And in your update you double down on it.
Quote
"Endgame
The endgame is an intersection of writing for the narrative side (which we are working on updating) and gameplay. For the gameplay we want to make sure the victory conditions are difficult and come late for most players. "

Do you have a graph on how many players played your game before and after you changed your victory condition. I will bet you have less players now than then. I quit when you doubled the victory condition. Sure the food one was a little to easy to complete but double?

I also think there is an issue with claiming provinces, it gets way to expensive, its so bad it ruins the immersion. Try play necrophage and then suddenly you cant expand anymore, because its a game and your forced to raze everything and be miles away from home after turn 150 or so.

Victory condition tied to difficulty is another bad game decision, I don't play on hard for that, I play on hard to have harder ai, battles with tougher enemies but when I beat those enemies I expect to have the same condition for victory.