Has the author played Caesar, or any of the Impressions city builders (or CivCity Rome, or Caesar IV)? Those games are full of what he calls the Wuselfaktor. Watching people go about their lives and work is one of the reasons I like the games so much, it's just fun to watch. Seeing artisans deliver their goods to warehouses, farmers working the fields, merchants getting goods from granaries and so forth, it's absorbing.
Yes, I know what you mean. I've got all of the Impressions games myself.
The "Wuselfaktor" has certainly to do with the cuteness of the people going around in the game. The figures of the Settlers I - IV were very "childish-looking", or so you could say, which was used by the developers of the Settlers V as a reason for making the Settlers V so much different-looking. They said that
because of this cuteness, the games didn't sell well outside of Germany. And they wanted to change this with the Settlers V.
With all of these games I almost completely leave the combat part lone and focus entirely in building and maintaining the town. This is - as far as I know - what originally made the Settlers so famous within Germany - although the devs (in my eyes) alwys overrated the combat part - up to the Settlers V, which was almost entirely about combat, compared with the older games.
I never understood wjhy the developers had felt this urge to push the Settlers more and more into real RTS with lots of combat - against the will of those who love these games for their town-building parts. I can only assume that they had felt that without combat, these games would remain an extreme niche, and only combat could grant them international success.
If so, then this sheds some light on how the RTS genre is considered - or even gaming in general: Everything without combat doesn't sell. Point.
Games HAVE to include some kind or another of combat or they won't simply sell. Even Civ has some combat in it.
This is iho one of the great problems of gaming in general: Everything has to include some kind of combat - as if games weren't impossible without it.
You can try it: Try to imagine ten games entirely without combat, not even optional. I can't do it.
So ... - everybody believes that combat is "cool" and appeals to potential buyers, and is an "must have" within games.
This is the only explanation I have to explain myself that the Settlers and similar building games aren't done without combat.
Personally, I would rather prefer to simply build and watch cities as they grow, or even complex nations.
But no, this concept is thought to be utterly unsuccessful, therefore it is never done.
I can only play this style with turning or/and avoiding combat altogether, and i still can have some fun.
Back to the "Wuselfaktor" the verb "wuseln" means that a lot of people are teeming in a rather cute way. The word "Wuseln" implies a certain sense of cuteness. You can say it with other words as well, but only "wuseln" (to wusel) implies cuteness, of - let's say some Wombles wuseling aroung, so to say.
The building games of Impression are filled with many, many teeming people, but there is no cuteness factor, therefore no "Wusel-Faktor".