Just got my first ever "Stairway to Transcendence" (thoughts and questions)

To give you an idea of how meaningless it is to have such a high population, I would've had not >145,000,000 people in my empire at the time of my >+11,500 VPs mark. That's approximately the entire population of Russia itself in the present day.

 

Update: new rule...

The One City Challenge on Difficulty > 0 can now be played with Rare Native Life Forms until there's solid proof that keeping ahead in the tech race is otherwise achievable. Iron Man is still required.

As for "the proof"...

HARDCORE REQUIRED that your strategy, is achieved with-out the Scenario Editor; otherwise, I simply CAN'T TELL. The One City Empire Challenge on Difficulty = 0 still can't be played with Rare Native Life Forms, since tech thresholds for humans on that level are so low; that the Native Life Activity there, likely wouldn't make any real difference. I STILL REFUSE to allow; even out of RNG-hating desperation; ludicrous map sizes, map dimensions and map dimension discrepancies. Again, the game breaks other-WISE. Dimensions > 256 and Squares > 65,536 can make the game, and possibly your operating system, stop functioning properly outright. Nothing < Tiny/Small would ever make a difference anyway. Even then, we're only talking about lower overall growth costs for both you and the CPUs. < Tiny is forbidden unless you want to beat the game VERY quickly. Even then, it is not a legit One City Challenge; because 1) other factions might not even "spawn" altogether, and 2) I can't think of anything else, except that the new levels of Bureaucracy will, once again, break the game enough as it is.

Please note, that I'm not specifically banning Tiny & Small Maps outright. If the RNG/Thresholds make you want to break something on Difficulty > 0 for the One City Challenge, then go right on ahead and shrink the map. I highly suggest leaving Ocean Coverage, Erosion and Cloud Cover at their default settings; unless you can prove that changing them would actually make any real difference. For Difficulty = 0, all of the default map settings are required for the One City Challenge because your quest would likely just be too easy otherwise. I ONLY refuse to allow < Tiny for the One City Nation Challenge, due to those sizes falling outside of the INTENTED map sizes.

 

Also, since the game can no longer come up with automatic city names after ~70 of them, its only inevitable that one will have to name them manually. For my case, I did the name of the first childhood cartoon star that came to me. I worked down the line until I no longer fought wars. My guess is that the surviving nations got so scared of me, that none of them could even think of challenging my empire. I barely recall the rest, and can no longer look back, since I don’t have the completed save file anymore (or at least I’m pretty sure that I don’t, I’ll have to check first…).

 

Update: yep, just as I feared. I can’t find the finished file anymore, although I could check my computer to be sure…

 

update: here's the ecology% equation...

(10*1-2) * (DIFF) * (Techs) * (3 - PLANET) * (LIFE) / 300

DIFF = 5 if Thinker/Transcend, else 3

I'm still stuck on DIFF = 3, so we'll use that. Now it's...

(10*1-2) * 3 * (Techs) * (3 - PLANET) * (LIFE) / 300

LIFE = Native Life Activity under Custom Rules, 1 = Rare, 2 = Average, 3 = Abundant

Random Events never occur before M.Y. 2126-2176, adjusting for the in-game difficulty. After that, perihelion occurs every M.Y./80 as long as M.Y./80 /=/ a decimal (i.e. it's a whole number). Perihelion lasts for 20 turns each time it occurs. During Perihelion, use (10*2) or simply 20. Otherwise, use (10*1) or simply 10. Therefore, the Perihelion takes place in M.Y. 2160-2180, 2240-2260, 2340-2360 and 2440-2460 on the Transcend, Thinker and Librarian Levels. On Citizen, Specialist and Talent Level, Perihelion is M.Y. 2240-2260, 2340-2360, 2440-2460 and 2540-2560. In other words, there will always be four "Perihelion" eras no matter what the difficulty. The only difference is that it begins much earlier on the three highest in-game levels of difficulty (Turn 59) than it does on their lower equivalents (Turn 139), a multiplicative difference of ~2&1/3rd. As a whole, Perihelion, lasts for 80 in-game years out of 400-500 (16% to one fifth of the run), so 10*1.2 on Librarian, Thinker and Transcend Levels and 10*1.16 otherwise. That would be 11 (round down) on the Citizen, Specialist and Talent Levels and 12 on the Librarian, Thinker and Transcend Levels. I'm still on puny levels, so use 11. Now then...

11 * 3 * (Techs) * (3 - PLANET) * LIFE / 300

Or...

33 * (Techs) * (3 - PLANET) * LIFE / 300

I normally use Abundant Native Life Forms nowadays, so...

33 * (Techs) * (3 - PLANET) * 3 / 300

PLANET = Social Engineering PLANET Score (we'll assume that it does stack for this equation beyond the +3)

However, I usually recommend using the Green Economy and Cybernetic Future and playing as the University to win the Scientific Victory with a high score, so...

33 * (Techs) * (3 - 4) * 3 / 300

33 * (Techs) * (-1) * 3 / 300

There are 76 "regular" techs, so...

33 * 76 * -1 * 3 / 300

Or...

-7,524 / 300

Or...

-25.08% Ecology!

Now the OCN (rounded down) is...

Tiny Citizen and Tiny and Small Specialist: 9
Small Citizen: 10
Large Citizen: 20
Huge Citizen: 27

Standard Specialist: 17
Standard Citizen and Large Talent and Specialist: 18
Huge Specialist: 26

Tiny Talent and Librarian: 8
Small Talent and Librarian: 9
Standard Talent: 16
Huge Talent: 24

Standard Librarian: 15
Large Librarian: 17
Huge Librarian: 23