Well, if Korea doesn't help out the HRE they're guaranteed to lose the game. I know that even a 3 vs. 1 doesn't have much of a chance to eliminate India, but at least they might slow them down. I'm of the opinion that there is no "second place" for a civ game; you either win or lose, with the end-of-game score as one possible metric of success.
I do think that it's fine to play the game without having a victory condition as your ultimate objective. I feel that playing as Sunrise did in PB1, to secure the win for another player, is a legitimate goal. In that sense simply "survival" could be measured as a personal success, which seems to be what Plako is going for. But just playing to survive is boring, and I think should only be reserved for when victory is objectively impossible- which I don't see as the case yet for Korea. If you only want to last through the game and don't try to make other players work for their win, why not just pick protective and hide behind city walls?
I do think that it's fine to play the game without having a victory condition as your ultimate objective. I feel that playing as Sunrise did in PB1, to secure the win for another player, is a legitimate goal. In that sense simply "survival" could be measured as a personal success, which seems to be what Plako is going for. But just playing to survive is boring, and I think should only be reserved for when victory is objectively impossible- which I don't see as the case yet for Korea. If you only want to last through the game and don't try to make other players work for their win, why not just pick protective and hide behind city walls?