Well, I got my sub 200 science victory, even though I made a complete dog's dinner from the end game. T195 victory in the end.
To pick up the narrative from the opening actions thread, I did not continue my war against Germany after I met Sweden. I wanted a friendship deal with them (which I got, in part thanks to liberating some settlers from barb camps), so I made peace after farming a single general from Munich. I entered Renaissance at astronomy, in order to build (buy, actually) an observatory in the cap, and to discover Ireland, in order to get the world congress started. I entered Renaissance just to coincide with a social policy, and I also completed Oracle to get secularism straight away.
For the congress, I did propose World's Fair. I know sciences funding might be the optimal play, but I thought perhaps it would only net me one more scientist, so I did not bother, and in the end I needed the WF, but more of that later. From the Leaning Tower I picked an engineer, which perhaps also is not optimal, but I wanted to engineer Big Ben (it would have taken 16 turns in the capital, perhaps closer to 10 by working all mines), and I feel that really gave my game a boost. I was able to purchase many factories and public schools (I also made sure to have Mercantilism), so my production and science were really good. I was also really pleased with the growth of my cities, despite not having swords into plowshares. At the end of the game, I had 12 cities with a total of 278 population, and a peak science of 2900.
For ideology, I went Freedom because I anticipated having lots of gold (and constructing/engineering space ship parts is slightly trickier), and also I wanted the specialist food to grow my cities more. The factory policy in Order is strong, but since I would be buying a lot of factories, it would be a little less useful here.
The end game though. Despite the fact that I did not rush to finish this game this morning before work, but instead played it out quietly in the evening, I rarely conducted such a late-game horror show. To start with, I checked my faith per turn, and concluded I would just be a few turns short of purchasing the 2500 scientist, so I made the decision to engineer Hubble instead, and let the cap build Apollo (build times for Hubble seemed a little too long at 10 turns in the cap). Then I realized I could not actually buy an engineer with faith because I had not finished Tradition! Since I go Tradition 99% of my games, this had never occurred to me. Not to fear though! Since I still had the World's Fair effects and I had three unused writers, I could just about bulb to complete Tradition.
Next, I found out I had not actually finished Freedom yet, so I used my faith-purchased engineer to build Sydney Opera House instead, and let my capital build Globe in the meantime (4 turns). Then, when everything finally looked in place after finishing Freedom, I found that I only had a single aluminium left. I could have sold some hydro plants, of course, but I am always loathe to sell buildings in the cities I have lovingly built over the course of the game. Instead I bought some recycling centers, and had to sell the foreign legion infantries (that I had stupidly upgraded a turn before), but not before using them to demand tribute from at least one CS.
I can't say how many turns these trials and tribulations slowed down my finish turn, but suffice to say it could have been a lot better.
Jesuit reformer believe did help though. I got science funding through because of sweden and denmark wich i bribed to to vote for that
