I switched to fishing, since that would give me foreign trade routes.
No surprise I had issues with gold even if it was in the first ring.
As I feared... HC had four dyes so using a spy to sabotage the resource was not an option. Just before DoW it also showed Feudalism at ~8 turns. Well, I was committed anyway.
The border city was very lightly defended and Cusco kept building MoM. I made another mistake by forgetting a spy on the horse -- initially I planned to sabotage it, but with the metal trade I should have rerouted it upwards earlier.
With the spare spy, I figured I could try a two-turn attack since I needed both the shrine and to remove cultural pressure.
Well, the first turn went passably, and then I figured the spare spie was one tile short from making to the city. So I dragged every HA I could, while defenders healed and I threw all of the injured guys on that stupid city. Pretty much like typical Red Army tactics in Stalin's time.
Luckily this worked
signed peace treaty for metal casting -- cheap forges are nice. HC never made to the longbows, but might peace vassal to Jao.
So in the end -- have a good chunk of land, mids, the shrine at +22, metal casting for trades, and some espionage points to steal more things from HC. As long as diplomacy works (which I never paid attention to), this should be winnable. Well, the shrine covers immediate expenses and Mids + land should pull through eventually.
I think there is marble for trade too.