diff --git a/.project/objectives/p1-22a-huge-map-ai-quality.md b/.project/objectives/p1-22a-huge-map-ai-quality.md
index 1e79b0a5..6b413eb4 100644
--- a/.project/objectives/p1-22a-huge-map-ai-quality.md
+++ b/.project/objectives/p1-22a-huge-map-ai-quality.md
@@ -132,6 +132,25 @@ improvement on top of that.
   `mc-ai/src/tactical/movement.rs:631-637` cascading into all-clan
   defensive turtling? Evidence at
   `.local/iter/20260516_191254/huge-map-5clan/`.
+
+  **2026-05-16 cycle 2**: tested hypothesis (iii) — scoped `sole_city_threatened`
+  to the actual trailing AI via new `compute_is_trailing(state, me)` in
+  `mc-ai/src/tactical/movement.rs` (commit `15d89171b`). Definition:
+  "at least one rival multi-city AND no rival has strictly less total pop
+  than me". `cargo test -p mc-ai --lib` 261/261 green. Re-ran huge-map batch
+  `20260516_195309`: **still 0/10 victories, all 5 players still
+  tier_peak=1**, including the territorial leader P0 with 3+ cities. The
+  retreat-suppression scope was *not* the root cause — the leader never
+  sees `sole_city_threatened`, yet still fails to research past tier 1. The
+  failure is deeper than the trailing-AI turtling hypothesis. Next iterator
+  should bisect: (i) revert p1-29d entirely and re-run baseline huge-map to
+  confirm pre-p1-29d 4/10 still holds; (ii) check whether `services:up`
+  failure (mcts-server binary not built in release mode on apricot) is
+  dropping all 5 AIs to the CPU fallback path and that's what's stalling
+  research; (iii) inspect the `SituationalContext::tech_below_median` uplift
+  in `policy.rs` — when 4 of 5 players are below median, it may be
+  over-firing and skewing every clan toward defensive Defend/Settle
+  priorities at the expense of Research.
 - [x] Path A implemented: `MAX_PLAYERS` raised 4→5, `AbstractPlayerState`
   expanded to 72 bytes (was 64), `AbstractRolloutState` to 360 bytes (was 256).
   `force_rel[u16;5]`, `relations[i8;5]`, new padding fields `_pad_fr`/`_pad_rel`.