Settings:
Large, Sid, Warm, Arid, 3M years old, Arch, 70% water. My thoughts were that an agri civ could handle the desert well and give me an advantage. Tech pace turned out to be much faster than I have been used to on highlevel SID games.
Opponents: Zulu, Mongols, America, Egypt, Arabia, China.
Temple Built in 1675 BC 1054
The Mausoleum of Mausollos Built in 1275 BC 992
The Great Library Built in 775 BC 2742
Forbidden Palace Built in 630 BC 874
Library Built in 490 BC 1263
Colosseum Built in 450 BC 830
Cathedral Built in 190 BC 1128
Sistine Chapel Built in 110 AD 1986
University Built in 270 AD 1216
Copernicus' Observatory Built in 400 AD 1060
Shakespeare's Theater Built in 550 AD 1760
JS Bach's Cathedral Built in 670 AD 1104
Newton's University Built in 750 AD 960
Heroic Epic Built in 800 AD 600
Military Academy Built in 880 AD 142
Universal Suffrage Built in 1000 AD 520
Theory of Evolution Built in 1080 AD 366
Hoover Dam Built in 1140 AD 232
The Pentagon Built in 1170 AD 113
Battlefield Medicine Built in 1190 AD 111
Wall Street Built in 1270 AD 202
Intelligence Agency Built in 1285 AD 98
SETI program Built in 1540 AD 141
Research Lab Built in 1545 AD 92
The United Nations Built in 1595 AD 144
The Manhattan Project Built in 1600 AD 70
The Internet Built in 1660 AD 92
Cure for Cancer Built in 1710 AD 39
Longevity Built in 1750 AD 15
Apollo Program Built in 1758 AD 2
This misses my palace, which I moved to Rotterdam by disbanding my capitol around 550 AD, then built in Maastrich in 1445 AD so I could get a 1000 shield palace prebuild.
Final culture 20057, making 150 CPT.
Start was excellent, 4 cows available right off, a 5th showed up with a worker move and there was a pile of hills/mountains nearby.
Much war: I had many phony and near phony wars, which helped with happiness as I was over ocean to most everyone. Once Astronomy kicked in, America started landing units next to my capitol. Being the AI, of course, they had to sail their attack force across half the world landing right next to my pathetic military, as opposed to landing right near their land, where I had nothing. they waited until I had rails everywhere to start landing on the far side
I was resource heavy - 2 irons, 2 coals, saltpeter (in my one desert tile!), 2 oil, 2 rubber, 1 aluminum. Horses were a problem - I had to trade with America to get cavs, then used those to take horses from china.
Wars were many and long. I landed a force on the northern end of Zulu's island on a hill and rushed walls and barracks to kick off my GA and steal furs. Zulu had no iron or horses, though they had traded for horses at some point, and were very backwards (still in the AA) and had a few swords from a trade.
Horses, archers and impis vs. super-pikes on a hill, behind walls with a barracks worked about as well as you would expect for the Zulu and my city was never really threatened and gave me 3 or 4 leaders for armies, though I ran into serious weariness issues that plagued me until the Zulu were dead 1000 years later (I kept going back to war before the weariness wore off)
In the mid IA (about 800 AD), I realized that if I didn't do something, I was probably going to lose via spaceship - america was outresearching me and was close to 4 turn research... so it was time for war. I signed an MPP with america and attacked pretty much everyone, trying to get America in a war with arabia. I had to bring them in on an MA to get them at war, but I did manage to get the entire world in fascism, which killed everyone's research except the Mongols, who were able to keep up with me through the culture bereft military half of the IA.
Mongols went for flight as I went for tanks, then they declared on me and I had bombers attacking a little island I had down near them, which was a big pain. This was a pain, cause I was getting 3 luxes from Mongols. Fortunately, most of my core had temples and caths and I had universal suffrage and bach's, so most of the core was fine... though I did have my 20K city riot once and I had to bump the lux up to about 40%.
Most of the top half of the IA, my 20K city made armies when I ran out of builds. Using those, I took several minor islands from america and mongols, and beat up zulu.
I worried about 100K - it's hard to tell from the culture graph how much the 2nd highest culture civ has relative to the highest. As it turns out, I was in no danger - mongols ended up with 90K.
Doh, of course they are seafaring. I blame CFC's information that I was browsing through, there they are still listed with their PtW info. Mayans may be a good alternative if they go for Polytheism first like you say, then their even faster expansion (compared to Aztecs) won't hurt any. Thanks for the tip, I'll use them in my next game. 
Very nice playing AT!
! I feel pretty confident that you had a higher score than mine so you should have the gauntlet lead currently - your island looks bigger, and you expanded off of it (plus 3 native luxuries doesn't hurt!). Even though the last 25 or so of my turns, there was no chance of improving my date so I irrigated everywhere and cranked the luxury slider 
, I doubt my score will be even close to yours. 
