User blog comment:Stormlilly/Late Night Insomnia Jam Session I/@comment-4332975-20130618102950/@comment-7706473-20130619072009

I *really* like this idea. It makes the player feel the loss of individual units a lot more painfully. Perhaps you cannot produce any more units; starting with the maximum possible allowed, and having to find more either through precious and rare events, or content yourself to what you have. Gameplaywise, I'm reminded a little of the excellent Kingdom Tribal Economy Simulator Text Adventure Thing, King of Dragon Pass. But that's mostly because I'd want lots of words and flavortext.

Another idea; perhaps harvesting resources isn't always a good thing. Many games are starting to have you lose resources if you overharvest them, but when was the last time that mining copper caused the water in the only known water source to go the orange-green of pressed metal? There could be difficult choices to be made. Try to meet the needs of your friends and allies, take what you need for your own goals/your own personal survival, or try to adapt to the world around you?

Now of course in reality this takes time - but there is very little as nervewracking as realizing halfway through a game that your actions have caused something unexpected, either positive or negative. I also am growing fond of the idea that maybe you can choose to leave your current 'site' at any time... But not everyone in your settlement is capable or willing to leave with you...