FIrstly, to comment on the balance issue: If you're having problems with the game initially, I'd suggest(after beating this first on normal in 3 tries, then on hard without much trouble) Just pushing for villagers for about as long as you can get away with. The village is your money-maker and even with thieves and Wild animals raiding, You'll normally make quite a bit more money getting about 4 or 5 villagers and then going for the barracks(which is 200$, quite cheap). I'd also recomment going for the mining camp only after maxing the village, and getting a huntsman and Guard, as it's 500$ for the same income amount as a single villager over time. Normally the random events can be met evenly if you are willing to focus your money for the first part of the game.
Onto the actual game, though, it's fairly lackluster. The animation is practically nonexistent, the choices you have to make are actually pretty limited, the combat is similar, and it truly offers little in variety in terms of challenge or tasks in general. It's a game of waiting to click menus atm, and that can be a bore when there's so little to do or look at even with the menus.
the music itself is fairly lackluster and a single track, and you're literally looking at the same screen the entire game, with only a few movements of certain things or sudden building images popping up to break up the still life painting.
The gameplay itself is a little better, but still very dull, since, as I noted earlier, there's not much to do. The game features a total of 7 buildings, several of which do their task automatically, 2 of which perform the only vital functions in the game - creating villagers and building units - with the guard giving you slight amounts of free soldiers from time to time to check on. defending takes no effort and is as simple as a match calculator, and attacking is even worse, simply requiring you to own more units than the opponent in order for an automatic victory.
Even upon winning the game, I felt disappointed, as there is no more offered to you than a black large-font "Victory!" sign after my "attacking unit" moves to the left and right to attack.
This game is still a game, at least, though - there is indeed a certain level of difficulty, and a simple problem to solve. I played this 4 times, and while I can't say I was exactly in awe, I enjoyed myself. But those looking for a Rich strategy experience may wish to look elsewhere.
An interesting first effort, and possibly something that could become passable if effort was put into it, but right now I'd have to consider it a mildly enjoyable but overall bad game.