Maybe they've created a special Amish board game version
While the totem pole is indeed ownage for its time, why exactly is it so wretched to lose it? By the time you have astro you either beelined the sucker for some massively leveragable bonus or you have gunpowder and archery units are a thing of the past.
If you've got a lot of overseas trading partners waiting for Astronomy, DUMP COLOSSUS like the stone hanging around your neck that it is! Losing a few Coins from water tiles will be more than made up for with +100% to ALL your Trade Route values.
Fission is a bust. Nuclear plants are a bust. Meltdowns are too frequent. Build Three Gorges, hydroplants or coal plants. Buy health if needed.
Don't touch nukes or ICBMs with a ten foot pole.
That is part and parcel to "overseas trading partners waiting for Astronomy". If you haven't already got OB with them, then they're not waiting for you to trade, are they?You're assuming there are overseas civs that want open borders.
Corp vs TGL is almost always a loss. Even if you have more inland cities, those routes can't get bonuses from harbours and custom houses. The only things that I think about when looking at that trade off are how valuable is WS to me (a double holy city is insanely powerful with WS) and am I about to found Sushi, Mining, or CreCon. Otherwise TGL means delay corporation until it is not feasible to do so any longer.
While the totem pole is indeed ownage for its time, why exactly is it so wretched to lose it? By the time you have astro you either beelined the sucker for some massively leveragable bonus or you have gunpowder and archery units are a thing of the past.
The question is why you would build TGL if half or more of your cities are inland, or perhaps why half or more of your cities have been placed inland if you built TGL.