Economic dynamism in exploration games?
Picture this: you're a band of adventurers with a home base, some small frontier village. You go out, explore the wilderness, bring back treasure.
But as your band gets better at exploring the wilderness, the village grows, too. All that treasure props up the economy, after all, attracting new talent, more influence, more politics, more corruption, etc. The band builds a castle toto look over the village, they get more well known in the kingdom, in all the lands.
What systems are out there to track that growth? Sure, it can all be just story handwaving, but can it be managed systematically? Can the village's fortunes be compared with the major port city? Can we measure what damage marauding barbarians might cause? What rare equipment might be available? What benevolent and nefarious factions might be attracted?
Can we give that band of adventurers a feeling of a sense of place, of belonging, a sign that their successes matter in the world around them? Or can we track what happens if the band moves on to the next village? Perhaps the barbarian camp has an economic value, itself, that can go up and down as it invades?