I played one as Augustus...won in around 1910.
I started 3 tiles away from Izzy...which meant she had to go, of course...she founded Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism before I killed her off with my Praetorians. I then went and killed off Huayna because he woulda backstabbed me eventually anyway. I left Alex and Cyrus alone because they were too far away to bother with, and because I had hopes that they might possibly make an impact on my tech speed. They didn't, as they didn't even research Education until I could research Industrialism(which I then took with Liberalism, completely researched in 1 turn)
At the end of the game, thanks to my massive cottages, and thanks to Representation, Mercantilism, and the Statue of Liberty, I was researching at nearly 2k beakers per turn at 90% while making +15 gpt.
Unfortunately, the biggest time contraint on my space races is still building the Apollo Program...it took me more time to build the Program than to collectively finish off all the techs and build every single space ship part.
Anyone have any tips for building the Apollo Program in less than 30-40 turns?(I coulda done it faster, but my best two production cities were too far N and S)