Yeah, I really enjoy that kinda mid game, where a slightly longer drought or bad water would really mess you up, but it kinda falters shortly after that and becomes solved.

I want them to do what Factorio did and make the end game stuff (rockets) feed you into what becomes the early-mid game. Like make water the whole map" or have “insanely deep water” or some resources that are hard to make the requirement to do the NEXT thing, which should be so big the whole map you were worried about becomes a little trivial