Civilization V players?

This was on lv 6 difficulty.  Basically, it was me (greece) and germany left, I had taken over egypt and they had taken the aztecs, china, and another civ (which one exactly escapes my memory). Germany was about 2.5 times as large as me from all their conquest in everything except gold, in which I was only about 1.5 times smaller than them.  I was pushing for a diplomatic victory, and I had the 9 votes all set up and everything, but unfortunately by virtue of their superior infrastructure they were able to get the UN before me, and then proceeded to take two of my allied city states as their own.  Knowing I had no chance of winning any other way, I put all my cities to making gold to pay the city states with.   What followed was a many turned and grim struggle for the favor of the city states.  Slowly, they eroded my grasp, up to a point where they were only one short of the necessary 9 votes for a victory.  In a last ditch effort, I converted my great general into a golden age and gave away all my units to city states.  Even this wasn't enough.  I held off germany for the round of UN voting, but just barely.  Next round was even direr.  I ended up actually selling most of my cities to germany the turn before the vote so I could use the gold gained to pay off the city states.  Remarkably, I was able to get my diplomatic victory this way.  It was probably the hardest I have ever had to fight for victory.  

Just felt the need to share that.