I agree with what both of you are saying, but you are making BIG assumptions! There is a mapmaker, this is not a random map generation. There could easily be a setup where there are ocean tiles between an island with other civs.
It is true that we are making a lot of assumptions. We almost have to if we are going for the gold medal. Being surrounded and boxed in by Toku's and mountains means we have to follow a very strict script that the mapmaker created for us. Every time we declare war on a Toku, we get -1 with all of them. They are permanently pleased with each other, so may bribe each other to war against us at any moment. If we want to sail, we practically must go up Hammuragawa's border.
Toku was placed where he was so early war with him was guaranteed. He immediately bribed first Hamma in against us, and then Shaka was bribed in, but Toku probably ran out of techs to really pile on.
Elizagawa was given amazing riches to wayyyy out tech us, and a team of AI was put in for unknown reasons.
It's not hard to see what the mapmaker was going for with all the Gawas and mountains being 15%? of the tiles and no city razing.
The first Culture SGOTM gold medal game! We are going to prove just how imbalanced the Aposolitic Palace really is instead.
The safer plan was to stay at war with Shaka and steal Liz blind with the first PPP, but we hit a wall because Hatse hasn't met Shaka. Rather than wait until T125 for open borders with Hatse and punch through Shaka around T140 militarily, we can just jet through them both T115 using war against Liz.
We only need to infect Ghenghis and 2 unmet AI as the unmet pair is almost certainly infected with Hindu. That means 3 more civs and we can win with a friendly Hammarugawa
So, we are thinking it best to take the riskier path and try to open both the west and east lanes by dragging our neighbors and their neighbors into a shared war and racing beyond. Yes, Liz will bribe Gawas like mad to war on us as soon as possible, but we can keep renewing war against her, and as soon as we make peace with the bribed Gawa we instantly get open borders with them again if they are part of the holy war(which they soon will be with gifted cities)
Liz is the least likely to get random Hindu spread as all her cities are probably Buddist. Permanent Holy War should be possible against her. We can end it at any time with an infected Hindu city. She is in the middle of the map, so getting the whole world around her into war against her should open every border.
As far as across the map islands go, I can see the point. Let me see if I can find a way to have 2 steal attempts on currency without the golden age.
) This means no -1 hopefully when we dec her for holy war and ensures she can't bribe him to attack us.
