I've been examining the diplomacy and am starting to think that we won't be able to spread hindu to HC/MM without severely setting back our chances at getting an AI to Friendly.
Shaka will lose +5 diplo on the AI when the common religion is broken, and Liz will lose +4 diplo on AI when the common religion is broken. However, the AI-AI relationships do not become lower than Pleased until the total diplo relation is below Zero. That's right, they are pleased at 0. (By constrat they have to be at +5 or above with us to just be pleased).
So every war we start will cost us -2 diplo, even if we start due to DP. With pretty much everyone. Taking into account the loss of the +diplo if we flip one to hindu, the following are the best we can do:
Dow Hatty: HC + Cyrus won't care, -2 on rest.
Dow Cyrus: Hatty and Ghenghi won't care, -2 on rest.
Dow HC: Liz won't care, -2 on rest.
Dow GK: Cyrus + Hatty won't care, -2 on rest.
Dow Shaka: -2 on all (plus impact of DP's).
If we can keep them hindu long enough, we can overcome the -2 for DOW on their friends eventually.
At the VERY minimum, we'll have to DOW Hatty AND one more: If HC/MM dow someone we'll have to either dow that someone to get OB or we'll have to dow HC and infect using muscle. (There is also an off chance that we still must DOW Cyrus). So we are in need of creating -4 with all our FT's (possible exception Cyrus) before we can even enable the victory vote. And I should point out that even at +10, we aren't Friendly, and so we'd need to build up another +5 to get farther than where we are now.
Frankly, I don't see how to do it, at least not in any reasonable time.
Edit: note, I have only taken into account the +diplo they will lose to each other, but there will be -diplo for different religion as well, starting at -1 and going up to -2 in a short while... so still could work).
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UN requires us to have SEVERAL AI friendly. And more friendly with us than with MM/HC. Only way I see that happening is if we can hold them hindu. This would mean we abandon all our war planning, and just make an all-out blitz for Mass Media, try to have a GE on hand to speed the building of the UN, after Mass media put slider all on EP, divided between all four FT's, and spam spies so that we can continuously flip them to Hindu every time they flip out of it. We might be able to eventually get the relations we need that way. We'd need to get at least 3, maybe 4 of our FT's to Friendly. No simple task, but maybe easier than getting one Friendly but not hindu, or two Friendly and Hindu.
I'm betting this does not take longer than doing the religious VC considering the war requirements, and the fact that a lot of the tech on our path are available for theft: Astro, Sci Meth, Phys, and we can probably get Elec as well, but have a GSci who can bulb about 1/3 of it if not. Radio and Mass Media.
If HC/MM ever DOW someone (before we get MM), we could re-examine how fast we could infect them. As I see it, there is no point breaking into Satsuma if we would still have to break into HC/MM.
Also, getting to Physics will let us see the darn map and we can re-evaluate there, as well.
Our biggest problem this game (like in many previous games) is not having relevant map knowledge. It probably would have been worth it to start wars just to get that earlier. Would have seen the ice-wall north of Babylon, at least. In SGOTM16 we are going to build 5 scouts before even a worker.
Anyhow, my feeling now is that we should aim for a UN victory but stay open to the idea of AP victory if either we can get OB with HC/MM or we see other opportunities when we get maps (after flipping to hindu) or make airships.
(Also the game crashed twice on me while I was alt-tabbing to check instructions - I've not had this happen before. I contacted Alan about this since I had to reload from my autosave twice)
There are still a few bits of the gambit for you to play out though...
We'll have to see what their forces look like but several galleons would likely be required--there's only so much whipping Satsuma can take, so we'll probably have to capture a few coastal cities from Hatty and/or Cyrus. Not looking very quick or elegant, but maybe we'll get lucky. 
). And it does clarify our options on what to do next, although that still needs more thought. I'd say you've done your duty, Trys, and this would be a good point for someone else to take over. Who wants it? Or rather, who has time to accept the challenge?
.......but if I'm the only one available, I can follow orders
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Slow, but we have 4 religions and it's just building temples and cathedrals and then hitting enter a whole lot. Nah, we'd lose to an AI on the UN or Space. I dunno, this one's a real bi... bear. And despite my brave words I don't really believe we'll be in shape within 6 turns to hold off Hatty's stack of 40 units and capture 3 cities in 5 turns. Our only hope is to get Hatty into a war with somebody so that she moves her huge stack N of Babylon so we can defend a single chokepoint instead of 4 cities--we'd almost certainly lose Vijay otherwise (and likely Dur-K too---and I'm not even counting Trojan Horse). My only suggestion would be to bribe Shaka to DoW her by gifting a tech and Trojan Horse, but I doubt he'd do it. On the other hand, if we wait much longer, Hatty will be able to build grens and/or rifles and then it gets Really hard. Hmm, maybe bribing Shaka with Steel would do the trick?
