The war with the Aztecs had lasted from 1530AD until I destroyed Montezuma completely in 1742AD. The following turn, all my pent-up war weariness magically disappeared and I got down to the task of building up my vast, newly acquired lands in the east. As part of that, I made what I expected to be the final civics swap of the game, which you may have been able to guess based upon my research of Communism in the last few pictures:
Yes, going to State Property of all things. And why not - it's exactly what my civ needs! First of all, it's another cheap civic, with No upkeep, keeping my costs low even with this many cities. Secondly, the big feature is no maintenance costs based on distance - perfect for a large, sprawling empire such as mine. That means I only pay maintenance costs based on number of cities, which is capped at a max of 6 for each city. In other words, each city costs me 6 gold and that's it, 3 gold if I build a courthouse there. State Property is thus a GREAT civic if you have a ton of cities, and I still haven't even mention it's THIRD advantage, granting extra food to workshops and watermills. I wouldn't build many workshops, and there were no rivers in the core of my original territory, but the Aztec lands had a lot of rivers, and I would add tons of watermills there with my workers. A watermill on a grassland tile would produce 3 food/2 shields/3 commerce, which is just ridiculous.
In short, my Frenchmen became a bunch of commies, and I was happy to see them do it. 
So I swap to State Property, and as I expected my income went up by about 90 gold per turn. I was now able to research at 90% science at a substantial profit, and even temporarily fuel deficit research at 100% science if necessary. Checking the F2 screen, I was up to 1200 beakers/turn, and still without a single observatory built. Ha! Washington won't have a tech lead for much longer. Build Wall Street in Orleans (my shrine city, remember) and income is now up to +66 gold/turn at 90% research. With by far the largest civ in the game. I tell you, this game definitely allows large empires, you just have to be smart about how you do it. Bigger is still USUALLY better, but it requires thought and planning now. The only bad news was the expected flip of Angle to America at the same time...
Gandhi had been at war with Alex since 1718AD, and I had been expecting Gandhi to ask me for help. He finally did in 1756AD, and I was happy to oblige:
Yeah! Let's go smash some Greek behind! 
Except - the very turn I sign this deal with Gandhi, he turns around and signs peace with Alex. That lying little... Well, by rule I can't attack Greece now, so we have several turns of phoney war before I can get peace with Alex once more. I would have enjoyed going after Alex and "acquiring" some more lands, oh well. I did amuse myself by blasting a Greek caravel to bits with one of my destroyers though.
For the next couple dozen turns, things were very quiet. My workers were very busy adding a military rail net and boosting production on mines/lumbermills, and then heading into the east to change around the tile improvements over there too. Otherwise though, it was mostly a matter of just racing through the tech tree and building infrastructure in all my cities. I ran a round of factories and then coal plants in all my cities, after which I could pretty much build anything and everything I wanted very quickly. The Aztec conquests I was able to stand up very quickly, faster than I expected, by having them build factories first and then clean up everything else they needed after that. Monty had some pretty good land over there too, to be honest!
I topped 1500 beakers/turn in 1770AD, and finally - FINALLY - I was #1 in GDP. Took me the whole damn game, but I finally ran down Washington. Now I was able to assume the tech lead and race ahead at the bottom of the tree, heading for the happiness wonders - mostly for denial purposes, but also so I could increase my population that much further. I built Broadway, the first of these, in 1794AD. The same turn Lyons finished the Iron Works and started on the UN; with that national wonder and the Industrious wonder-boost added in, it was pumping over 200 shields/turn! Very nice. In preparation for the upcoming UN elections, I signed a Defensive Pact with Gandhi. That certainly should lock up his vote, as if my constant assistance to him throughout the game hadn't already done it.
