How Bad Have I Messed This One Up?

[Framesticker]

So I rolled a Random Leader/Shuffle/Emperor/Normal game today, and got Isabella. After finding out I was on a stretching, snaky continent with Mansa, I decided to go for the Great Lighthouse and the Pyramids. Mansa's capital and his 2nd city blocked off a huge stretch of the continent, but with no copper, no jungles (reason for IW) and Skirmishers I decided war was not an option, which meant I had room for 4 decent cities and about 3 mediocre ones, with not a SINGLE river flowing in my empire. I got the GLH (which wasn't amazing early on since Mansa took his damn time settling cities), but missed on the Pyramids by 2 turns, which tremendously slowed me down since I'd relied mainly on Scientists to fuel my research. However, I used the GLH Merchant points, Caste System and Pacifism (Mansa'd founded Hinduism) to keep my research afloat. I snagged Liberalism for Nationalism, then traded for Constitution from Mansa. We met the other AIs at that point - they were Toku, Justinian, Hatty, Sury, and one of the Romans (hadn't met him yet). The main blocks are Justin (who capitulated Sury) and Toku (who capitulated Hatty), and are fighting in Sury's land mainly.

Now, going for Space seems to be the only viable option here, although I have my doubts of the doability of that. I'm not particularly worried about the another continent - they're backwards all over through war. Mansa however, being protected by sea from the likes of Toku and Justin, can easily pull this off with the massive amount of land he's got. I posted pics and a save, and my question really bores down to this: is this winnable?

Spain



Mali



The "Old World"



Tech situation



Thanks for your input.

 

[DMOC]

Looks tough. I think the best course of action now is war against Mansa Musa. The small isthmus will help you by reducing your "front" making the attacks nice and linear. How about an infrantry/cannon type of war? The alternative is to mass cavalry, which would cause a faster war especially if you have enough spy points on Mansa to revolt city defenses. I don't think you have time to get bombers to go along with your cavalry, though.

The game appears to be winnable ... but it will be tough.

PS: Make contact with Rome

PPS: Your city populations are way too low for this stage in the game.

 

[Framesticker]

Looks tough. I think the best course of action now is war against Mansa Musa. The small isthmus will help you by reducing your "front" making the attacks nice and linear. How about an infrantry/cannon type of war? The alternative is to mass cavalry, which would cause a faster war especially if you have enough spy points on Mansa to revolt city defenses. I don't think you have time to get bombers to go along with your cavalry, though.

The game appears to be winnable ... but it will be tough.

PS: Make contact with Rome

PPS: Your city populations are way too low for this stage in the game.

I suppose war my be a good idea. However, perhaps not a wipeout war - I can cities to his capital, than capitulate or take peace since he's crippled enough to allow me to win.

And about city population, I had HR for happiness and most of my cities were 12+, but with NO happiness resources and few options to trade for some, switching to Representation boosted my science A LOT (like 200BPT) but killed my citizens' happiness.

 

[DMOC]

I understand the impact of HR unhappiness, but simply put, size 11 in the 1700s is unacceptable. You have 5 as the default, plus (+2) from two spiritual-aided temples, (+1) from religion, (+3) from Representation, (+1) from a colosseum. That alone is a size 12 happiness cap. (Plus, you have those buildings such as the hindu mandir which requires 3 temples - easy enough with a spiritua leader.) And this late in the game, I'm sure that you can try to find someone to give you a happiness resource (try giving them something like copper). Even if you just got one resource, that would boost your happiness cap to 13, and if it's a gold/silver/gem resource, 14 with a forge. There's also a seafood resource you have yet to hook up 3 tiles north, 1 tile east of Barcelona's city center. Look for every chance you have to get surplus resources. You have four corn resources I can see, two pigs, and several seafood. This is also another reason why contacting the Romans would be a good priority.

Also, you're building a bank in Barcelona? But you're running 100% research at just a 90 gold deficit so I doubt the effectiveness of that build. Plus, the city is unhappy.