium, the Japanese dealing with Britain two eras ahead, or even the English struggling to grab Logistics against France and the Netherlands, science is often my hardest thing.
For some UHVs you can simply kill anyone who threatens you - as Germany you can easily coast to 8 first global techs simply by invading Britain. England can complete the Hundred Year's War, and even Japan can do some colonising San Francisco and invading England shenanigans.
But that isn't always possible. So what are your guys strats for doing well in science?

Some thoughts:
* Whipping out key infrastructure to get you going earlier than with monarchy
* Spreading Judaism+Protestantism or Hinduism/Buddhism to get additional monasteries
* Running scientist specialists

And what are people's thoughts on great people? Always bulb? Strategically bulb? Academy or settle?
One tip I have is as Arabia if you get House of Wisdom and bulb two great scientists after you've got civil service and feudalism, you can get something like 4 or 5 techs which rapidly catapults you to the forefront of the science game.

I'll be the first to admit I'm abysmal at using spies to get techs.

And finally thoughts on trading? I've noticed as England you can try go for techs that other Europeans don't normally research like Alchemy, Paper and Doctrine. As Japan you obviously want to send caravels far-flung to get your tech bonus.

 

[Xfactor]

Depends on which difficulty you are trying, as science gets harder and harder on higher ones.

But you got one thing correct - whipping buildings in the first turns is always a plus for me, gets you going way easier with cities which grow really fast.

Its always good , even though i dont do it in every game, to focus your espionage, even with 0% on the slider, towards some civ which you know that will explode with techs. For example - England, France, HRE, USA, Brazil etc. Even one stolen tech is always good than none, and training a few spies isnt that big of a deal , you need them for espionage anyways . Another great thing about spies is gold stealing. I know that the more gold a civ has the more espionage points it wants for the steal , but still you can time it pretty well and if you are struggling with 40-50% on science , you can boost it for a few turns to 100% with some stolen cash.

As for bulbing - its situational. If you actually see that you are behind on techs and you are chasing a tech goal , its obvious you are fishing for that specialist which can bulb this tech in order to get the UHV. You can't steal it , and you are already behind, so thats your option.

Great scientists - most of the time just build an academy with them in big cities for games which take a long time and have a tech goal - USA , Japan, England