Building the Great Library is a sure way to fall behind in tech. (Unless you are playing at Deity/Sid level.) Just think about it: the Great Library only gives you techs that the AIs already know. How can you get ahead of them, if you only lag behind these buggers? You need to do your own research, if you want to get ahead of them. That means lot's of (small) libraries and then universities asap. On Monarch level it is possible to build the space ship way before 1993 AD. Take a look at the Hall of Fame tables: fastest spaceship victory on Monarch level is 950 AD (a thousand years before the AI managed to do it in your game). Ok, that was with a super-duper start position, but I would say, with any "average" start position on Monarch level, a spaceship launch should be possible for the human player around 1500-1600 AD.
Hehe, that might be true with respect to calling a UN election, but in general I doubt that...
It is possible to extract the "seed number" from any given save file (for example using CivAssist) and then recreate the 4000 BC start file. I did that for the current game, the result is attached. Does that look familiar?
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