I used to be able to do this. I t'd say wait for so and so or kick them. Now it just spins the globe and says wait for other civilizations. This really disappoints me as I have a friend who constantly wants to restart once I do well.

I have asweet game going as Amurites with tons of mana just got 1 death and third fire 3 turns on summoning then getting sorcery. I was running at 40% science for a while because the city locations were SO good I couldn't help building on them. I just got Saverous out and now that I cottaged up and built markets/tax I'm back up to 70% and I have as many swordsman as the Hippus directly below me have warriors.

I'd like to keep playing this game but no idea how to make it unlock. I also had another game as Luchuirp he bailed out on that i'd love to play but same problem.

It shouldn't be a problem to keep going as single player. If you have the save file for the game, load it up as a LAN connection game, then just launch it with all seats but yours filled by AI.

From what i can see there's no way to edit the slot. It just says open. Maybe because I wasn't the host?

Not sure about that, typically I host the games I play. Maybe you don't have AI hotswapping enabled and that might have something to do with it. Though it is meant for adding players, not removing them.

shouldnt be a problem, open spots get taken over by AIs anyways

Except it doesn't hence me asking the question ;) It just sits there and spins like its waiting for someone to end turn.

i never have that problem in my games, people leave and i can just keep playing

right if i had picked vote yes to save and continue playing i'm sure it would have been fine but i said exit so he's still considered to be "in the game" so when i load the save there's no way to replace him with an AI

dont you get the popup that says "waiting for so-and-so" with 3 possible options? then you choose "continue playing"

Only when he was hosting the game. If i reload it and start it again it just spins and waits. I just had him host the old game of ours i wanted then had him quit and this time i picked save and keep playing. I can load that save up now.