It is once again the middle of the night and I am thinking about basebuilders.
One situation we face when our base is part of a wider society is the fungibility of tasks.
In the wild, farming gets you food, which you need. Chopping trees gets you wood for walls, beds, fires. Even as you ascend the tech tree, every job provides a directly useful service.
However, in a society, a job is just how you get paid. The player doesn't care whether you're a farmer or a barista if the pay's the same.
This can be clearly seen in The Sims, where the jobs are distinguished mostly by when you go to work and what skills are relevant. Whether you're a clown or a hacker doesn't matter much if the pay's the same- just rank up a different skill and go to work at a different hour.
This fungability creates a vagueness in our lifestyles.
In The Sims you're probably going to have just one or two folks working, their story is mostly that they are the ones working. WHAT JOB barely matters.
But in more industrial games, everyone works. And their job is directly tied to the success of your base in a tangible way. It provides specific resources or services you need, not generic cash.
This means the people slot into your mental framework.
That's The Farmer. That's The Researcher.
If they all just got paid to do whatever job, you'd never remember what their jobs were. They'd become generic.
Craig P