And thus the war ground onwards uninterrupted.
I generated a Great Person in Paris in 1702AD, another Great Merchant. With Assembly Line due in a few more turns, I reasoned that getting some gold for infantry upgrades would be just the trick I needed to get this war over with sooner, so I sent him out towards Indian territory. When Assembly Line was discovered four turns later in 1710AD, therefore, I had it nicely timed to get the money I needed:
Over 2500g, very nice! (This is Epic speed, keep in mind.) That would be more than enough to upgrade all my rifles into infantry and fuel deficit research as well. I also noted in 1712AD that Monty was back to sending horse archers against me, since I had cut off his sources of iron. Also very nice. 
The city of Angle fell to me on the next turn in 1714AD:
The one problem with the city of Angle is that was very, very close to the American borders. You can see already how close Seattle is to my new conquest (from the name, Angle must be a former barb city). That's going to cause problems down the road when the American borders expand, but nothing I can do about it at the moment beyond try to get some culture into that city as fast as possible. War weariness forced me to up the luxury rate to 20% this turn as well, so I'd better get moving and finish this soon. Fortunately, I now had infantry on the scene and so my losses would drop even lower, hopefully speeding my conquest.
What? Gandhi has a tech that Washington doesn't?! Trade, trade, trade!
As of this point, Washington, Gandhi, and I were in a virtual dead heat in terms of technology. Once I get out of this war and stop bleeding out 20% of my income into luxuries, I should be able to blow past them and take my first real tech lead of the game. Still a number of cities to go before I reach that point, however. Monty was all but begging for peace now (offered me 540g for it!) but I was deaf to his pleas.
I got a further boost to my research efforts with the completion of the Statue of Liberty in 1722AD:
That's a free specialist in every city, not only boosting shields (as most of the specialists are Engineers or Priests) but with Representation adding a significant amount of beakers as well. There are few wonders more powerful in this game than State of Liberty on a Pangaea!
My soldiers celebrated by taking out the Aztec city of Calixtlahuaca the same turn:
Here you see an Aztec pike getting acquainted with one of my rifles at close range. Somehow, I don't think he enjoyed it very much. Only three cities to go at this point, but there were now 12 unhappy faces in Paris from the war weariness. Yikes! This is why you build those theatres and colosseums earlier in the game - and also why Creative civs are often some of the best at fighting long wars! Half-cost theatres are more useful than the average player thinks.
My forces close in on Tenochtitlan and begin bombing the defenses:
A word about suicide cats here - I didn't use them at all in fighting this war. There's this widespread assumption that you "have" to send in suicide artillery units in order to capture cities, and while they are indeed helpful in taking ONE city, for a long campaign that's just counter-productive. Instead, I've had much more success by getting a few Accuracy cats and then simply using them to bombard the city defenses down, NOT suiciding them on attacks. Your milage may vary, but it's something to think about, in any case.
Here's what I mean about the problem with Angle's borders that I referred to earlier:
As soon as the American borders expanded outward, they completely surrounded Angle - before it ever had a chance to build any culture. It's obvious that this city will now flip to the Americans, and there's nothing I can do about it. This is one of the most frustrating things about Civ4, when neutral third-party civs reap the benefit of wars by having their cultural borders expand or even get newly captured cities to flip to them. It's just a bad game mechanic all around, but we weren't able to come up with a solution to the problem. I got bit with it here, and let me tell you, it wasn't much fun.
More entertaining was grabbing the last few cities from Monty:
It's hard to see in that picture, but Texcoco is actually located underneath the text box (right above the word "pillaged"). Only two more Aztec cities to go now. Also, a word about the tech at the top of the screen: all the AI civs ignored Astronomy for a long, long time. This was great, because the longer I could go without having to research it and obsolete my Colossus, the better. But now Washington had finally taken the tech, and so I needed to go there too so that I could start building observatories. I had gotten GREAT use out of that wonder though and would be sad to see it obsolete. *sniff*
The unhurt units outside Texcoco walked down to Tenoctitlan, and since the battle was infantry against longbows, it really wasn't a contest:
That just left one Aztec city remaining, and my armies hungrily advanced towards Montezuma's last stronghold. Before showing the final battle, however, let me give you an indication of the war weariness that had built up over the course of this long war:
No fewer than SIXTEEN uphappy faces in Paris just from war weariness, and 35 unhappiness points overall. On the plus side, running 30% luxuries is resulting in 234 culture per turn! 
Also notice my four towns outside Paris, each of which is producing 7 commerce thanks to my civics. And Paris also has some very nice trade routes, getting a further 22 commerce there (this is why you build your capital on the coast if possible - so you can build a harbor and really pump up that trade route income!) Even at 60% science, the city is still getting 117 beakers per turn, pretty darn good. And that's with 3 unhappy citizens not working the land! Yeah, my production and commerce are going to explode as soon as this war's over.
Tlatelolco, the final Aztec stronghold, is not particularly well defended:
There are about a half-dozen infantry read to attack. I hit the city defenses with my cats and reduce them to about 20%, then send in the infantry. The Aztecs charge into battle one last time against my stalwart infantry:
And they are gunned down. That spells the doom of the hated rival of the Honorable French:
Not again! I mean, it spells the end of the Aztecs:
Ya know, if there's one thing Civ4 could use, it's a pop-up screen telling you that Civ X was destroyed. Civ3 did it better in that regard.
With the Aztecs vanquished, it was time to advance into the later stages of the game and think about how I wanted to win this thing.
