Quite interesting. The problem I see here is that "progress" isn't a real, measurable phenomenon, it's an abstract model of history born from the Enlightenment and positivism (and then marxism). It's a specular model to the classical antiquity hesiodean idea of decadence. But history doesn't respond well to inductive reasoning and there is no real reason to believe in a specific pattern, as can be easily demonstrated by pointing at the most literate and culturally advanced country in the world falling to nazism just eighty years ago, or at the status of women in early Christianity vs medieval Christianity, or at how animal rights were an issue for Plutarch, and then went basically unnoticed in western thought until Bentham, or at Islam spawning Mutazilism in the 8th century and Wahhabism in the 18th, or at economical inequality growing right now after half a century of middle class expansion. There are lots of examples.
That said, progress is what the fun is about in 4X games. Your have to have some consistent way of improving your civ according to some established criteria. If those games were to simulate history, then there would be no such way. And honestly I think most players would just restart the game if faced with bouts of general decadence beyond their control.
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