SimCity DS2 has 3 routes, Asia (Japanese edition has Japan), Europe, and America. But America route takes very time consuming, because this route needs shipyard ($30000), when Europe's middle-age. And modern age, immigration events often occur in America.

I have Japanese edition, so I talk it. In middle-age, Europe can construct school early, but Japan can, after half. And large-park, Europe can construct before clear, but Japan cannot. So Japan is more difficult than Europe, but Japan is earlier than Europe for clear. What?

As far as I am aware the American route doesn't need the shipyard perse, also for the other ages the bonus buildings are optional and take you longer in total because they cost more money so it is possible to skip them. I also discovered that you can save a lot of time by not building the special buildings and presents, but you could technically build them if you want the higher land value. Schools don't seem to be verry important for the speedrun and you will only need 5 schools in the third age because that gives you the quiz at 40%. So in order to get the quiz you need to build at least 5 schools before the 40% as you can see here: https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkxje04uMd58V22eSM0KXaVXM2dehd2Rfkj means that you don't even need to build schools in the second age at all. Even with 0 funding in education you will get the quiz.

You might also be interested in joining our discord. on there we discuss all sorts of things regarding this game and strategies we use. https://discord.gg/jt736W66Pg

Do not fund the schools until 4th Age. Once 4th Age began and you have hit 16 to 18k monthly cash, unlock the funding for schools.

One School or Library can sustain 10,000 population, and can be stacked just like hospitals(since it has no coverage).

To add more information, Since lower Edu level = Less population, try increasing the education level to at least 12 at 400,000 population. This will prevent the city from stagnating once it hit 530k.