I used to bribe them to war, but in this particular game the chain reaction becomes spontaneous. ;) The story is a little long, but hopefully it is fun to read.

I made some figures.
119978

I try to make it to scale, and each city roughly occupies a square. I also give the more powerful Civs at that time a few "blank squares" to reflect their extended cultural boundary and power. I try to match the colors to the leaders, and those letters are abbreviated city names invented by myself. Don't worry if you can't recognize them. If I don't remember the name, I give it an "X".

The actual small Pangea world looks like a booomerang. I (magenta) start in one end (lucky me!) with 11 other Civs. The game was Deity, marathon. I peeked a lot through the map editor and I checked "new random seed upon realod". So don't ask me how I could expand that much in Deity. :p

My rapid expansion ends at around 2000 BC, taking down Qin-yellow, Ghandi-purple and Catherine-orange in that order. At the time Isabella was the clear front runner, completed the oracle and has a large area of land. My 7 cities ate away all of my incomes. I run a -10/turn deficit on 0% research. I bit my lips to get Writing out with 100% beakers first, then chopped libraries in 3 cities where I can afford 2 scientists. They pulled me through Alphabat.

I control a Buddhism holy city, but the religion does a poor job spreading internationally. So far it is like my private religion. On the other hand, Saladin (green) founded Hinduism. Just as much of the entire western world (Roosevelt-blue, Napolean-deep blue, Cyrus-light blue and Isabella-pink) rejoyce under Hinduism, Saladin founded Judism and converted to it, ditching all his friends. Judism then found markets in Gengis Khan-brown, Elizebeth-gray, and Tokugawa-red. Not after long it also spared to Moscow (under my control). I was still researching alphabat, so Organized religion seems miles away from me.

You may think Saladin really rocks by having 2 holy cities that covers 80% of the world. Hm... let me continue next time.

(to be continued)

Saladin's duel holy city actually provoked the entire western world into non-stop warfare for the rest of human history.

200BC. I was working my way through alphabat, hoping to convert to either Hinduism or Judaism to make some friends, because all Civs has 1-2 "You declared war on our friend!" on me.

Isabella (Hinduism) could be a really good friend, but I don't really have Hinduism in any of my cities, so I can't convert. Just when I was waiting the blue chant prompt coming up, Izzy closed her border with me. She is annoyed with me. I know what's gonna happen next. My military power is the poorest on the list.

Or is it so? In a surprise pre-emptive strike, Isabella succumbed to an axeman rush. Just when Izzy had only her capital left, I finished Alphabat, and I got 4 free basic techs (that's all she have that I don't have!) for a peace treaty. I can't refuse that! Later on Isabella was ganged by Tokugawa and Ghengis Khan (half a world away), but it was still my huge axeman stack that razed her capital. AIs are very incompetent invaders.

The fall of the then superpower Isabella spawn the rise of Elizebeth. That will be another story.

Now we back track a little bit. One thousand years ago, Ghengis Khan (later under Judaism) declared war to Cyrus (later under Hinduism). Saladin (converted from Hinduism to Judaism) decleared war on Napolean (Hinduism), taking one of his only 2 cities. Saladin emerged as the next potential superpower, but during the next fight, Napolean suprisingly grabbed Saladin's Medina, the holy city of Hinduism. This gives Napolean a little star on the Civ list. Well done!

That star didn't last long. First, Genghis Khan declared war on Napolean. They are the 2 bottom scorers, so the underdog fight didn't yield anything. However, Tokugawa (Judaism) suddenly rushed in, declaring war on Napolean. Medina now belongs to Tokugawa!

That didn't last long, also. Cyrus suddenly declared war on Tokugawa. The little star now goes to Cyrus!

The Hinduism alliance (Cyrus, Napolean) also invited one more member in, Elizebeth. Elizebeth declared war on Tokugawa! (Elizebeth was no longe Judaism, she founded Confucism and converted to it.)

