ElephantU, as usual your map analysis is impressive. I would like to add a few more observations.
Land mass is small. Even though Land form is varied, chances are good that the world is made up of midsize islands. The smaller the islands, the less capable is the AI to play well. This game being at the King level makes this observation on the AI even more pronounced.
I too have once played an OCC where I started on a tiny island. I had 3 plains, 1 forest, and the rest were ocean. The only special was a whale. My first attempt failed miserably. My second attempt was better but I still could not land a space ship before time ran out. I succeeded on my third attempt, but the space ship arrived in 2017. All were at the emperor level. The situation in GOTM43 is arguably worse despite the fact that we are at the king level and have 5 starting techs (I did not have any in the aforementioned game because the AI was starting on an identical island). First of all, there are no specials and early in the game that is devastating. Secondly, 2 of the 4 land tiles are disjoint from the starting location. This makes improving them and protecting them very difficult. Thirdly, the world is pretty big and there are only 5 civs. This makes caravan delivery more difficult.
If you still want to try an OCC, Engineering and King Richard should be your topmost priority. The sooner you build it and the longer you milk it, the better your chances of making it.
I have not decided whether to play this GOTM yet because of real time consdierations. Conquest is out of the question for me. I do not play that strategy often and I am not very good at it. This being a large map with restarts on makes it improbable for a quick victory, not that a quick conquest is ever very probable for me! OCC for the aforementioned reasons is likely to end up as a failure. That leaves only once choice: a peaceful game with a handful of closeby well managed cities with the goal of an early space ship victory. I have been looking for a chance to try this strategy; it would be my first time.