According to wiki there is two different types of pollution: global and local.

Global pollution effect is -50/-100 stability & -10/-20 food on cities, which is quite manageable in that by the time it happen this is not that big of a hurdle.

Local pollution on the other hand has effect of -15/-20 stability & -50%/-100% food faith influence science money production on each district within polluted territory. This means merely 10 district in a low pollution territory would cause -150 stability (probably need to build about 5 new garrison on very low pollution territory or many garrisons that each produce over 15 stability  - because they would also generate negative stability on polluted territory as pointed out by Helmar - to support this territory alone) and at high pollution whole territory is practically dead weight.

That being said, the most concerning issue in my opinion is that threshold for local low pollution is simply too low. According to wiki low pollution happen at 50-124 pollution per turn. I have found in my game that low pollution kicks in at 20 pollution per turn. 20 pollution in a territory is so low that I build a coal plant and a sawmill in a city I already have to deal with it on one or more of its territories. This means as soon as first polluting buildings are built players are hit in the face with the consequences. Spending rest of industrial age building garrisons/commons instead of makers quarters doesn't feel very great. Also you can't put airport next to market quarters for adjacent bonuses because as soon as you put single airport down you get 20 pollution and -50% money production.

Roundabout way to go about this is to put all the makers quarters in selected number of territories, since local pollution does not reduce industry even at high pollution, and prepare for incoming pollution by building near equal number of garrisons as there are makers quarters in those territory. It will get the job done, but leaves me to wonder whether preparing for pollution in industrial age from classical age by setting up makers quarter positions is intended gameplay.

Above mentioned way doesn't work, however, for farmers quarters that cause pollution. Food production is reduced based on pollution and there are no way to reduce pollution from farmers quarters, unlike makers quarters which get up to 90% pollution reduction. That puts industrial silo and factory farming in questionable position where increasing food production is good, but what good is it if food production is so quickly reduced by 50%?

Summary of my points:

- local low pollution should not happen at 20 pollution per turn (wiki says 50 minimum but I imagine I'm not the only one getting low pollution at 20)

- farmers quarters probably need way to reduce pollution as well, otherwise industrial silo and factory farming are trap since you can't destroy buildings that are built in cities

Further suggestions:

- 50 might still be low for local pollution, or immediate effect of half production is perhaps too harsh - other people have suggested pollution systems with more tiered effects and those seem more reasonable to me

- would be better if low pollution and high pollution threshold is visible within the game to prevent players getting blindsided (how many players know when low pollution and high pollution occurs at this point?)

- global pollution limit for game end seems a bit low - especially if one imagine a game where multiple civilization get high tech quickly without crushing each other

My suggestion is to make pollution more gradual and more manageable

Basically make Polluting worthwhile early on or to catchup, but to have big penalties if you are ahead when it gets out of hand. (So rather than instant end the game, Max level Pollution causes rapid collapse of larger empires)

Changes:

If a Forest/Woodland is chopped/removed it adds 20 pollution to the Global pile

Each Territory gives -1 to -5 Pollution per turn (depending on difficulty)

Silos reduced to 10 Pollution

SAM, Command Compound, Anti-Air Surveillance apply Pollution to Garrisons, not Makers Quarters

Windfarm gives -30% reduction, Solar Farm -30%, Hydro dam -30%, and Nuclear -50%, but multiplicative not additive, Nuclear power gives -2 Pollution per railroad up from -1

[If it must be additive, Nuclear -35% and Wind -25%]

Coastal Water/Lake/Dry Grass/Prairie tiles can gain "Blight" which sets food value to 0

Local and Global Pollution have the same effect... you take the effect of whichever is worse in a particular territory

Local Pollution is triggered by the pollution per turn from a territory AND all its neighboring territories

Fusion Power gives -50% to pollution from Districts (not the cleanup effect from forests/Territories)

EFFECTS Levels 0-5 (Very Low, Low, Moderate, High, Very High, Catastrophic)

