Here we go:

There is two things, that I didn't get from other's best plays (komodowaran, saxogrammaticus):

1. How could you collect 7 stars to reach 6th era? I had no variants and launched at Mars as a French;

2. As you did so, why took Japanese, but not Australians to build lunar and mars expeditions more quickly? 

Terracote spacerace.ctr

1. One must budget and/or reload to manage 7 stars per era. I have had the most trouble with the Early Modern and Industrial stars, so I learned to set aside a few guaranteed ones.

2. Science is a scarcer resource than production. In other words: it is pretty much a race to Rocket Science. 

saxogrammaticus wrote:

1. One must budget and/or reload to manage 7 stars per era. I have had the most trouble with the Early Modern and Industrial stars, so I learned to set aside a few guaranteed ones.

2. Science is a scarcer resource than production. In other words: it is pretty much a race to Rocket Science. 

Thank you :) 

1. I see, that I'm not very good in era star mechanic. Surely, I understand that you can delay some stars, for example, by not joining outposts for a while, but I spent all such resources reaching Industrial era, and already had nothing left in my pockets to reach modern.

2. That's the thing I can't understand :) Last science districts I biult was korean sovons on turn something like 22-23. It was enough to make over 3000 science per turn, so after that I started preparing my production: 2 projects of 5000 and 10000 production it's quite a lot, so if you won't prepare, all your science success will turn into nothing. Of course, I could continue raising science and open Rocket Science earlier that turn 35, but where then I would take 15000 production from cities giving 100-130 production per turn? So how could you make any sense by taking scientific culture in 6-TH era, when rocket science already should be somewhere near, I don't really know :)

With runs in the 40s, I think you can see those last big optimizations are a general challenge. Personally, I don't think a French launch can compete with a sprint to the Japanese. The French into Japanese legacy trait combo puts Rocket Science into reach very early. Expansionist stars are certainly a big resource in clearing the later eras. I can only speak for myself, but I think you probably need more industry in that case. To give you a sense, on my last turn as the French, my 11 cities had 150-240 industry each adding up to a little over 2k. The Robotics Lab is a dream in this scenario, and you can probably get away with dedicating your last couple cities almost entirely to industry.

On my run, I went with australian for the reason you stated, because I already had researched the rocket science with the french, so going Australian was a better choice for me at this moment. But I am struggling with getting to modern before turn 35.