My civ tops 50 million people in 1796:
The AI average was only 8.5 million, so I had a wee bit of an edge there. I snapped a shot of my whole empire in 1800AD in all its glory:
Most of my old cities are out of stuff to build and locked onto wonders for lack of anything better. I will land Rock N Roll, Hollywood, Eiffel Tower, and the United Nations all within the next dozen turns. Many of the Aztec cities are still finishing their factories, but others have already moved onto further infrastructure builds. I replaced a lot of the farms over there with watermills, since they are such awesome tiles under State Property, but I left all the farms intact at Tenochtitlan and was building Globe Theatre to let it grow as high as possible. I think it had enough food to get close to size 30, and I decided it would be amusing to try for that. Finally, note that the great jungles are finally gone from my original subcontinent. All hacked down. Instead, there are huge stretches of towns in their place, pumping out tons of commerce. Even little Avignon was getting about 70 beakers/turn in research! Oh yeah, and I'm making 88 gold/turn at 90% science. My economy rocks! If real-life communism was this effective, we'd all be living under the dictatorship of the proletariat today.
It was amusing the following turn to note that I could research the tech Artillery in 1 turn! (Granted, with massive over-flow research, so it was basically 2 turns.) Then on the following turn in 1804, Alex declares war on Gandhi! And - I get pulled into the war as well due to my Defensive Pact!
That picture is misleading, since it looks like I had declared war on Alex, but of course the truth of the matter was that the defensive pact had triggered, which was perfectly fair by the rules of this variant. I was now obligated to go to the defense of my ally - and maybe make a few conquests of my own on the side, perhaps? 
The timing was excellent too, as my old cities had little to build and could go whole hog on the military. With plenty of infantry on hand from my last war, I could focus on tanks and (once I got them) air units. Alex just made a mistake, 'cause no one picks on my little buddy Gandhi!
Off goes the Indian Expeditionary Force, heading into Indian territory to confront the Greece menace. Here they are en route:
There you see my columns of infantry heading past Madras on their way to the front, as well as my advance cavalry unit that has already spotted the first Greek cav. Researching Flight now, as the first tanks already roll off the production lines back at home. Also note my workers moving in behind the infantry; Gandhi had no coal and thus no rails (and I wasn't about to trade him any), so thus they came along with the army to lay down rails for the following reinforcements. Combat engineers are always important to have nearby.
I built the Kremlin in 1810AD even though I had no intention of ever going to Universal Suffrage. But I could build it, so why not deny it to the AI? More appropriate was the building of the Eiffel Tower in Paris on the following turn in 1812:
How very symbolic. Since I had the three modern happiness wonders all locked up, as well as free broadcast towers in every city, my happiness concerns were basically over for all time. Now it was time to push the war against Alex in earnest - because there was no guarantee when Gandhi would make peace, and then I would have to do so too!
The vanguard reached Sparta in 1812 and got a look at what I was up against:
Rifles? Yeah, this isn't going to be much of a fight. I bombed down the defenses to 0 and then attacked in 1818AD. Interestingly, my City Raider III infantry actually had better odds to attack than my first tank (who was only City Raider I), so I started out with him and killed the top rifle defender. Then the tank attacked, followed by my Combat IV infantry (who started out as a sword, way back when!) and Sparta was mine:
That infantry didn't win by much, did he? But anyone who could survive for such a long time had to be a tough warrior, and so he came through yet again to take the city. I then cleaned up that Greek cav and secured the city.
Now I had a foothold in Greek territory, so let me give you a view of what my supply lines looked like on the road to Sparta:
The yellow line denotes a solid path of rails that my forces are using to reach Greek territory quickly. Alex's cavs had pillaged everything in the eastern part of Gandhi's lands, so I simply detoured up through Washington's lands (I had Open Borders with him) and took the path of least resistance to Sparta. My workers did the rest, adding rails on tiles as necessary. I've always enjoyed the logistical aspect of this game, using workers to speed reinforcements just that much more quickly to the front. Those combat engineers are worth their weight in gold!
On the following turn I built the UN in Lyons. And, since I had enough votes to declare myself the UN Secretary, I did.
