When I demand Alex withdraw, of course he declares war.
Sheesh. Now the question is will Greece sign alliances against me? I'm going to gamble that he won't and that we can end this war soon. If he does, I'm going to have to go into Total War mode, and either knock the world down to two AI researchers, or just exit now with a diplomatic win.
I start loading up troops to go raze one of his cities to get him to talk sooner, but then I see that Alex has an MPP with Wang Kon. Not good; I'm not going to go trigger that.
I play through six quite nervous turns, but then Greece actually calls ME up for peace before I could even talk to him. Peace sounds good to me.
The turn AFTER that, someone turns up with Synthetic Fibers. If I'd had that a turn earlier, I would've gone and eliminated Alex with the modern armors. Oh well.
The cost difference between buying and stealing Synthetic is over four thousand, though, so I go ahead and steal it safely from Spain.
I try again to steal, from France this time (Korea doesn't have the tech and I haven't been able to get a spy into Greece). The two attempts were still cheaper than buying, but only slightly. I can resell the tech to Korea for a new supply of Silks and 72 gold/turn, though.
I build the United Nations, but I've changed my mind on what type of victory to go for. By the time I could finish the UN, four of the ten required Modern techs are already in play; almost halfway to space. I'm sure I can still put up a very good showing for space launch date. And hey, space is worth more points both by itself and by way of a larger treasury.
Only three turns after Synthetic, Space Flight also shows up! The buy price on that tech, though, is ridiculous as always (over 500/turn.) I'll wait and see if there's a brokerage opportunity. (I have the production to build the entire spaceship in about 4 turns; there's no rush at all to acquire that tech.) Also, now, if I delay buying some of the techs, it might push the end of the 20-turn payment window past my launch date, saving me money.
And bingo, two turns later, Brokerage #22. Spices + 352 gold/turn to Korea for Computers, and Computers plus 90/turn to Spain for Space Flight. Thanks, AIs, for coordinating your research efforts so well! Remind me to send you a lovely Centaurian postcard 
But then, in 1615 AD, France declares war on Korea. I don't feel like going to war myself to wipe out Korea, though. Well, one thing I can do is take 1,430 plus 146/turn from France for Rubber. (wow!) I'll keep an eye on things, and if they drag in either of the other two civs, I'll intervene.
An investigation of a French city shows them in - aaaaaaaargh - War-Time Mobilization.
A couple turns later, I see several Spanish ship pairs obviously Going Somewhere. What are THEY up to?
Oh. We're four techs away from launching! STOP WARRING!
Well, I blow 2000 cash to upgrade all my infantry to mechs, and 1560 to upgrade 78 tanks to modern armor. Leonardo's is still working.
In one turn, half of Spain is gone. And I hadn't realized this would happen, but it's cool anyway:
But, OOOOPS....
But at the end of this turn, I get some excellent news:
France had dropped into anarchy, but now got back into Democracy without going into Communism.
The next turn, I make little gain against Spain, since all my modern armors are damaged. At the end of that turn, war weariness skyrockets from zero to phase three instantly, and I have to scroll-ahead and fix 1.3 zillion rioting cities.
Next turn, which is 1670 AD, Spain still won't talk. Well, they sealed their fate.
In 1675 AD, Spain is banished off the main continent. Now I'm kicking myself for forgetting to abandon Lutetia before Spain attacked; if it wasn't for that city Spain would be eliminated. It'd take me at least three turns to get troops there to do so, and possibly more given that Spain does still have some naval power in the area and I don't. We make peace, Spain conceding 400 gold which is all they had.
It occurred to me a turn later that I could have used Propaganda as many times as necessary to grab Lutetia before Spain's capital moved there, which would have eliminated the civ. Oh well. Probably better that I didn't spend the cash, anyway. :)
Also this turn, amazingly, BOTH Superconductor and Satellites have been researched by AIs. Excellent! France holds a monopoly on Superconductor, though. A safe steal fails, and then does so AGAIN, but both times the spy is undetected, and finally on the third call to the Intelligence Agency we get the tech. And my twenty-third and final brokerage is to trade Superconductor to Greece for Satellites and his 850 gold, and to Korea for 169 gold/turn.
I go through the Spanish cities. Any that came with a courthouse and police station I kept, although after doing the usual starve-down drill, disbanding military units to rush settlers. Any Spanish cities that didn't have corruption-reducing improvements had all their improvements sold off and were abandoned, even Madrid with the Oracle. The rules on the Throwaway Cities exploit state you may not abandon a city with active resisters, and I stuck to that. One of the Spanish cities I kept later flipped back, but I didn't really care.
Eight turns after the last techs, Joanie the Moron comes up with Advanced Flight. 
But another turn after that, Greece comes up with Nuclear Power. 
I don't need to acquire it yet, though; see if I can wait until the very last turn (when someone gets The Laser) and get away with paying only one round of gold/turn for it.
Then Korea goes to war with France again -- and that triggers Greece's MPP with Korea. SIGH. STOP FIGHTING, YOU IDIOTS! I NEED ONE MORE TECH! I decide to now steal Nuclear Power from Greece to gift it to the other two, to try and get them to research Laser.
Greece and France are both in anarchy in 1752 AD, and Korea's already in Communism. Sigh. All I can do is keep hitting Next Turn and watch my treasury inflate. Please tell me it isn't going to take 40 turns for somebody to get to The Laser...
(We know from Epic 24 that I run no risk of losing by doing this, because a tie in spaceship completion goes to the player. The AI cannot discover a tech, swap a prebuild, and complete the last part all on the same turn. So the player always has a chance to acquire the tech on the next turn, and assuming he's got a prebuild ready, can always complete and launch before the AI can.)
Next turn, check diplo, next turn, check diplo, next turn, order up temple in worthless Spanish city, next turn, check diplo....
Finally, mercifully, in 1776 AD, Greece comes up with The Laser. I pay him 1,300 gold/turn for it (although he'll only get one turn of that 
), trade it to the other civs to clean out the few hundred in their treasuries, and swap my prebuild that's been ready to the Planetary Party Lounge. Space Race win in...
Hang on a sec, I'm not done.
I scroll through all the cities, and sell every building that doesn't produce commerce. Granaries (could have sold them a long time ago actually), temples, cathedrals, colosseums, factories, nuclear plants, mass transits, and airports - everything must go! That gets me an extra 4,000 gold here on the last turn. (The save available here is from before doing that.)
Space Race win in 1778 AD. 363,831 gold in the treasury.
29 hours, about an average work-week for a CEO. 
About 8 hours of that was away from the computer for various things, mostly meals, just like a CEO would go out to lunch.
