Just making my presence known and wishing you a happy new year brother.
On the note of your future game, I'll keep a lookout, I do enjoy empire building and management games, so it is right up my alley, on the novels side I haven't read much similar, the closest I can think I read is Release That Witch, which does focus on politics and technology progress, but with a sprinkle of magic.
Thanks for the recs, and I'll leave this one as a rec if you haven't heard of it yet, summary would be someone from our world teleported to a more medieval time in the body of a somewhat ostracized noble from a small place with seemingly no future, but it is a world that has witches that are hunted down, the mc decides to ally with those witches instead, and using their magic +modern knowledge starts making his rise in power and advancements.
The mc doesn't really really have any powers tho, which I guess you don't mind, his role is more of a leader and supporter.