Decided against immediate war with anyone, but within a few hundred years Pacal had raced ahead techwise (curse you low return bulbs!), I abandoned the Liberalism path when I saw Pacal had both Philosophy and Paper on me to tech to Rifling / Military Tradition as directly as possible, I got a number of decent trades though on my way up being the first to Fuedalism (technically GK was first but he didn't seem to trade anything to anyone just took advantage of his large amount of land), Guilds, Gunpowder (this I didn't trade to anyone though), Nationalism (built Taj Mahal, traded when halfway done), Banking (bulbed through GM, I switched from GS production to GM when I decided what I wanted to do and got 3, 2 trade missions), maybe a few others things. Next time I'll remember to take screens and or notes as I play >.>
Anyway my plan was hoping that Pacal would continue to neglect his defenses and I could tech to Cossacks to sweep across his land and hear the lamentations of his women and all that. I got the 2nd and 3rd academies up in Moscow and Yaroslavl, changed GP farm production to Merchants and built as many knights as possible while teching. I built The Collosus in Moscow kind of on a whim, I notied how late it was and it still wasn't gone and fully expected to get some fail gold for it but it finished and a number of my cities are coastal so that was nice boost considering it was a very fast build that late with copper. The Taj Mahal GA saw me change civics to Representation, Vassalage, Free Market and Theocracy while holding Caste over. The two Great Merchants were cashed in Karakorum for a fairly lowly 1.3k each and as soon as I hit military tradition about 20 Knights became Cossacks, all cities switched to producing more Cossacks and in around 1500 AD war were declared.
Cossacks swept through Mayapan, Lakamha and Uxmal extremely quickly maybe 1-2 losses and converged on Mutal, sadly by this point Pacal flipped the magical tech swith and had Cavalry, Rifles and even Cannon of his own. I sit outside Mutal teching steel with my city capture gold, a GS had bulbed me most of Chemistry as I had prepared for the worst and switched GPP back to scientists so it wasn't too long before cannons were making their way south. Well it was long enough for Mayapan, Lakamha and Uxmal to lose a fair amount of population from having no land to work >.> But not too long that Pacal built enough units to succefully defend himself, Cannons worked down his defense and then proceded to lay down whatever life a cannon has to weaken his troops. Thankfully, and god knows for what reason, he decided the best way to counter my Cossacks was with Cavalry and there was about a 2:1 ratio of Cavalry to Rifles defending. I lost a few more Cossacks and I think suicided about 5 cannons but Mutal fell and my previous conquests could finally work the land surrounding them. Pacal still wouldn't capitulate though so my stack moved down to Chichen Itza, killed one Cavalry on the way and the next turn he will capitulate \o/
Lakamha and Mutal are FULL of wonders, I think atleast 5 each and Mutal is the shrine city for Hindu, a religion spread to half the world. Lakamha has the shrine for Judaism but that only has about a 20% spread so less interesting, but still some nice GPT. In terms of improvements they seem to be a bit of a mess but I'll sort them out when Mutal comes out of rebellion.
Mayan Conquests
The Motherland
Tech Situation
Units
Wonders
As you can see from the map of my empire I'm not getting some pretty extreme cultural pressure from Hammurabi, and to be honest after seeing Babylon I am green with envy
He shouldn't be allowed such an awesome city and certainly shouldn't use it to steal my tiles from very far away
However, GK has gone into WHEOOHRN, after the world met Issy/Saladin, he is pleased with me at +7, no one else is higher, but we recently got -1 "close borders..." He's somewhat keeping up with tech but think my Cossacks/Cannon could roll over him still especially if his military is composed of a lot of ex-Keshik cavalry. The land I'd gain, unless I wiped him out completely is fairly poor though, desert, plains and no resources I don't have unless I wipe him out to gain oil come combustion. I can get that much easier from Babylon though, as well as Sugar and Banana's that I'm trading for.
So, again I ask for advice how to proceed from the more experienced.
War? Attack Genghis before he attacks me? If so do I just neutralise the threat and try and cap him or do I destroy him? Alternatively, do I consider Hammurabi's tile stealing an attack of aggression and take all his pretty green land! If I do this I imagine I'll invest a fair number of hammers into nice CG2 Rifles for my nothern border. Izzy/Saladin have no friends, are behind in tech and don't even like each other being zealots of differing religions, but I hate intercontinental wars ;<
Civics? Honestly this is one aspect of the game I really kind of suck at, when to change, what to change too, how many to change at once. I have every civic in the game a maximum of 2 techs away, currently Representation, Vassalage, Caste System, Free Market and Theocracy. If I go to war I'll definately want to keep Vassalage and Theocracy, I've never used Nationhood so I'm not really sure how the mechanics work as I have a number of decent production cities I'd rather build my troops unless I have no option. Is Caste losing it's usefullness as the GP take longer to come? If I have to change a number of improvements in ex-Mayan territory would Emancipation be better to grow cottages? And if so should I change from Rep to US? If I don't go to war do I go to Bureaucracy or Free Speech to fight cultural pressure, Organised Religion for building up my new cities or Free Religion for science risking losing a big + from GK?
National Wonders? My northern most city (cows/incense/wine) is farmed and workshopped for production, Moscow produces units fast and Yekaterinburg (iron/3elephants/corn) has Moai so it churns units out at decent speed too. I don't have Ironworks or Heroic Epic placed yet though. I have a settled Great General in Moscow, was thinking of both there but that then loses the ability for me to put Oxford there. My assumption is Mutal with the mega shrine is the best place for Wall Street.
Techs? Again I have a lot of options here too
I have control of myself and Pacal's teching, the Great Spy (>.>) and Great Scientist from Communism/Physics are still available. I have a GM coming soon if I want to build Rifles and upgrade to Infantry but I think the Cossacks have life in them yet. I could save him for Sushi? Tech for war? Or pick up techs I'm missing to improve my infrastructure, I don't have Astro yet for trade/observatories or a lot of the civic techs but they're all very close.
Any advice or comments are very welcome!
It has 22 surplus food. With GT you can stay at a population of 16 and draft every turn with ~25 hammers. Wow! 
