I think too many wonders rely on T74 win vs. T72 or 73.
For example, MoM and now Sistine probably can't be sooner than 74 (that's 21 wonders).
We'd also have a little less land and pop on T72. I have some border pops set for 74 and more cities come out of revolt.
We probably had a good shot at T72 win, but I was told winning before 74 was not worth any effort cus we needed the T73 culture, so everything now is timed for 74. This is probably the price we pay for rushing the final 9 turns.
Heh, definitely my fault.
If I was told T72 victory screen was possible back on T62 when Rome founded its 4th city on a hill, I would have not believed it!
With all the Deity AI with Iron, we faced not a single Spearman the entire game.
A gift from heaven for our horse archer army.
England was pushing to form a colony, the York Longbow could have upgraded to Redcoat at any time, Ottomans could have expanded into the remote south jungle instead of near st. Pete, any AI could have militarily captured a remote barb city since they could have had archers not longbows, France could have settled anywhere on the map due to galleon increasing the Soldiers we needed by 100,000, the colony spy effort was still very experimental (and our strategy linchpin) causing me to build extra spies in 3 core cities etc. etc.
Shoot, T63 Pacal colony would have wrecked our frontline army with 6 Spears that had to be killed by Horse Archers and Chariots.
In short, in my anxiety I started no Wonders until T65, dooming the T72 victory screen.
Sorry!
Later, I said T73 spy points were vital because this competition's point scoring system has already changed rules once, I did not know our dead colonies were really capped at 40 points, we still would not have known we are under 100 military points if
Bbp had not said something, and I still don't know if Palace counts as 4 points.
I fear the things we might have missed.
Or we are counting points the judges won't count.
In short, I want to win by a fair amount more than 420 points!
Trying to have won T72 with 421 points is like picking up pennies on the train tracks in my opinion.