Effects stack (so pollution level 2 has the effects of 0, 1, and 2 added up)

Pollution Level: Local Trigger, Global Trigger(depends on World Size+Game Speed): FIMS+District Effects; Terrain effects; Imperial Stability effects (apply to all your cities and outposts at that level, increases based on all your owned territories at those levels)

0: not level 1, not level 1: no District Effect; -1 to -5 Pollution per turn on Territory, 1% of Tiles per turn lose Blight if they have it

1: 100 poln/turn, 30k total poln: -10% Total Food Production, -2 Stability per District: -1 Pollution per Forest/Woodland, 1% of Forest/Woodland Tiles lost per turn; -0.1 Stability/Turn/Territory, max -10

2: 200 poln/turn, 60k total poln: -20% Total Food Production, -3 Stability per District: +2 Pollution per turn on Territory,  2% of Eligible tiles gain Blight; -0.2 Stability/Turn/Territory, max -30

3: 300 poln/turn, 90k total poln: -20% Total FIMS Production, -3 Stability per District: -1 Pollution per Forest/Woodland, +3% of Forest/Woodland Tiles lost per turn; -0.3 Stability/Turn/Territory, max -100

4: 400 poln/turn, 120k total poln: -30% Total FIMS Production, -7 Stability per District: +4 Pollution per turn on Territory, +4% of Eligible tiles gain Blight; -0.4 Stability/Turn/Territory, max -300

5: 500 poln/turn, 150k total poln: -50% Total FIMS Production, -10 Stability per District: 3% of Districts per turn are lost (if Main Plaza or Admin Center lose 5 Infrastructure and 5 Population instead, Holy Sites+Cultural Wonders exempted); -1 Stability/Turn/Territory, no max

[Game Ends if Global Pollution is at level 5 for 30 consecutive turns, Only if “Pollution Ends Game” option is on]

HOW TO DEAL WITH IT: There is the standard Build the Poln reducing Infrastructures and Forests, but you also get some additional tools on the way through Civics, and the ability to deal with other Player’s pollution through Grievances.

Add an Infrastructure in Suburbs (Zoning Board) that Reduces all District Pollution by -25% (stacks with Fusion Power)

Local Pollution Civic (Triggered by one of your Territories reaching Level 1 Pollution and in Contemporary Era)

INDIVIDUALISM, Build Through Pollution: -25% cost for Districts and Infrastructure, Ignore Food Penalties from level 1 Pollution

COLLECTIVISM, Reduce Pollution: +25% cost for Districts and Infrastructure, Your Territories are no longer counted for Local Pollution, but they still add to Global pollution [activate Pollution Regulation Civic]

Pollution Regulation Civic (Triggered by Reduce Pollution Choice)..how you reduce pollution

LIBERTY, Caps and Taxes: +1 $ and +1 Sci on Districts that produce pollution

AUTHORITY, Mandated Regulation: +3 Stability on Districts that produce pollution

Global Pollution Civic (Triggered by Global Pollution reaching level 1, And making a choice for the Local Pollution Civic)

If Local pollution choice=Build Through Pollution civic

WORLD, Geoengineering: Enable Geoengineering Projects** to be built

HOMELAND, Adapt: Ignore the District & FIMS effects of Pollution levels 1 and 3 [so level 4 only has the effects of 2 and 4], No Blight added on your Districts/Exploitations

If Local pollution choice=Reduce Pollution civic

WORLD, Zero Emissions: Zero Emissions: +3 Stability per District if your total pollution is negative, -25% Pollution from Districts [adds with Fusion Power and Zoning Boards], enable cities to be set to "Zero Emissions", which removes any Infrastructure that causes pollution

HOMELAND, Adapt: Ignore the District & FIMS effects of Pollution levels 1 and 3 [so level 4 only has the effects of 2 and 4], No Blight added on your Districts/Exploitations

 *Additive with Fusion Power

**[Geoengineering projects take up 7 tiles like space projects, are repeatable, can be built on ocean/mountain tiles, but not on each other... each one raises the thresholds for global pollution levels significantly... ie Level 1 is 30,000+5,000 per Geoengineering Project placed, Level 2 is 60,000+5,000 per Geoengineering Project Placed, etc.]

