What did happen at T187? Remember this pic from earlier?
See that island off in the North East? I settled a city there and then moved my capital to that city. That made all of my 'mainland' cities colonies and led to a jump in the expenses.
The Cathage war wraps up at about T202-ish while the Japanese war drags on. You can also see that I have started my last war against Justinian I. Expenses still increasing (left axis), city counts rising (right angle) and I have added cities have been 'converted' to Mining Inc (blue line, right axis).
And here is the same graph that finishes off the AIs, shows me maxing out my city count at 97 at about T245 and converting the last city to Mining Inc at about T269 or T270.
The eagle-eyed reader would have also noticed that the expense curve has mysteriously stopped at about T220.
Ruff: What is happening with the expenses?
Arthur: The suspense is killing me!
"Stress and nervous tension are now serious social problems in all parts of the Galaxy, and it is in order that this situation should not be in any way exacerbated that the following facts will now be revealed in advance."
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
HA! No they won't ... nothing will be revealed in advance. The point of this section of the report is to raise tension.