fickle cape
I don't normally shut down my console when I go and do other things. Last night I forgot to pause before switching out of the game. My entire cult was killed off and it seems that I took permanent damage to my sanitation which makes the save unplayable.
On console the game should probably pause automatically if there's no input detected for a minute or two. This could be a toggle but I imagine most console players would leave it on.
river plover
It's already a thing on pc that if you leave the game idle for 10 mins it pauses itself
So hopefully whatever next patch your platform gets will add that
fickle cape
10 minutes seems like a long time given how quickly the game can go bad! I was late in a crusade, it's possible that all my cultists could have died even if that pause did take effect
Though I guess that's separate feedback: the game goes from "completely fine" to "everyone is dead" very quickly
floral bramble
Seconding this. I set my Switch down for about 5-10 minutes to make dinner once, thinking it would automatically lock like other games tend to do, and came back to my cult on the verge of a mutiny, lol.