A good opportunity for me to instigate some trouble and distract Caesar had come one turn before I discovered Rifling.
Saladin declared war on me!
He advanced with two stacks on Tlexcala, but his timing left a lot to be desired...
Not only would I have riflemen next turn, I also had a tech lead to wreak some diplomatic havoc!
Saladin had declared war on me, threatening my hard-to-defend cities south of the lake. But my hard
diplomatic work throughout the game so far had paid off, as I was able to bring Caesar, Mansa and Mao into the war. Not only that, but
I was also able to get Economics out of the deals, plus a lot of money to fund upgrades! The world was
good. 
The only problem was that I was unable to bribe
Victoria, who was second in score behind Mansa.
Anyway, Mao and I killed the stacks near Tlexcala, and I used the money from the deals to upgrade my city raider jaguars to riflemen. My empire switched to military production. I waited several turns and saw some of Caesar's stacks passing by south of Tlex and Tex, on their way east to Saladin...and when I felt most of his units where away, I declared war on him.
I'm a sneaky, backstabbing
bastard.
I had a nice stack of riflemen and catapults on Caesar's borders, soon to be supported by cavalry as well,
while he had knights and, unfortunately, grenadiers.
His production capacity was far superior to mine, so I had to be careful during this war not to lose too many units.
My plan was this:
My stack would move through the cover of forests and hills towards Antium, expecting to suffer from lots of catapult attacks and maybe even from grenadiers on the way. Once arrived, my catapults would bombard the city defenses while I would use the promotions on the riflemen to heal, then I would take the city. At that point, I expected a major attack from Caesar to retake the city; I would weather that, heal, then send out my forces clockwise to Ravenna, Arretium, Arpinium, and finally, Rome. When (if?) I had come that far, I would have to see if and how to continue, depending on war weariness, losses, new tech situation etc.
The idea behind this plan was that the capture of Antium would divide his empire in half, giving me a base from where I could intercept his units and where I could heal. Capturing his cities clock-wise would reduce the front I had to defend, until the fall of Rome, from where I could conquer his western cities.
Given the map layout, Caesar had no good way of bypassing my forces to attack my hinterland. The only other way besides the mountain maze north of Antium would be northwest of Bantu, my ex-barbarian iron city. To shut off that possibility, I parked two pikemen at the only two entrances to my territory there, which fooled the pathfinding AI that the only way would be through the mountain maze instead, where my arriving reinforcements could deal with them.
That worked well: No Roman units ever moved near Bantu. Oh, and take a look at the scores in that picture: Despite being on par tech-wise, I was ranked only 5th overall! It was really about time to improve my situation and finally get my hands on some productive lands.
My battle plan worked as intended. On my way to Antium, my stack met a Roman stack consisting of four grenadiers, four knights, a musketman, and numerous catapults. And indeed, all the catapults attacked my stack, wounding them but not killing a single unit; I had been careful to stand on a forest hill. The other units did not attack however; I let them move past my stack, and dealt with them in the open with my cavalry that was arriving at Xochicalco.
Take a look what happened during my siege on Antium...
While I was threatening his very core, his stacks wreaked havoc in the far east, capturing two of Saladin's cities!
Good thing I had distracted them, otherwise this war would have been a lot more
difficult.
In 1695AD, I captured Antium and paused there to heal. As expected, a heavy assault on the city took place, and I lost a couple of riflemen - really amazing what a fight Caesar managed to put up there, despite his main forces fighting in Arabia! Well, two turns later, Machiavelli showed me the reason...
Rome was the largest civilization, and Azteca the smallest. Well, time for
Goliath to learn what David can do... Without the ability to reinforce his eastern cities, my forces were able to capture
Ravenna in 1725AD, Arretium in 1755AD and Arpinium in 1770AD. My city raider/pinch riflemen were a good match against
Rome's grenadiers!
My battle plan had one flaw, though. The idea had been that from Antium, I would intercept any units Caesar might send
to reinforce or retake his eastern cities. That part of the plan worked well. But what I had not really thought about was that
he might decide to call home some of his Arabian forces... 
Whoops. Suddenly, a stack of nicely promoted units had arrived from the east, taking me by surprise, and had overwhelmed
my insufficient garrison at Arretium. 
I had already sent my forces towards Rome,
which I now had to recall to take Arretium again. Ouch! Before this incident, his stacks returning home had always tried to
attack or pillage Texcoco and Tlaxcala, but that one had moved past these two cities without me noticing it.
Anyway, this time I razed Arretium, because China's cultural borders were so strong there that I wouldn't have been able to hold
the city for long anyway.
But all that only delayed me, not stopped me, and Rome itself fell in 1818AD. Caesar had rifles and cavalry now as well, so my losses increased slightly, but clever movement and thoughtful attacking reduced losses to a minimum, along with my better promotions. In the meantime, Antium had built the forbidden palace, helping my war-shaken economy somewhat. I also had made peace with Saladin, getting 430 gold and 9 gpt from him. Mao had made peace as well, after capturing Baghdad. Victoria, on the other hand, saw Caesar on the floor and smelled an opportunity. She declared war on him! Argh. She captured Circei and Nubian, and I couldn't do anything about it; but at least our common enemy improved relations between us a lot.
In 1826AD, Mansa made peace with Saladin as well; he had gotten Damascus and Medina out of his war efforts. It really looks like the AI is better at taking cities now! In 1830AD, I discovered Assembly Line (infantry!), and traded a bit for some techs and money. The AIs were still up steel, though - I had fallen behind a bit thanks to war weariness. I had captured Pisae and Cumae, and built the Statue of Liberty. In 1850AD, it was time to make peace again.
I adopted peace-time civics again, and planned to consolidate my gains and catch up. Here's a bird's eye view of my new territory, from some turns later after all resistances had ended...
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