Hey Gotanmarf,
Refering to your last post, we actually are planning something pretty similar to what you mentioned.
In the overall scheme of the game you will have to take care of the country and stop the evil events/invasion etc. If you fail doing this (or let yourself get distracted by hunting for artifacts, finding treasures etc), people will eventually get attack/terrorized and start to abandon towns and settlements.
More people leaving results in reduced support and options in the towns until they are completey abandoned and fall under enemy influence.
That´s just a very rought concept, we´ll cover all this in detail soonish in a Blog post :)
Cheers!
