As to your culture razing question, it should be 1.
So, if we get even 1 Culture in the City and then gift it away and then recapture it, we will not be able to raze it?
Keeping Novgorod has nothing to do with cost. It's just that it will take an extra mace garrison and the northern stack barely has enough maces to go conquer the remaining cities as it is. We really can't afford to drop off a mace as military police/garrison there.
Well what I suggested was not garrison the City. I'd rather get a couple of pop-whips out of the City and have the units appear in an area where we will have Galleons leaving every so often anyway, even if the cost is a lost population point on the turn that the City comes out of revolt.
As opposed to previous times where we ran into this immediate unhappiness issue, we're now talking about the difference between razing outright or getting a couple of pop-whips, as opposed to getting more versus less pop-whips.
It's better to raze any cities going forward except for those that we need to serve as canals.
Also except for exceptions like Ragnar's Ivory City, where we could get +1 Happiness out of the deal and also have the City serve another purpose (blocking Ragnar from resettling the area, should we go after Isabella with those same troops before finishing Ragnar's Cities).
As I mentioned, I'd like to use the new troops forming in the core to go after Joao.
That's fine. We have 1 Galleon already which can drop off the Worker on the Horse Resource next turn (it seems that you already have the Galleon in place to do so).
If I am really sneaky, I can use one of the 4 Galleons designated for Vicky to come back and pick up troops for Joao.
We will have 11 troops going towards Vicky, so 2 of them (or less, if some die) could be left at Hasting temporarily (say, to heal) while the remaining 3 Galleons sail on towards London and beyond. Once a Galleon unloads at London, it can pick up the 2 remaining units (or less if some die in taking Hastings), meaning that we won't really need 4 Galleons at Vicky at all.
So, here are some "big issue" points:
1. We will have 11 land units going to Vicky (6 Maces and 5 Trebs). If you think that number won't be enough (she has 5 Cities according to shyuhe's last screenshot), then let me know
2. If that amount of land units will be sufficient to challenge Vicky, then we will already have 2 (empty of units) Galleons available to prepare for a war on Joao. How many land units would we like to aim to have? Let's say either 9 or 12... if you have a preference, let me know, and I'll aim to shuttle units into Galleons based on whichever number that we pick. For example, if we say "9 units," then a City might end up with an extra Treb or Maceman in it that won't be going in during the first wave of attack
3. Are 8 units (4 Maces and 4 Trebs) sufficient to start the initial assault on Isabella? That's the quantity that it looks like I'll be able to launch with on T + 1
4. Are we okay to send 3 Trebs at Isabella as the next full Galleon or should we wait 1 extra turn to make it 2 Trebs and 1 Pike (or even change the Pike to a Maceman)? I prefer to go 1 turn sooner, as I will aim to get another Galleon headed her way soon thereafter, to give us a greater mix of Maces/Pikes relative to Trebs. Having lots of Trebs early on in the war is nice, but eventually we'll lose Maces and with only 4 of them, we could easily find ourselves unable to capture Cities without a 5th Galleon worth of troops going to her.
5. Which Cities are the priority targets in Isabella's empire? The larger-sized ones, like Madrid (her capital, which is on a Hills square) and Barcelona (pretty large-sized with two 6-Food Resources)?
6. We can Open Borders with either of Ragnar or Willem. I'd like to Open them with Ragnar but keep them Closed with Willem, since Willem has 2 Settlers that are just begging to be given a chance to settle somewhere (such as Cathy's ex-Gem-City location)
7. We can bribe Ragnar into a war against Vicky (now or after we declare war for a likely lower price) or Willem. I don't see much value in doing either and I'd like to keep him as dumb as possible, but the option is there if anyone wants to push for it
8. When we do go to war with Willem, I'd like to do it in "one fell swoop," meaning attacking both of his remaining Cities simultaneously. He has an Archer poking around the Moscow area, so I'd rather not give him much of a chance to capture one of Cathy's ex-Cities due to us having spent sufficient time at war with him in the next war for him to be able to threaten one of our Cities
9. If Novgorod keeps its Lighthouse upon capture, I'd like to keep the City, since that would mean one 6-Food square, one 5-Food square, and one 3-Food square all being within the initial 9-square-radius of the City. If the Lighthouse gets razed, then I'll probably only keep it if Cathy hasn't reduced its size between now and then