Quitting is usually hated everywhere, in games or not. We should always try to win, and if we know we are losing, we give fight. You will get many skill from losing games, not for winning, and you should play the game until the end, and have a goodsportsmanship. You can quit a game of Populous anytime by shutting down your PC, pressing Alt+F4 or pressing Esc, and Quit Game. Still, you should never do this unless you have a urgent situation going on, which rarelly might happen. No one likes quitters - people will avoid playing with or against you if you quit many times, and take note that it's hard enough getting a Populous game these days - so make sure you make friends and not foes. Why would you quit? To save time? No. The game only ends when it's over. Your enemies deserve to finish you as they worked hard to win the game, so let them finish it! Don't be a quitter, have some honour.

In multiplayer games, when your tribe loses, you can press spacebar twice to leave the game and return to lobby, that way you are not considered a quitter, since the game was over for you (you can still watch the rest of the game, in case there are more tribes fighting).

In case you are the host in a multiplayer game, do not press spacebar when your tribe dies, since the other players are depending on you, and you might lag them out of the game if you leave it. When you host, you have to take extra care not to quit or leave the game until the actual game is won by a player or a team.