Elizebeth was doing really well after settling on some former lands of Catherine and Isebella. She had a golden age at 500BC or so, and in the next 20 turns, founded 3 reiligions in a row. She converted to Confucism, leaving the Judaism alliance that also includes Saladin, Tokugawa, Genghis Khan and me. As my relationship with Liz deteriorated from almost friendly to merely cautious, I started to mass produce catapults, and shoot straight for Metal casting -> Machinery -> Civil service.

My war against Elizebeth broke out the next turn I upgraded all of my axeman to maceman. (money mainly comes from tech selling and previous city razing) However, Elizebeth got longbowman 2 turns before. The fight lasted longer than I estimated, but my war machine produced so many catapults that Elizebeth can't possibly handle.

If I hadn't unchecked Domination victory, I would simply grind forward, no matter friend or foe. Then I would get a score of 300k or a little more. However, I really want to play longer... :)

Back to the west. The downfall of Elizebeth relieved Tokugawa, but the Hinduism alliance soon pulled in their last brother. Roosevelt declared war on Tokugawa! They fought quite a while, but none of them could do anything to each other.

Cyrus, after giving himself the little Hinduism star next to his name, became very powerful at that moment. He controls the holy city, and and his army size becomes the largest in the west. Seeing that happen, I bribed Saladin to go after Cyrus. They have never fought before, and they are like the leader of the two religions now (both with holy city in their control).

Cyrus's huge army crushed Saladin like bugs. Saladin lost Orleans in no time, and Mecca was pillaged badly. Saladin soon called for help, and Genghis Khan answered the call. (Toku was busy with the Americans.) Genghis Khan bravely charged his archer against Cyrus's longbowman, and in the same turn Saladin made a peace treaty with Cyrus, leaving Genghis Khan all alone with superpower Cyrus. What an a*hole! Even worse, Napolean grabbed his revenge oppurunity and declared war on Genghis Khan!

I thought Genghis Khan is done for this time (well, at least in his hometown. He founded an annoying 2 tile city in my back). However, Saladin quickly built up his army and upgraded his axeman to maceman. (Deity AI upgrades with 5% of human's cost. 95% discount!) Before Cyrus realizes what's wrong, Saladin reclaimed Madina and Orleans!

Roosevelt, by then just made peace with the Japanese, was called by the Hinduism alliance. He declared war on Saladin to save Cyrus's arse! But Roosevelt didn't really do anything, just Saladin sent a few units to pillage Roosevelt. Tokugawa then again declared war on Roosevelt, but nothing interesting happened.

The time is now 500 AD. To summarize what happens:

Group 1 (Hinduism) Cyrus, Roosevelt, Napolean
Group 2 (Judaism) Saladin, Tokugawa, Genghis Khan

Genghis Khan -(declared war to)-> Cyrus
Saladin -> Napolean
Genghis Khan -> Napolean
Tokugawa -> Napolean
Cyrus -> Tokugawa
Elizebeth -> Tokugawa
I -> Elizebeth
Roosevelt -> Tokugawa
Saladin -> Cyrus (bribed by me)
Genghis Khan -> Cyrus
Napolean -> Genghis Khan
Saladin -> Cyrus
Roosevelt -> Saladin
Tokugawa -> Roosevelt

The last fight still continues now. By the way, I've got Grenadiers. I've converted back to Buddhism, and spread it almost throughout the world. Roosevelt was wise to flip to my Budda side, but he is still friendly with Cyrus and Napolean due to all the years of fighting together. Ghengis Khan also converted to Buddhism. Now we are talking about a weird triangle relationship here, or... a superpower ready to swallow the world with Grenadiers and catapults?

Now only if Saladin did't spread Judaism like mad and spawn the conflict that plagued half of the world for more than 2000 years...

Ouch, sounds like a nasty world conflict will rage on for a while

If some of these guys convert to the same religion or free religion the fighting will probaly die down