I'm rather fond of the pre-1 AD spaceship launch in Civ IV: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/lets-play-deity-bc-sp...

For some context, in Civilization IV you play a civilization from the year 4000BC. One of the win conditions is to research all the way into the information era, and build a spaceship that goes to Alpha Centauri.

Through horrible game mechanic abuse, this player managed to tech all the way up and launch the spaceship in the BCs, before 1AD, on the highest difficulty level.

Honestly that looks like the most boring roller coaster ever invented by man. I prefer the Sim City one, with its strong dystopian vibes ;)