Within any society, economy is one of the mainstays of survival, as well as defending your people and what you have built.

I'd like to see more usable crafting going on: one thing that used to drive me nuts in Banished was having to make furniture, pottery and other things, and they had no other use to the villagers than being able to barter them for other resources. It should stand to reason that essential crafted items are required to fulfil part of the happiness quotient, and mean that your villagers can upgrade their dwellings and status to higher levels. Perhaps this also ties in to villagers being able to have more children within their abodes once they have access to certain crafted items. If the aim of the game is to build 'upward' rather than 'outward', this makes good sense. It also gives the 'reason we are doing this in first place' somewhere to progress to.

Perhaps also introducing money at a later stage, which is solely controlled/used by you (as the mayor), which can be gained through trade, and is required for essential things like building and upgrading your defence systems. Armies always had to be paid and kitted out if you had any hope of defending your people and territory successfully. Even though bartering was the main form of trade in the era we're discussing here, 'money' did exist, even in rough forms of gold, silver or gems, and were largely used by the more affluent members of society as well as Kings, Churches and for trade agreements across borders.

Give me something to work toward, and the ability for more micro-management, please.