Oh, here's the final spoiler, knew I was playing this one well into the month. Well, boy, was this an absolutely crazy game.
Anyway, after the initial part of the game, I, the glorious J. Omega Pacal, or whatever the royal title was, figured that there were clearly 3 good city spots for culture and it would be safer to pull off than trying to beat the AI otherwise (well, diplo might have been doable now that I think about it, Joao unexplicably got up to friendly and all others except the blood twins were pleased.)
So while I missed a couple early wonders I pulled off the Great Library and Parthenon with forest chops, and through bulbing/trading I at least kept up in tech. The other continent was ahead in everything, but Huayna led me on our continent too. Only religion I had for the longest time was Hindu - even Tao was FIDL, Islam was too, and I eventually lost Liberalism somewhere around 600 AD.
I made possibly a mistake, or possibly a right call in teching Sci Method, still not sure which. Killing my DOUBLED SISTINE MONASTERIES (they lost the +5 from Sistine, and my core cities had monasteries over 1000 years old for that bonus, arg) pissed me off, didn't realize the monasteries would lose culture when they obsoleted. And losing GL/Parthenon might not have been worth it in the long run - I also missed GP from Communism/Physics cause Izzy had em already. Vladimir Ilyich Pacalin's dreams of a Communist utopia dashed quite expertly (well, we never would have had crippled robots) we just turned back to plan B and the vanilla culture slider. Biology was the real treasure and the best reason I kept on teching - helping get many cities to +10 or +12 food and run more artists. I eventually trade for Steam Power (3x levies, all core cities go production up, helped with a certain debacle...) and Democracy. Though I never converted to my beloved Universal Suffrage, staying in Hereditary to please dangerous AI.
So come the Renaissance and when I turned tech off I really thought I had this one in the bag. All AI pleased, Monty and Huayna poised to war with each other. (already had 2 DoWs from Huayna and one from Monty in that conflict). I was running artists in many cities and all doing superbly, was estimating a victory not too far into the 200s, probably well before the midway point.
Then, about 30 turns off from victory, Monty shocked me. Which I shouldn't have been shocked, you know, it's Monty, but boy was I angry and panicking. Despite being pleased with me, and furious (like -12) with Huayna, he DoW'd me. The weird part was they'd been in WHEEORN like 20 turns beforehand - Huayna did DoW Monty, but I figured it was mutual. Izzy also later dropped a WHEEORN somehow after like 30 turns, I thought she was after Liz perhaps and Liz peacefully vassaled to cancel it.
Anyway, Monty took back his own culture flipped cities (never got to culture flip the holy city, it was only in range when Mutal hit Legendary. But I pushed back his borders from time immemorial). I had to cut culture, upgrade warriors and holkan of which I had about 1 per city (
) to rifles, and I built a few more rifles. Luckily he holed up in the border cities till they ran out of unrest, and I didn't even have to buy off peace, because he called peace himself (Huayna was gonna run him over, and in the last war between the two, Huayna finally vassalized him) through the AP. Thankful on balance I guess that Monty got the Hindu AP for me, and didn't kill me the whole game. And Moctezume actually is spelled close enough that I knew who he was, I think that's why both our peoples in their throbbingly sacrificial heart of hearts hated those white devil Europeans who can't spell. Though hidden modifiers are always a thumbsdown - I even voted Monty into the AP, got those +2/+4, and +11 total at one point, and he's not Friendly
So that's it, or you'd think so, and so did I, as if I could maintain peace (and I even got a DP with Joao) I was good to go. Then, the Victory screen - Izzy was all of like 15-20 turns away from cultural victory. I knew she was high up there but figured I could beat her, she must have gone all out too on her slider.
What followed was the most intense culture war ever seen. Buddhist monks in hovercars (cause she had so much modern tech) built culture with their minds. Meanwhile I had more of the slavedriving operation going - tens of thousands of citizens with whips to their backs forced to paint masterpieces for their daily bowl of maize.
I got out enough GA just in time, the last 3-4 in quick succession. Actually stupidly starved some cities that never made it anyway, but just costs score and pride. An engineer I'd popped from running a silly engineer specialist way back when (lost SoL though, wish I'd gotten that one) was used for a second Golden Age with an artist, probably 20ish turns from the end. And no, I'm not sure that was the right call either - just using that artist in the city he would have gone in anyway (and maybe using the engy for a wonder like Globe Theatre, idk) may have actually payed off more. And I was going to be absolutely furious if Monty or something from thousands of years ago cost this loss to Izzy. Fortuntaley Izzy never popped an artist for at least the last 20 turns as far as I could tell, stupid Joao popped like three and nearly gave me heart attacks each time.
In short, the psy-monks lost by a hair, my people motivated by the fury of K'inich Janaab' Pakal or whatever he called himself, they were afraid to even asked, and called him their Leader alone. For that matter, all the names were ridiculous, made me hate these AI more - some of my most hated AI were here, I guess I have to count my lucky stars it was Joao who's a cool homeboy instead of Cyrus though.
What's that - right, the end of it all and the screenshots I meant to post (think these are all right, no special spoilers). I snuck in by two turns I think, but really only one since I won't have a victory on a technicality of the human's turn going first, and win fair and square. All I know is we Mayans never again have to listen to Buddhist monks brag about how Barfthelona is teh serenz. My loyal core of Mutal-isks out macroed the lisping Spaniard templars (well, they really pronounce those should-be-s-sounds-as-th) and brought a win to our New World.
I like how there was more salt rubbed in her wounds at the end too. Somehow my cities took ALL TOP THREE spots even though Madrid had more culture, guess it's become I'm the awesome Kwisatz Pacalerach she's not.
Monty and Huayna finished at about a mutual -14, maybe more on Monty's side with HC a little less (Huayna had more total DoWs on him). In other words, pushing the record Monty, live out your dreams and shoot for the stars (not as bad as one game I had in SP once though when it was Monty and Shaka were on an island the Prime Directive left well to itself, lolz when will Monty ever learn)
Elizabeth culture victory in 1812AD.
I don't think I've ever seen Dune rubbing shoulders with Star Trek and Starcraft before!
It looks like you did a nice job farming your score too. My nuke happy conquest didn't yield very good cities for some reason 
