Eliminating Some Rivals
After destroying the Aztecs and resettling their lands my world map, at 1705AD, looked like this:
My next large target would be China. I decided she could wait for a while. I'd make a new deal for furs with her (my previous deal would expire in 1710AD) and spend some time cleaning out the remnants of my previous rivals.
I destroyed the remnants of America in 1715AD, the Mongols in 1735AD, the Zulu in 1750AD, and the Inca also in 1750AD. Inca culture had reached 145033 at the time of their destruction.
War With China
China declared war on me in 1752AD. I guess that with most other Civs removed from the game I became more of a target. And due to all the cities I've razed in this game all of the AIs have been furious with me since quite a while ago.
My military wasn't in position to invade China yet but many of them were on their way. China's declaration of war was almost as well timed as I could ask for - I lost a luxury but gained some reverse war weariness and sped up my invasion schedule
My military was strong enough at this time to invade China and defeat her in head-on war if I used my armies carefully. Still, China's forces weren't small. She had about 900 military units, the strongest ones being Guerillas. I decided to try "poofing" instead of fighting. A test of the alternating Funnel theory.
Over the next few turns I landed armies at three points along the Chinese coast. This action seemed to draw Chinese troops out of their cities. I don't know why. I know they won't attack armies in the open. Perhaps units were being shuffled to the cities nearest my invaders.
In 1758AD I captured the Chinese city of Shantung and left just one way to reach it without attacking my armies:
It took three turns for Chinese units to get close enough to Shantung that I needed to switch to the other "Funnel". In 1764AD I blocked the invaders in the east and opened a path in the west:
The AI went for it. This army trick, sending the AI back and forth, turns out to be simple AI "puppet strings", the same as can happen with blocked AI settlers. If I wasn't already confident that I could have defeated China head on I'd have felt guilty about this manipulation. Almost the entire Chinese military arrived at my doorstep, leaving just four defenders behind in each city. The huge Chinese force pointlessly shuffled back and forth as I changed the available path to Shantung.
In the meantime the bulk of my armies continued to arrive elsewhere on the Chinese coast and began attacking the weakly defended cities. It didn't take long. By 1774AD I'd reduced China to one city on an island. I checked her military - she had 823 units, almost all of them in the stacks attempting to reach Shantung. I destroyed three units defending the last city and *POOF* - the other 820 Chinese military units disappeared from the game. This approach (Funnel Of Deception?) certainly is a fast way to dispose of an AI
Now I have just Egypt left in the game. I've given her a tundra town, surrounded it, and tried to plant a spy this turn (1774AD.) She caught the spy and declared war. She is weak and backward, I won't have any difficulty reducing her to just that one tundra town.
Milking
I've been researching as quickly as I can toward building Mass Transit. Pollution has become quite a nuisance - I'm getting an average of about 8 tiles polluted each turn. I expect to learn Ecology two turns from now, in 1778AD.
Each turn still takes a long time, I have a lot of reorganization to do, abandoning some old territory in favor of better milking lands. I have much left to do in the 1774AD turn, claiming ex-Chinese territory, joining workers, and repositioning troops to head for Egypt. My current minimap at 1774AD after eliminating China and beginning the resettlement process:
Next turn I'll have furs connected (via a rushed harbor in ex-China) and will finally be at eight owned luxuries - phew!
Current score is 32213.
(I rarely get more than 2-3 armies in a game, which won't even form a Cone of Annoyance 
) Another example of how poor the I in AI is! (Let's march into that Funnel of Doom - It's the only way to get to that city we're never going to take!!) If nothing else, it might be nice if the different AI civs were set up to implement some of these "strategies" and forego others; this might trip up the experienced human player a bit who develops and uses Killer Strategies that work 100% because every AI civ does the same thing under the same circumstances.
