KG 1.4.8.5 - Pollution

Pollution is a new mechanic brought to you by the creators of the Policies update. It is a continuation of the policies and is designed to work in a tandem with them.

Pollution is a looming impenetrable wall that every civilization is facing at some point. Unlike AI apocalypse or energy challenges it can not be easily circumvented or stopped. Pollution is generated by certain buildings, weak at the start of the game and stronger by the mid-game.

Just like the real life pollution, it's effect are subtle at first, but snowball over the time. Your crops die, population grows stagnate and the magic effects your faith had on catnip and wood production wither away. Unlike AI apocalypse, however, the pollution penalties are almost exclusively limited to food and wood.

Starting with Chemistry you will see what buildings do generate pollution and starting with Ecology you will see the exact number of pollution in the game toolbar. Pollution is measured in ppm, and increments in lg blocks. 1ppm is where problem starts and gets progressively worse at 10, 100 and 1k ppm.

You can see detailed pollution breakdown on a science page by setting `game.detailedPollutionInfo = true`

The ways to mitigate pollution is to usually use more farmers, pollute less, follow eco-friendly policies and in general convert your industry to sustainable energy sources. While none of the options are perfect, there are plentitude of them and penalties are designed to be albeit painful yet relatively niche and manageable.

FAQ:

Q: PPM notation is inaccurate/makes no sense, should be defaulted to 255, etc
A: Those are different ppm

Q: This feature does not bring anything positive
A: Making your numbers go up was never the design goal, enjoy your new bls!