Velifax

The same phenomenon is present in many other genres. Even in the heavy simulation genre I have found a fun little arcade style economic simulator, echoing its big brothers, and to great effect. It's a cute little Xbox store title where you deal with a miniature economy and resource extraction and such. Quite charming. In the end though I too prefer the games with gravitas, a bit of heft. Though as is common I've played much of both. In Vintage at first I thought maybe the progression bypassing was a bit overtuned. I'm hyper sensitive to this and so have been looking for it, and so took my first copper scythe with hesitation. But it turns out, no, you burn through those like Cheetos at a college party. Also thought maybe it was a bit too easy to get fat, an early game bottleneck. But again, no, it's a standard resource in fairly heavy use. Can't name too many other games that manage this, but all of them are installed.

I play a lot of economic simulators and I'm imagining a system where in the background traveling merchants are simulated. They would exist only on the pathways between trade wagons. So if you are going from trader to trader chances are you'll meet an additional traveling trader. Always enjoyed meeting the llama man travelers in other games.

I've run into issues with recording/streaming cause what can I say that's better than the music?

No, it wouldn't be called stupid for spawning to be a restricted function. That's extremely common in games. It just something you don't like. And ofc you can easily change that. Surely there are servers with it set differently? Creative mode types or just exploration mode or whatever? If not... make one. You'll probably attract the folks who prefer easier spawning. I intend to use the rare loot as spawn refill system myself, but I'll likely change my world base spawn to my house. As opposed to building a small shack there with a lit road to my house, kinda thing.

Also incidentally it serves as a conversion method of grass to thatch. Not sure why that'd be useful but disassembling thatch roof tiles made from grass gives thatch.