Happy New Year!
I am testing Earth globalism II - 2020 Beta1.04.biq map.
I ran into an interesting thing while starting a test game with a civilization that started with not very good positions.
Iran does not start the game in the best position, because most of its territory is mountainous and hilly terrain, its major cities were reduced until about the third round, EGMII Beta1 Despite the .04 food reform. However, after the elimination of pollution, the decrease in the population stopped, the production of shields became outstanding, Tehran was able to build small wonders in one per turn, such as the Particle Accelerator, the International Space Station, and bigger miracles such as the Prada Aoyama. Either I need to lower the shield production of the mines or raise the cost of wonders higher.
On the victory point screen, Iran has overtaken the United States, which is surprising, considering that the United States is much larger than Iran, the USA starts with a technical advantage.
I also have to look at the USA to see how the EGMII beta 1.04 patch works there.
In the meantime, however, it is important that the small countries remain in a good position and do not become the target of an attack. I still need to balance the civilizations. Fortunately, the smaller civilizations were not attacked by the larger ones even in 2 years.

If you see someone else, please let me know.