adwcta
King
Yeah I've done fairly well with them. Don't get me wrong, they're not top tier, but I don't think they're bottom any more. It's mainly about not going ott on cities or moai. Bear in mind that you don't need to work all your moai, and that going wide you can spend a few rubbish tiles which you wouldn't work anyway to get one or two good ones. You don't need to moai every single tile, and should still improve the lux''s and farm the wheat etc. ICS is dead for everyone from science, but wide is not; the science penalty is not that strong if you stay reasonable, and culture policies get a much bigger boost from Polynesia (relative to other wide civs) than they used to. When I've played, I've taken liberty (sometimes with tradition opener for borders), then mixed aesthetics with rationalism (which Polynesia does need).
Tbh, I haven't really found the need to get landmarks, as moai do a good job anyway, so the few that I did get out really benefitted from being super fast as they were being snapped up, so I focused on depriving the culture leader from what they had yet to get.
Lastly, you don't need to crazy on the moai super early; I spammed them near the end when I had lots of pop and was getting culture, but for the majority of the game they were just in the prime spots.
Interesting, I think starting at 5 pop, I sent my pop to work the prime Moais. Too early? I guess I mismanaged. Did liberty + aesthetics 1 policy + exploration + rationalism opener + patronage 2 policies. Have you played Brazil? I think on non-island maps, I would always prefer Brazil/France to Polynesia, since they both get +culture tiles (Brazil gets +3 w/ religion, +2 otherwise; France gets +3; Polynesia gets +3 for most, with a couple +4s/+5s), but Brazil also has a GA boost, which you can get going fairly consistently in the end-game, France has a theming bonus. With Polynesia, I couldn't get any wonders, so another civ did, so there ended up being two huge runaway culture civs that I couldn't overcome (I did the math, it wouldn't have worked even if I could faith-buy GMs).
If someone else seconds your experience with Polynesia, I may move both Brazil and Polynesia up. At their core, Brazil/France/Polynesia's path to culture/diplo victory are very similar. Polynesia just seems to be outclassed by the other two (Brazil's jungle start also lets it have a viable science-backup).