I think they are talking of the game ending due to some Victory conditions in the setup. If the conditions were after ## years have elapsed it's easy to finish a game
As a related note, when you lose you know who killed you, but the "Last turn before your memory begins to fade" is totaly useless.
You shouldn't lose contact with everone, so you'd be able to at least say goodbye to the other players. You can't even see the "accept surrender" message in case you had surrendered.