What I was thinking was to rip off Fierylion’s idea (and also technically Bewildered Angel’s one) and use food as an enemy, as a way to justify why your troops would gain weight when you fight.
As for civilians, currently I’m not particularly thinking about that, but maybe we could use a system kinda like Advance wars where you generate money by occupying towns ? And that way, I could represent occupation as a civilian gaining more and more weight.
I want to keep the game really simple, mostly because it would be a way for me to learn how to code something.