Fantastic game! So clearly the Big Ben strategy can work as well.
What kind of use did you get from India's uniques and abilities, if any?
Btw. I see you post the final save before the launch. I think the idea is to win the game, then at victory screen click one more turn and save the game for upload. It doesn't matter for your victory date here, as you launch on the same turn with Korolev, but if they ever get an automated submission system up it probably wouldn't recognize this as a victory. And it does make a difference to victory date if the last production is completed between turns.
I used 2 stepwells to increase housing in my spaceport city.^^
Thank you for the information, did not know that!
I downloaded your save for reference, how early did you build colloseum? I saw forbidden city, big ben and the colloseum, any other wonders you built? So most of the game you built settlers (16?), early military, builders and districts?
Which districts did you prioritize? (Aside from campus) Was it industrial first then corresponding prod buildings then campuses? How early and in how many cities did you build campus research projects?
I played a re-do and I'm at turn 170 or so, yet 4-5 techs away from space port, I may shave of 100 turns from my last submission, yet maybe finish turn 250 or so. I did establish religion and mostly conquered my neighbors, I founded only 6-8 cities on my own, and that's after turn 125.
I usually build colloseum with the 215 GE. Turn depends on wether im suzerain of Stockholm and how many cities i settle, slowing down IZ. Sometimes you have to wait to get the best city for the ED to pop 4 or 7. Usually i get it at ~t120. I don´t think the Forbidden City is mandatory or even important, but i find the 480 GE to be quite suiting to rush it, especially if Ruhr Valley is finished. The extra policy slot comes in handy for gold cards.
I usually get Big Ben, Ruhr Valley and Colloseum when going for SV, Pyramids are great as well but you should not overcommit trying to get them, the AI likes it a lot.
I will get one early settler, 2 early builders for apprenticeship and craftsmanship heurekas and 1-2 slingers if barbarians are aggressive. I then start pumping archers/horsemen/UU(Legionaire) with the respective policy card. I always start with a scout, so by turn 40-50 when the first horsemen are coming out i already know how much conquering i want, where i want to do it and how many units i will need. Then i swap in the settler policy and start builiding settlers. In conquered cities, if production is good, i also build settlers. Often you will capture a builder so you can chop your last 2-3 settlers, i like using their charges on stone if available.
In the capital and the first expansion city I start a CD, in the other cities i start building a worker and swap to IZ once it is researched. Grainary for cities without access to fresh water. I will always work one turn on new districts at pop 4 and 7 to minimize production costs, but the finishing orders are: IZ, CD, campi. I like getting aquaducts if the city is in a great spot and does not have fresh water. I may deviate from this if there are +4 or +5 adjecency spots for early campi.
Some turns before Feudalism i will proceed building the worker in almost every city with the 30% policy and stop it when 1 turn is left for completion. Then i swap in the +2 charges policy and finish the workers in the cities with the worst production first. I will only get few workers afterwards and i mainly use them to chop or to improve the spaceport city.
For traders, i like to buy the first one to help with settlers and getting the boost for currency. Then i just build them in cities without anything else to build at the moment and good production.
I start projects iny every city after i have markets, bank, libraries, university and full IZ. This gets interrupted to build stock exchanges once they are available, but only if it does not need more than 3-4 turns to finish the stock exchange.
In my last game i was really lucky finding 2 scouts in huts and therefore be able to actually scout the map properly. I found Toronto first, directly next to my capital and Stockholm just in time, before the mass of IZ were finished. Hongkong was the last citystate, i discovered it in turn 141, almost perfect timing.

No Geneva, but i always felt Geneva is not as important as science is hardly a bottleneck.