Was recently in a space race against the clock and the AI. I was able to finish right at 2049 AD using some obvious, and some not so obvious tricks.
Resources: Find and mine specific SS resources, such as aluminum, speeds up the production of the various components. By this point you should already have all your tiles developed by workers. However, in an extremely close race, you can sacrifice growth to increase production by using multiple workers to rush workshops on squares that would normally be producing food (you can create a workshop in a single turn with multiple workers). Also use engineer specialists and when in doubt, turn on 'emphasize production'.
Civics: Universal sufferage (duh) and Bureaucracy - Your capital receives +50% hammers. Other than that choose civics that keep your population happy, because a happy population is a productive population.
Trade: Try to be at peace with all other civs. Wartime unhappiness decreases productivity, as does having to produce units. If you have not already done so, create as many resource trades as possible for luxury, especially with weaker civs, to increase your happiness. If possible, instigate war between the other civs.
Other Buildings: You cannot spend gold to rush spaceship components, but gold is still very useful so once you have all/most of the needed techs, switch to 80+% tax. Use gold to rush the space elevator, as well as laboratories, and the three gorges dam and any other useful related wonders (ironworks, factories etc) to increase production. If you are using bureaucracy, you can switch your capital to another city by rushing a palace in that city and then switching back to the SS component, giving an extra production boost there.
Other cities: When it gets down to the wire, it is not worth building universities and banks if you won't have a chance to reap their benefit. Instead, just produce research or wealth (as needed) if they are not building the ship. Have these non SS cities emphasize research at the price of production and growth until you have discovered all the necessary techs.
Golden age: If you produce any great people in the later parts of the game, save them - in particular, great prophets, great artists or great merchants which aren't especially useful. Great scientists can help contribute to SS research, but only partially (about 33% of one tech) Instead, have them sleep until you are ready to start the space race and then start a golden age to ramp up production.
Resources: Find and mine specific SS resources, such as aluminum, speeds up the production of the various components. By this point you should already have all your tiles developed by workers. However, in an extremely close race, you can sacrifice growth to increase production by using multiple workers to rush workshops on squares that would normally be producing food (you can create a workshop in a single turn with multiple workers). Also use engineer specialists and when in doubt, turn on 'emphasize production'.
Civics: Universal sufferage (duh) and Bureaucracy - Your capital receives +50% hammers. Other than that choose civics that keep your population happy, because a happy population is a productive population.
Trade: Try to be at peace with all other civs. Wartime unhappiness decreases productivity, as does having to produce units. If you have not already done so, create as many resource trades as possible for luxury, especially with weaker civs, to increase your happiness. If possible, instigate war between the other civs.
Other Buildings: You cannot spend gold to rush spaceship components, but gold is still very useful so once you have all/most of the needed techs, switch to 80+% tax. Use gold to rush the space elevator, as well as laboratories, and the three gorges dam and any other useful related wonders (ironworks, factories etc) to increase production. If you are using bureaucracy, you can switch your capital to another city by rushing a palace in that city and then switching back to the SS component, giving an extra production boost there.
Other cities: When it gets down to the wire, it is not worth building universities and banks if you won't have a chance to reap their benefit. Instead, just produce research or wealth (as needed) if they are not building the ship. Have these non SS cities emphasize research at the price of production and growth until you have discovered all the necessary techs.
Golden age: If you produce any great people in the later parts of the game, save them - in particular, great prophets, great artists or great merchants which aren't especially useful. Great scientists can help contribute to SS research, but only partially (about 33% of one tech) Instead, have them sleep until you are ready to start the space race and then start a golden age to ramp up production.
