The cost:benefit tradeoff for universities seems pretty good for city size > 10.
They add 4 culture/turn (highest for any improvement
). Presumably your big cities are near you capital/forb. pal., so corruption shouldn't be too bad. And you hopefully will have income from other civs to pay your basic maintenance. If not, you're likely behind in tech, or else you have squat luxuries. You do have roads everywhere? Try playing the Persians: industrous/scientific is a great combo.
Even when I'm not ahead in tech, I gain the benefits of a tech lead by researching different techs. In the middle ages, I beeline for Economics. This gives me techs that the other civs rarely have, so I can trade with several civs to jockey my way into the lead, and/or gain enough income that I can push my slider to 70-80% tech and still gain money every turn. (On Monarch)
Once you hit the modern era, techs are worth a LOT more than money -- unless you have disabled the spaceship victory. So the tech lead is crucial to the late game.
) I usually rush for Education in middle ages so I can get the University quickly, and the difference between research w/o universities and research w/ universities is quite a big difference (11 turns to 5-6 turns is quite a bit!). The same applies with research labs in the Modern era; Computers -should- be the first thing you research. Otherwise, each tech is going to take about 7+ turns.
