Optimising for one possibility is far more dangerous because it forces to take a certain option before we even know what the choice
If you read the capitulation plan, it should be clear this is not really true. We can take an unfavorable trade deal with Khemetri and it would have little consequence (
especially in war, where the trade deal would be suspended to
our benefit). The other big suggestion is to avoid losing influence with the Highlanders (we can do that next turn, if war is declared) and to avoid committing long-term Influence and especially Authority dice (which you've already been doing).
The big problem with your jack-of-all-trades approach is that it seems to pretend the Khem don't exist until they actually come. We make peace with the Black Sheep immediately (Khem are coming), we negotiate with Highlanders (inopportune time to lose Influence, when they're coming), and we don't try to improve their ultimatum with a trade deal, even though we know said ultimatum is coming.
Without any optimization at all to the ultimatum, you've essentially left us with either 1) a bad ultimatum or 2) war.
You also seem to have fallen into the mindset that the delaying the Khem ultimatum is desirable on its own merits, which I consider a mistake.
This may have been my previous thinking, but since the revelation of limited loans, my plans have been adjusted to remove this assumption.
More specifically, they have assumed that we can delay for
at most one turn, and that not delaying at all may be desirable (we can, for example, take out all three remaining loans next year, take out an unfavorable trade deal to boost Khem's opinion, and make peace with the Black Sheep, making Khem's reaction the next year).
[see Edit 2 below; forgot about that]
Our Treasury is over halfway full. There is more than enough for this potential war with the Khem. Worst comes to the worse, we take out another loan or two or accept some opinion hits in exchange for selling some guns.
We don't need ridiculous high amounts of money to take on the Khem. Don't forget that our Treasury is current fuller than it has been for the majority of the quest and we have gotten on fine before.
We may not have the option to take out more loans, depending on the nature of the embargo. This is why I would want to take out all 3 remaining loans the next year.
We've also not taken on this much negative income before--and what income we have is not guaranteed upon embargo. The only answer to this is to project our Treasury into the future, which I have done above. A reasonable guess is insolvency in 1624-1628, depending on precise circumstances.
We can sell some guns to make it up, but the nature of the Mass Levy prevents us selling too many. Favorable trade deals (assuming the embargo isn't affecting them) would give us only 0.1-0.2 Treasury each for the likely duration of this war.
...
Edit: as we both know, duration is the biggest restriction to whether we can survive this. If the Khemetri play it smart and wait for us to run out of money, we can't. *shrug* To our advantage, the nature of national prestige lowers the chance of this.
Edit 2: One reason not to make peace next year is to see if the unfavorable trade agreement gives us access to Sacred Warding, Khemetri, a significant boost for ultimatum negotiations.
