Corruption began around turn40, Only able to prove it started after turn 36. I played until turn 50or60, then found a dozen failed corrupted save files. Tried again. Corrupted again. Wouldn't work.

My theories were it had to do with the academy being found, despite me winning the the precusor, and yet never having the real search quest given to me.

I also theorized it had to do with me signing a peace treaty.

However the best guess I have now is that it had to do with me making the religous party win the turn40 election. I had to use a republic pressure method to make them win.

However I found this error log:

01:20:10:920STACKGame has been loaded.

01:20:10:921STACK[Population] 'PopulationPoliticalEventBuildingConstructionWonderScientist' LoadGame() failed: Could not find game entity #1401. If errors follow, this is a data problem.

01:20:10:921STACK[Population] 'PopulationPoliticalEventBuildingConstructionWonderScientist' LoadGame() failed: Could not find game entity #1401. If errors follow, this is a data problem.

01:20:10:921STACKGame created.

01:20:10:921STACKNullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object

01:20:10:921STACKNullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object

Then I realized that I'd gained access to a special quest-only influence generating building around turn 40, and I'd tried to build it, to increase religious party support.

It seems that this system improvement being a special side-quest-only reward has an error with it's reference to changing political parties? That's my guess from "PopulationPoliticalEventBuildingConstructionWonderScientist"

I could be wrong.

http://www.filedropper.com/turn42

game version 1.0.5 gold

oh if you want to repeat the bug, I guess just play like I would, from this save file, my last good one. http://www.filedropper.com/turn36

work to assimilate one of the slave minor factions quickly, and build the building you get as a quest reward, and for good measure cheat to make sure the religous party wins. I've tried several times to play past turn41 (which iirc is the actual turn the election results come out on?) I've failed, but I've always taken similar research/build/fleet depositions. It might be possible to avoid the bug, but I couldn't. It's not really 5/5 though because I've never seen this bug before in other game playthroughs.

turn36.zip

turn42.zip

I played through this bug again, this time in game version 1.0.5.2

Turn41 save, corrupted, won't load, after the election: turn41perfectpoliticalpartyplacement.zip

turn40 save, corrupted, won't load, before election right before I hit end turn: turn40endof.zip

this proves the election doesn't have to happen, but I still think it's election politics related.

turn39 save, not-corrupted, will load, systemic oratory was built the previous turn, I made sure to assimilate faster this playthrough, so this wasn't coincidentally on turn40 anymore: turn39beforedesigningARK.zip

I still have no idea what's causing the bug, but between turn39 and turn40 I build an ark, and complete an assimilation quest by building a 6th building. Assimilating a minor faction does impact religious political events. so maybe that's what the bug is? but a similar quest finished a previous turn didn't cause the corruption. Maybe assimilating a second minor faction in rapid succession bugs out the religious political opinion event? I really have no idea. The other thing I do on turn40 is unanchor my starting ark, anchor my 3rd ark in my home system, pay gold to upgrade my starting ark, unanchor my 3rd ark, and then re-anchor my starting ark.... maybe this is what causes the corruption? This is something I've always done on turn40 in this game.

This is the autosave from turn40, before I did the ark switch, which seems to prove the ark switch itself causes the bug. AutoSave 310.zip

so upgrading an ark causes the bug? or maybe upgrading an ark when it's built a wonder? because I do have endless researchpark and endlessworld built in it, as well as some production partially progressed towards intergalactic technology center. I wonder if I take 2or3 turns to upgrade the ark if it'll work? and the error/bug is caused by upgrading an ark in one turn? or maybe the original starting ark is never allowed to be upgraded?

Turns out you don't even have to unanchor an ark to upgrade it anyways.

OH guess what? I got the population bonus for having ten vodyani population when I unanchored my ark and re-anchored the fresh ark in my homeworld. Then when I saved I had 8population, despite having unlocked the 10 population bonus, maybe that was the source of the bug?

here's my end of turn41 save file, uncorrupted, works, guess I tracked down the source of the bug, it was the ark swap, something about the ark swap, which I had previously thought was required for upgrades, but isn't something someone should ever do, is buggy, and isn't even required: endofturn41 hopefully not corrupt.zip