Siams Finest Hour! I would like your suggestions for this situation

(Edit: link fix)

In my latest game I have come to an interesting point.
I play as Siam on a continents map. Emperor difficulty - Really Advanced Start Mod, plus some minor graphical mods. Random Personalities and Raging Barbs are turned on.


I started in the NW corner of my continent. It quickly became appearent that I has seriously hemmed in, so I made a second city, then took to the seas. Luckily, I have found some nice islands, and have a nice island empire now.
I share my continent with Monty next to me. He made nothing of his start, and have just his small capital. For some reason no one has taken it from him. Not even worth it I suppose.
To the far east I have the Poles and the Persians. Both are quite strong, and I have good relations with them.
The center of the continent is taken up by the Shoshone, who have three very large cities and is the game leader.

I am strong in culture and adequate in military. I am a close second in tech, with the shoshone in the lead. I am leader in faith, for some reason.

On the other continent I have Shaka, who quickly gobbled up his 2 neighbours (random personalities be damned). He was behind in tech when I met him, but he is quickly catching up, and looks very dangerous down the road.

I planned to attack Shaka early while I had the tech advantage, but the Shoshone denounced me out of the blue, and my spies informed me that he planned an attack. I bribed him to attack the Persians, and he made a phony war while I built up some units. This war is ended now, and I think the Shoshone is wating for me.

The situation:



I need to adopt an ideology now, and I want Freedom for a specialist game. However, the Shoshone's Autocracy is preferred, and I feel Autocracy is a poor choice for me.
So, what to do?

A preemptive strike against the Shoshone is a way to go. His capital is situated in the middle of a great plan, and I have made a science city (to take advantage of the Wats) in the jungle to the NW of that. This jungle is an excellent point to launch an offensive across the plain. His military is bigger than mine, but not by too much, I feel. I have more or less tech parity, and I have Artillery done soon. 5 or 6 artillerys placed in the jungle bombarding the plain sure sounds fun.
But what about Monty? He is guarding my flank right now, but he is so weak that the Shoshonne might bully him into an Open Border agreement. Should I just take him out first?

And what about Shaka? A major war on the other continent is just what he needs. I have made a city on an extremely juicy island (7 tiles, 2 cows, coal, ivory, silver) right off his coast. I can use this as a base for a future attack.

Saves. One of them is right before I choose ideaology, the other is just after. You need the Really advanced start mod to open them.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/18618956/Freedom.Civ5Save
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/18618956/Ramkhamhaeng_0262%20AD-1760.Civ5Save

This seems like it can get very fun! I would like to hear your suggestions.

You need artillery. The Shoshone pose little threat to you, because of Manila. And once THEY get artillery, their Great Wall is done. The Aztecs have some juicy cargo ships which I think would be really great for the plundering (so yes, DoW), but taking their capital isn't worth it diplomatically. You might as well go ahead and DoW the Shoshone, but I would send my guys into Manila and let him come to you. Until you BOTH get artillery. Then I would pour down south from Manila through Aztec territory and bombard Shoshone capital. He'll probably offer Goshute in a peace deal. And watch out for those Comanche Riders before you send down the artillery--his cav need to be dead first.

You can always bribe Zulu to attack Aztec once you leave monty stripped and bare. But I don't think that will be necessary.

Do you have plastics? Get plastics, then artillery. First build research labs. Massacre everyone with artillery/infantry, then build 5 battleships to kill Shaka. After that, get rocketry for rocket artillery, and build some planes to seal everyone's fate. All your cities should've been much larger by now; you should've built farms on every tile next to fresh water. Your research is lagging; even on a mediocre map like this you should've got plastics 25-50 turns ago, but definitely salvageable. Develop infrastructure first; grow all cities by at least 5 pop, replace everything with farms, build labs, THEN get 5 infantry/5 artillery. DO NOT war with shoshone right now - 90 strength cities will gobble your pikemen/lancers/artillery up.

And for future reference - try not to make an island empire unless you REALLY have no choice. In this case I would've taken Monson Kahni and Tenochitlan with x-bows/c-bow, settled only Si Sat. and done a sv.

I like island empires, so I have a tendency to make them even if it is a poor choice strategically.
"The Aztecs! Dangerous. Better take to the seas"