Yes thank you, very interesting read. Although see below.
I see. I start losing steam at telecommunications/combined arms techs if I start bulbing right at 8 turns after plastics, as the bulb value isn't quite as high with fewer cities (which I'll address below). I'll fire up an end game and practice correct bulbing. Do you usually have ~12-13 gs for post lab bulbing? So roughly 1 gs for 2 first column atomic era techs then 1 gs + overflow for remaining techs?
Edit: Nevermind, I'm reading your Poland Polymath report. Looks like you use 8 post plastic bulbs, getting around 20 techs with the bulb and overflow. That higher city count is doing work.
I agree that more cities are optimal. However, the way it actually plays out is dependent on map size and difficulty. I usually play standard size map, pangea or great plains, with deity level ai, and CFC HOF rules (except for reloading). Not a whole lot of room for expansion on standard maps, plus the deity ai taking a lot of land for themselves early on. I don't typically play wide (because I'm absolute trash at it), so I'm not saying that 10-12 peacefully founded cities can't be done on standard size map, I just can't personally do it. I can run out to 6, maybe 7 cities if there's good terrain and enough luxuries, but I like to spread my cities out a bit to give them enough room to grow, so I run out of space for more cities pretty fast. On huge maps it's definitely easier to settle that many cities because of the larger area to work with and more viable city locations (because each city has to pull its weight science wise to be worth founding).
Porcelain tower can be tricky on higher difficulties as well. I've had deity games where the ai builds it in turns 150s-160s, and other games where they never build it. I've lost it enough times to not take that risk anymore, building it soon after it's available. It's annoying because the game won't show that the ai's have taken the rationalism opener, so it's hard to judge if it's safe to put off building it. Building pt early can delay the last gs by 4-8 turns depending on number of cities and which gs it displaces.
For an optimized science game, I can see a huge map with 10-12 cities and a lower difficulty ai for less wonder pressure being the way to go. Your reports prove as much. I just haven't been playing that way, been stuck on standard size maps. That will be the next thing I try when I get some time to play again.
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