Okay, I reloaded and tried pursuing this war with Communism and I determined that Democracy is better, even with war weariness. Here's the transcript of an email I sent my best friend fellow Civ player. He has not yet bought the Conqueror's expansion...
Tried reloading my game and rather than out waiting the Zulus who wouldn't talk to me, I switched to Communism. Seven turns later I was out of anarchy, I had no war weariness at all, and I was free to pursue war as long as I wanted. However, this government did not have the economic payoff of a democracy. Because I wasn't bringing in nearly as much capital, I was forced to reduce my science output because I could not afford to keep it at its previous level. Suddenly, it was taking me 7 turns to research a tech instead of 4-5. I decided to reload my previous game and continue playing as a democracy. Because of the
anarchy that resulted from switching governments, I had made much more progress as a democracy fighting war weariness anyway.
A few turns later, the Zulus agreed to make peace with me. I had left them the core of their best cities, but I had taken 3/5 of their empire from them, though many of them were smaller cities.
I had done something else while at war that I had never done before. You can set your government to mobilize for war. What this basically means is that your production speeds up across the length of your empire. I think you gain an extra shield for each citizen that is working when you activate mobilization. The downside is that every city has to be working on military units or buildings. This hampers you somewhat because you can't build temples or courthouses in any newly taken cities. Also, the only way you can cancel mobilization is by making peace or annihilating your opponent. Still, the benefits outweighed the detriments, and I might very well do it again if I become embroiled in a long war. (Note: I always turn culture-flip off)
Once I was at peace, I spent a few turns and had all my fully developed cities(20+) add recycling centers and coliseums. I had just learned Recycling, and I finally decided that coliseums were worth their upkeep cost. Besides, the computer always built them, and your score is based on citizen happiness. Then, I started cranking out mechanized infantry until I had garrisoned every city in my new empire. Many of the cities I took from the Zulus were undefended. I'd stacked all the armor I had
in the world on one square so it was for offense only, and I wanted to know where to find it.
Now, I wanted to take out another civ before they gained the technology to make it more difficult. I decided on the French. They were closest and had not yet modernized their army beyond riflemen. (And they are cheese-eating surrender-monkeys anyway). I checked with my foreign minister and discovered that France's Mutual Protection Pact with the Byzantines had expired and hadn't been renewed. I scanned the world for any remote cities they owned and found three. France was to the northwest of my empire, but they had two small cities to the south, and a single city far, far away to the southwest, past the entire Japanese empire. My fear was that I'd defeat them quickly, and then find a remote city that I couldn't reach. The AI would then refuse to make peace and my economy would fall apart again out of war weariness.
I signed a Right-of-Passage agreement with the Japanese, who were always traipsing across my empire anyway. Then, I sent an Army with 4 elite Modern Armor units in it through their territory to the isolated French city, and a small force of 2 tanks and 2 infantry to their other two smaller cities. I moved all my remaining armor by rail to the outskirts of the French empire. I demanded they give me all their gold (2000), but they refused, so I attacked. I made sure to build railroads as I went, moving in my hordes of workers from around my empire. I did not eliminate every unit, but bypassed the remnants, concentrating only on taking every city in one turn. I couldn't do it, but I sent my remaining undamaged armor close enough to the remaining cities to take them on the following turn. I was able to eliminate the French in only two turns (fairly accurate historically), though I had a brief moment of panic when they weren't eliminated after I took their last city. It turned out they had two settlers hidden under a couple riflemen I had missed. Once I eliminated them, the war was over.
Now it's just me, the Japanese, the battered Zulu, and the vast
Byzantine empire with 250+ infantry units (I snuck a spy into their
kingdom). Once the Byzantines are overcome, which will require I build a great deal more armor, the game will essentially be over. They don't have tanks yet, either, but it can't be far off.
Genghis-Sean