That's always fun, seeing that you have enough votes to pick yourself as the leader. Now I had enough votes to become the Secretary-General, but I still knew I would need the support of Gandhi to secure an outright Diplomatic victory. Therefore, the vote here would serve as a forecast of how he would vote in the "real" election coming up in a few turns. I mean, there's no way in the world that Gandhi shouldn't be voting for me; I've given him ludicrous trade deals throughout the game, we've traded resources since the very start of the game, we're engaged in a mutual military struggle - I mean, I'm literally saving his ass here from Alex. And yet... I wasn't entirely surprised to see this happen the following turn:
Gandhi votes for Washington. 
Washington's never done anything for Gandhi, and yet he votes for him over me. This makes NO sense whatsoever. He's not going to vote for me in the next election either unless I do something. Again, this is in total defiance of common sense, but I have to find some way to improve relations further with Gandhi. Digging deeply into my bag of tricks, here's what I come up with:
I switch to Universal Suffrage, since that's Gandhi's favorite civic. This actually hurts me; research rate goes down, income drops, etc. but if it gets that little jerk to vote for me, I'll be set. I mean, there's NOTHING more I can do. I have done EVERYTHING possible to help Gandhi this game. If he STILL won't vote for me, then the system is just broken. Relations are up to +13 and we're fighting a war together. That HAS to be enough.
Anyway, the war continued onward. Hollywood finished back home as my tanks advance on the next target, the Greek city of Thermopylae. My artillery units drop the city's defenses, and then I send in the tanks against their rifles:
Tanks against rifles is really no contest. I had generated a Great Artist a while back in Lyons, and now he had finally moved up to the front, where I decided to use him in Sparta. That gained me control over a number of tiles in Greek territory, as well as instantly ending the resistance in that city:
At the very least, there was now no chance the city would flip to Washington as Angle had.
I get to pick my first voting issue in 1828, and naturally I go right for the diplomatic victory. I have almost enough votes to win just by myself, but Gandhi will put me over the top. He's got to vote for me. He's just GOT to! If not, then the whole diplomatic system in this game is a fraud.
And Gandhi votes for Washington again.
OK, rant time. This whole thing is total BS. I've kissed Gandhi's ass the whole game, cutting him deal after deal after deal, come to his aid THREE times in wars - and in fact am doing that as we speak! - even adopted his favorite civic just to please him, and he STILL won't vote for me?! I mean, what more could I possibly have done? What a joke. In a non-variant game, I would declare war on his civ RIGHT NOW and have absolutely no mercy whatsoever. I tell you, this same BS happened to be in my Walkthrough game too. Soren will be hearing about this one and hopefully taking a look at it. We need to do some tweaking of how the AI civs decide who to vote for, because this current system does not make sense. At all.
I take out my aggression at Gandhi on Alex. Poor fool. Athens gets slammed repeatedly by bombers, then run over by tanks:
Screw Gandhi. There's another vote coming up in a few more turns, and if I burn down enough of Greece, I'll have enough population to vote MYSELF the diplomatic hegemon. Considering what a bastard Gandhi turned out to be in the end, that would be an appropriate ending. I've got tons of tanks on hand now, and bombers easily able to pound Alex's backwards cities without fear of interception. Corinth gets nailed on the following turn in 1834:
You can see the supply line through Indian territory I used to get more tanks up to the battlefield even faster. With all those crippled defenders, it was a simple task for my tanks to take Corinth on the same turn and begin moving on to the next target. Alex now down to only two cities left, his own semi-colonies south of India, and my tanks are beginning to close in for the kill.
I am prompted for another vote in 1836 and I again choose the diplomatic victory option. There's no subtlety to this now. I've got all the Mongol lands, all the Aztec lands, and most of the Greek ones in addition to my own; my population dwarfs that of any AI civ, and I have more people than all of the remaining civs combined. Just look at the F8 victory screen:
64% of the world population, and Washington is #2 with 19%. Yeah, that should do it. I don't need the help of any of these AI jerks, I'm winning this game myself.
