Tien Chi, Spring & Autumn or R'yleh Astral strats?

[Ironhawk]

Stellar Focus is not really an effective research goal as it only yields 5 pearls/turn. Not bad, of course, but not worth spending 10-20 turns of research in order to get.

Also, expanding "a bit" is not good in MP. If you only expand a little and your neighbor expands at 2-3/provs per turn... then you will very quickly begin to look like an appetizer for them. With rare exceptions you should expand as much and as fast as you can.