“you won, but at what cost?!” ending - even for something as mild as implementing state run media.

This was really silly. I got through the main campaign with only scripted deaths: the poet who was just really upset about the town funding a newspaper for some reason, and some miners who volunteered to keep the mine running during the finale knowing that it would mean their deaths. Like everyone was happy, healthy, and alive, there were no hard choices or any sacrifices beyond a single unreasonable dissident and a single digit number of volunteers who willfully and knowingly sacrificed themselves to ensure everyone else’s survival, this was literally the best result anyone could possibly hope for and the epilogue snarks about it.