From what I read, it doesn't teach you #solarpunk or #degrowth mindsets, it merely adds some pollution tokens, it doesn't reward players for cooperation.
Instead it implements some questionable #gameDesign allowing - and promoting - a win condition of betraying any climate alliances at the last moment to get the most points - essentially a prisoner's dilemma.
I understand that the game is trying to mimic our world and show people "hey, not everybody will work together", but as you set victory conditions, you need to ask yourself what kind of emergent behaviors do you want to promote within the game.
Because sure, "best economy wins" and "you can totally betray others" is one way, but does your game teach sustainability, or use it as an aesthetic?
I have not played this Catan, I know only what's in the reviews.
Sometimes there is value in #gameDesign which doesn't try to copy neoliberal economical values, but instead challenges players to go for a different goal, like cooperating. Co-op games do not need to be boring!
I feel as if a lot of people forgot that the #monopoly was initially designed as a caricature of capitalism, not as a family-friendly game of bankrupting everyone else.
The way I understand the pollution mechanics as described in this game is:
Pollution limits everyone's economies (including the non-polluting players)
Introducing non-polluting technologies requires research (possibly cooperative)
Critical pollution ends the game
Therefore, one of the (best?) "meta", "emergent" strategies will be to go all-out-polluting FIRST and prisoner dilemma it so that we finish just below the critical threshold, but with you on top.
the current climate challenge is that polluters maximize short-term but perform long term betrayal, & they push the costs of betrayal out past the "end of game" as they see it
& so the challenge with "best economy wins" rule is that it explicitly provides an endpoint beyond which betrayals cannot be punished.
The Scythe multiplier mechanic provides a proxy for "future success" in a competitive mode. Could we think about what a co-op would look like?
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