Interesting that my selected HoF-settings turned out to make the game harder. Start was of course awesome, it was a HoF game after all, but packing the map with more AI was a huge mistake. First of all it lowered domination limit, and it makes the AI build more units when they cannot expand anymore. Over all, in the second game I killed 100 more units to capture 10 less cities. I ended up with only 37 cities, compared to 47 in this NC game, which meant about 1500
/turn less in the end game. This was in part a result of the tough wars, a worse map layout for warfare, and me not expanding enough early on. Instead I focused on economy and Oracle->CS, which might not have been the best idea.
So while I was very far ahead in tech in the early game (had 625bc maces), 15 turns earlier to Oxford and still a few turns ahead with Apollo built and only 9 techs to go, this could not keep up with the larger empire I got in the NC game. I was done teching one turn later than in the NC game, and by then my chain of 6 golden ages was over, which screwed up my space part build calculations. So once again I failed to launch in one turn. It would have worked this time though, if I could have completed teching while still in a golden age.
Any way, lesson learned. In space games, more cities = faster finish date. It's really that simple.