shakee wrote:

Then science yield become practically useless, because the game progress for all other players is tied to the slowest player. And he can do it on purpose.

What you are looking for is basically endless speed, but with faster production and pop growth.

Games that do this, tend to have a more open tech tree. Can be a drafting style. Like, choose one, delay one, discard one. The discarded one is lost forever (or some special ability allows it to show up again).

Yes, I prefer tech trees where you must choose a path. I'm not sure why Amplitude dropped that in this game. There seems to be way fewer techs than expected, and even a whole era missing.

But that's why I'm recommending it as an option, so for MP or people who don't like it, just don't use it. 

As I play solely against AI for my own enjoyment, I would like the option.

If you know what era you want to stay in for a full game, popping into the mod tools and changing the star threshold to 99 is quick and easy. The scientist affinity is a problem as others have mentioned, but I imagine you can just max some tech costs to fix it.