This is because the core of those games is how little folks move around a tile map.

The frame-to-frame sim makes pathing critical, so obviously that is what the facilities consider and what matters to them.

The people living in that place live their lives by pathing around, so obviously a big part of how their life is expressed and influenced is shared and molded by the functional facility elements.

If we simulate hour-to-hour instead, how people path is no longer the main concern. This means the facilities no longer are concerned with pathing, either.

But what replaces it?

We could go for supply chains, something like a factory game instead of a base-builder.

But does a person's life feel different depending on whether they take 8 hours to make pants from cotton, or whether they take 8 hours split among five different intermediate activities to make pants?

DF has moderately complex supply chains because it is A) really old and B) intended to host dozens or even hundreds of people.

So sure, if you want purple pants there's a weaver and a button-maker and a dyer and a seamstress and a tailor and a guy that counts pants-

Because those are all DIFFERENT FOLKS, and their combined lives are very different than if they were all simply "turn cotton into whatever clothes" workers.

But are their lives expressed well?

While I'm not against having hundreds or thousands or billions of people rambling around a base-building game, it's clear their life stories cannot all be told.

So how do we determine whose lives take the spotlight, and what happens to those that don't?

The answers are: we ask the player, and nothing.

We cannot meaningfully tell the player the story of every person involved in getting each person their pair of pants, and even if we could, why would we bother? It's unfocused and disjointed.

It would make more sense to tell the story of ONE person involved in that chain, and their friends and family.

Whether it's the button-maker or the tailor or the lady that sells them off the back of her truck for suspiciously discounted prices, THEIR life story can be interesting and unfold.

But then the other half of that question rears its ugly head:

What does your base building have to do with their lives?

Is is meaningful to build a base that can manufacture pants? Is it meaningful to make it a 200-person facility that goes from cotton to slacks with no slack? Vertically integrated pants?

Well... what kind of lives does that create? What lifestyles, what social pressures? How do the people feel about being there? How do they feel about your pants, too, I guess?

Most such games, the pants are the end product.

In DF or Rimworld or whatever, you have a stockpile of pants and shirts and socks and shoes and whatever because "people demand it" and maybe, just maybe, "people don't like dying in the cold weather". But it's just a toggle: "if we have pants, we don't complain."

Trying to add additional complexity makes it extremely annoying.

Rimworld has rules where if people wear their favorite color, they get a mood boost. Nobody has ever used it.