 Pollution Grievances are Triggered When

1. A neighboring civ's territory adds local pollution to one of your attached territories that is Level 1 or higher   [leads to Demand “adopt Reduce Pollution civic”]***

OR

2. A civ is a top Global Polluter And you have made a Global Pollution Civic choice [leads to Demand “adopt Reduce Pollution AND Zero Emissions civics”]***

***At Level 4+5, It includes a demand for the polluting territory (adjacent to you for local, and their most polluting territory for Global)

The Pollution Information only includes per turn pollution info from territories you can see.  

When you have adopted a Local Pollution Civic OR the Global Pollution has reached Level 1, you can see Global Pollution Total levels as well

 Numbers might need tweaking, but hopefully it should be a condition where you are normally between levels 1-4 throughout the Contemporary Era.

I think pollution scales with the map size. I've played games on large maps with strip mining everywhere and no real effects on city stability, then had a small game and a few aerodromes are enough to push me over the edge trending to 0 stability. Makes the small map games pretty unplayable.

It also seems like you manually have to go through each of your territories to figure out each one's contribution to pollution. In my last game on a small map, the pollution icon on the city only told me how much pollution the city itself contributed, not the connected administration centres.

Forests don't seem that helpful either. As others have pointed out, they only remove pollution for a few turns. Would be nice to have them as carbon sinks, so they take maybe 5-10 turns to grow to full size, but after that every turn each forest sucks up a small amount of carbon, and if that takes you into negative carbon then it starts lowering the global built up total.

RintFosk wrote:

It is been two weeks after this issue being raised and so far no official news about they are going to fix or change pollution mechanic, not even any sort of reply from dev in this post.

Dissapointing, Amplitude, what is the point of official forum if this is how you treat players' feedback? 

They did communicate on this, in their "What's next for Humankind" blog published one week ago ( https://www.games2gether.com/amplitude-studios/humankind/blogs/780-what-s-next-for-humankind ), they talked about the patch released earlier this week and also of future updates.


"We’ve seen many avid discussions about the game, and many interesting suggestions for how to change or improve it. Diplomacy, pollution, religion, and war resolution are only some examples"

Uitaneko wrote:

RintFosk wrote:

It is been two weeks after this issue being raised and so far no official news about they are going to fix or change pollution mechanic, not even any sort of reply from dev in this post.

Dissapointing, Amplitude, what is the point of official forum if this is how you treat players' feedback? 

They did communicate on this, in their "What's next for Humankind" blog published one week ago ( https://www.games2gether.com/amplitude-studios/humankind/blogs/780-what-s-next-for-humankind ), they talked about the patch released earlier this week and also of future updates.


"We’ve seen many avid discussions about the game, and many interesting suggestions for how to change or improve it. Diplomacy, pollution, religion, and war resolution are only some examples"

That post honestly whitewashes the severity of the issue. I mean, it's something that you only notice when you reach endgame, if you are an ambitious sort who minmaxes, and if you paly on higher difficulties where the AI is quick to industrialize (The AI really does not give a damn about pollution, and is aggressive to boot. How do you survive without polluting?). I am genuinely confused that this issue hasn't blown up even more; I haven't played a single game of humankind since the first few right after release, just like others in this thread, because I know that the endgame is doomed and I have no way to fix it. 

Maybe more players are relatively passive and relaxed, don't industrialize very fast, and play on lower difficulties, so its less of a problem for them? For others, this kills the motivation to play. I do not like the developer's attitude of not owning up to their mistakes, and the relatively passive acknowledgement of what should honestly be a top priority issue.