After reading this I FEEL INCREDIBLY INSPIRED TO CODE THIS INTO THE NEXT ALPHA. It may make it in but I'm really hoping to get a new alpha out next week, potentially next Friday. I have some sleepless mechanics, tree cutting, real time battling, and I think some dialogue that should be making it in. I'm going to push and try to add at least one turn based fight into the alpha to test the system, but it may not make it until the next one. I'm almost finished setting up the core mechanics so I can just focus on the fun things.
also random events are a MUST. Some will be linked to RNG through the year so each year is unique. A lot of my time lately has been on a special event that's linked to the player's level of sleep deprivation.