1. Humankind difficulty, 10 players, huge map, envisioning a grand war for world domination 
2. Snowballed early, conquered my entire start continent. 
3. Had 10 cities, built airport and aerodrome in each.
4. Get to fusion, renewables, nuclear -  Pollution on makers quarters is at 0, only source of pollution is airports. 
5. Second biggest polluter at 500 per turn. Next biggest competitor is at 1200. Total worldwide is about 2500ish. 
6. Start grand war with biggest competitor. Many fullstack armies and navies ready for a truly grand brawl with modern weapons 
7. Game ends abruptly 2 turns later

wilmo998 wrote:

Personally I think that the pollution mechanic adds something to the end game, it continues the whole ethos that your decisions have an impact and gives you choices to make. The fact that you can build 10 airports and aerodromes on a continent doesn't mean you should when train stations work so well and can be practically pollution free. I guess I'm saying you 'lost' because you didn't play the game in front of you.

I do however agree that an abrupt end to the game is in no one's interest, personally I would continue to ramp up the negative stability so that it becomes unmanageable and rebellions fracture the world and your civilisation. I'm not sure about turning off pollution, if does get put in I hope it turns off the ability to get achievements. 

1. there are more than 10 airports in the world, so building 10 airports shouldn't make the earth uninhabitable by any stretch of the imagination. the argument of "you lost because you didn't utilize the game mechanics" is kind of moot when there are no game mechanics for addressing pollution. none. you can research nuclear fusion and build every clean energy infrastructure and still end the world because you also made a sawmill. you can't even deconstruct said sawmill if you see it ending the world unless an event fires (and heaven forbid if you build it in two different cities, only the one city will have it removed in case of an event). and no, planting trees doesn't count either, since they only do anything for one turn

2. aerodromes and airports don't serve the same purpose as trains. airports only act as ports for trade for some reason, and aerodromes are for building an air force - something that's not optional in warfare. unless you like losing wars. and even if airports served the logical purpose of ferrying troops long distances, trains still wouldn't be a suitable replacement for them. you can't take a train to a different continent. hell, there's a reason trains are such an unpopular and expensive transportation system in reality.

3. turning off achievements because people don't like having the fun sucked out of their game is a terrible design decision that devs should really stop using. I sincerely hope humankind does not forbid earning achievements while mods are enabled (not that it'd affect much considering how achievements are misfiring left and right right now. beating a game on normal gave me the achievement for beating it on humankind difficulty lol).

wilmo998 wrote:

Personally I think that the pollution mechanic adds something to the end game, it continues the whole ethos that your decisions have an impact and gives you choices to make. The fact that you can build 10 airports and aerodromes on a continent doesn't mean you should when train stations work so well and can be practically pollution free. I guess I'm saying you 'lost' because you didn't play the game in front of you.

I do however agree that an abrupt end to the game is in no one's interest, personally I would continue to ramp up the negative stability so that it becomes unmanageable and rebellions fracture the world and your civilisation. I'm not sure about turning off pollution, if does get put in I hope it turns off the ability to get achievements. 

Yes, pollution "adds something" to the game. Which game? Civ 6, where climate change is its own mechanic with more than one way to use for your benefit. But not Humankind.

In Humankind it isn't like that because it is obvious to anyone who heard something about gamedesign that slapping over functioning system another additional mechanic without any place in gameplay for it isn't going well usually, especially if done in the very last moment. This time wasn't an exclusion. Pollution is broken, sticks out of balance, goes against general concept of "following historical stages of development" and doesn't make gameplay anyhow deeper - just more annoying and tedious with obligatory meta-gaming of avoiding pollution at all costs. It is plainly bad gamedesign which is twice as hilarious because devs technically had the example of similar system which simply WORKED and did it well. They had ONE JOB of copypasting that system and they failed.