I was a wimp and decided to drop out of the 20K race. All these masterful civvers gathered around a single victory condition was more intimidating than I could handle. It took me a while before I realized I had another option though:
10 AD - Great Lighthouse
670 AD - Copernicus
820 AD - Sistine Chapel prebuild converted to Knight's Templar, followed by a barracks (kind of silly not to have veteran crusaders). Montezuma decides that the next rival to make a demand will be told where to shove it.
1150 AD - Isabella demands Metallurgy. Instead, the Aztecs stick her with an AI dogpile (France, England, Germany, America, Mongols).
1210 AD - Maya decides to violate a RoP with Russia. It's one of the rare cases where the AI actually does this intelligently, since they steal Sun Tzu's from the Russians for a few turns.
1220 AD - Jaguar warrior wins against Spanish longbowman, starting a GA. Not a bad time, as Shakespeare's Theater was still being built.
1260 AD - Shakespeare's
1285 AD - Spain gets a taste of
la conquista.
1320 AD - Newton's
Normally it would be smooth sailing to an easy 20K victory from here, but now it gets really hairy:
1385 AD - Nationalism -> Mobilization! Horses imported from Mongolia, but with no iron or saltpeter, Montezuma can build 1 horseman/turn
1420 AD - France decides it's time for a little Mesoamerican adventure, declares war on Maya in spite of MPPs that Smoke Jaguar has in place.
1570 AD - La morte d'Jeanne d'Arc, completely at the hands of the AI's without any Aztec involvement.
1595 AD - Lincoln seeks Manifest Destiny by attacking the Mayans and enlisting Henry to help, triggering a world war. Pachahuti defends his Native American brethren, while Elizabeth takes up a fine opportunity to punish those pesky Yanks.
1615 AD - Montezuma joins the Native American coalition by declaring war on the USA. Saltpeter purchased from Germany, followed by massive upgrades to cavalry.
1730 AD - Theory of Evolution (standard Atomic Theory -> Electronics route)
1745 AD - El Gringo del Norte: no más
By this time, it was becoming apparent that the crusaders weren't much good after all, as they kept getting killed by rifles. So they were mostly disbanded and their shields were confiscated as raw materials to build a factory and hydro plant.
1764 AD - Universal Suffrage
1766 AD - Germany goes after Inca, dragging in the Mayans and English with MPPs.
1774 AD - With Pachahuti distracted in the east, Montezuma decides it's time to push back the purple borders to the south and signs an alliance with Maya against Inca.
1832 AD - Sign peace after the Inca are down to three towns, one of which is in Mongol territory. Immediately, they are brought into a new war with the Maya (much to the surprise of Smoke Jaguar, who previously thought the Aztecs were his best friends in the world).
1850 AD - Hoover Dam (to deny it to the AI rather than get any bonus)
1886 AD - After years of rampaging through Mayan lands, the Aztec people decided they had enough of war. The Mayans are down to 3 cities in their core, and their capital has jumped over to what was formerly France (where they have another 5 cities).
It's doubtful that the crusaders were even worth the shields, since the Aztec treasury is nearing 20K gold (culture still stands at about 15K).
1890 AD - Bismarck demands to see the Aztec territory map and throws a huge fit after being refused. He's so angry that he neglects to seek help from the other AI's, so naturally those are brought into alliance against him.
1922 AD - Somehow, Chartres gets autorazed even though it has Magellan's... probably because the French were long gone, and the Germans never built any culture there.
1938 AD - Deutschland goes kaput
Clearly, a diplomatic win is out of the question by this time, so Montezuma decides that reputation is worthless. Still...
1950 AD - Unlike Smoke-Jaguar, who abused a RoP agreement to capture Sun Tzu's, Montezuma positioned his forces carefully in Russian territory before sending a spy into Moscow with instructions not to be
too successful. Unsurprisingly, he is caught. Immediately, the attack on Russia begins with the destruction of Yaroslavl' along with Sun Tzu's.
1963 AD - Rostov destroyed, taking with it the last of the truly annoying Russian air force. Russian captial jumps to... Houston.
1971 AD - An espionage fail in Lisbon is casus belli for Portugal.
1979 AD - Henry navigates the river Styx.
1987 AD - A surprisingly generous peace treaty is offered to Russia, which would supply designs for aircraft in exchange for automobiles. Soon afterwards, the Czarina is spotted wearing a strange glowing green crystal around her neck. It is later discovered that the necklace is radioactive, poisoning Catherine to death, but at her funeral, Montezuma manages to purchase it for further study, handing over a tidy sum of 28,000 gold. Before the dust is settled though, the Russian royal family is summarily rounded up and executed, and their burial crypt gets ransacked to recover the money.
Bah... fission is pretty useless as a free tech if a diplomatic win isn't expected....
1988 AD - An Aztec battleship "accidentally" lobs a shell into Rotterdam, causing the Mayans to declare war because of their MPP with the Netherlands.
1990 AD - Smoke-Jaguar offered as a human sacrifice to Quetzalcoatl.
1992 AD - Montezuma is overcome with lust and initiates a RoP-rape of Elizabeth. Ugly Khan thinks he's a better fit and declares war.
1993 AD - Lizzie's pain clearly did not last long. Temujin seeks refuge in his offshore hideout in Hovd.
1997 AD - The Inca, who haven't made any recovery since the end of the previous war with them, are crushed under an avalanche of artillery shells and tank fire. They are the last foreign occupants of the main continent.
OK... maybe fission is good for something after all...
2009 AD - Manhattan Project
2017 AD - William of Orange, who for centuries has led the Dutch in defiance of the seas, suddenly finds himself under a
lot of water.
2020 AD - Two tactical nukes launched at the cities on the Mongol island.
2021 AD - No traces of Temujin found in the ruins of Hovd. Must have been obliterated by the blast.
2022 AD - Montezuma stands as the sole remaining ruler over the world, now incorporated into the nation of Aztlán.
This game was quite a chore in the mid-industrial age, as Germany and Russia had a lot of culture and it was really slow to knock down all their cities. However, being on Pangaea certainly helped, since the AI's wasted most of their units against each other (instead of me!). C3C tourist attractions also kept a healthy amount of income coming in.
I have to say, mobilization is a really nice defense against getting an accidental 20K victory (if only it were enabled in GOTMs...). I ended this game with 19,892 culture, 96cpt. CivAssist predicted a 1938 AD cultural 20K after Newton's; without mobilization it would have come in a few turns earlier than that due to the IA wonders. Certainly not a competitive finish by any standard.
I had 5 MGL's this game, the first one in 1898 AD. That one turned into the Intelligence Agency, the others were utterly useless (I think I wasted one on Apollo Program at the end of the game, just for kicks).
Entry class: Predator
Game status: Conquest Victory for Aztecs
Game date: 2022 AD
Firaxis score: 276
Jason score: 344
Time played: 17:32:18
: 
Bummer. Guess I should have built culture earlier.
and therefore destroy them in 1625bc - with jags only 
