I was frustrated by the early designs of city builders (Pharaoh, etc.), and these days I play games like RimWorld, and I appreciate how much common sense Farthest Frontier has out of the gate (especially being in EA and all), I can actually just play and focus on making a pretty village (on the easy difficulty, at least) without feeling like I gotta major in civil engineering to make things half-functional.
You can build roads but villagers are capable of… walking. Villagers benefit from proximity but do not just become allergic to going to a slightly far off place for some clothing. Villagers do not need to be told that sticking around in cold weather is a bad idea. Villagers can pack a punch if needed. Sure, many will die, but that is a sacrifice I’m willing to make…
Work Camps can point at an area and I don’t have to micromanage every single tree to be cut.
I don’t fully understand the profession system yet, but it seems fairly smart at distributing workers well enough as long as you don’t build too many specialized buildings.
A deer was eating crops on my farm. I built a hunter’s cabin nearby. Hunter came over and butchered the deer. No more deer eating my crops. Take that, deer!
The game just makes sense.