Still on the topic of game mechanics, in the last update the merchant said he could direct "buisnessmen" towards you. I was thinking it woudl happen something like this: You request that the merchant sends some brick workers your way. A day later a group of brickworkers would turn up and be looking for work, you could then pay them to build a wall or make bricks. With smaller groups of less skilled workers you would be able to pay them with food, shelter and protection. But for the larger groups (say a Taskmaster comes with his group of clayworkers) He would request currency instead. If you have an inn then those workers would prefer to stay in your village, but if you diddn't have one they would walk to the next village over and seek acomodation there. Having an inn in your town means that the workers don't have to trudge from the next village everyday so they would be able to work more. (more work for your money) Plus having an inn could attract travelers and provide income.
You could also sell/rent houses to people and they would become permernant residents(they might move away if things get a little to crazy), these people wouldn't be under your direct control but you would be able to hire them to do things. Renting villagers would be more preferable to those who own their homes because they would be paying you, for example: You rent out a shop to a blacksmith, he sells things to the villagers (or travelers) and then he pays you rent. you could also have things like factories where you have several people employed to make shoes and you sell the shoes for a higher price then it took to create them, thus making a profit.
I guess this all leads into hiring a town militia, the more prosperous your village is the better equiped your militia can be. Then you can use that militia to defend the town or maybe even more sinister things like extortion of maybe even raiding parties (although that might make people a bit upset).
All of this means that once your village gets large enough your core villagers become more like the local council or the industrial barons rather then being the residents of the town.
Edit: ok that turned into more of a rant on how having a large town is going to work.