Waterworks

Waterworks ties every decision to a resource that only gets scarcer, water rationed generously keeps morale up short-term but empties the supply faster, which means the overseer's real job is balancing immediate desperation against how many turns the settlement actually has left.

Because the drought worsens each turn rather than staying fixed, rationing conservatively even while morale dips slightly tends to keep the settlement alive longer than generous distribution that runs the well dry ahead of schedule. Watching for the turn where morale risk finally outweighs water conservation is really the core tension the whole game is built around. Mana God covers a similar indirect-influence settlement management loop guiding a civilization through scarcity.