some tips for a good start:
-- read the 'help'!! --
1. buy a market and a farm
2. sell some food and buy another farm
3. get at least 10 farms before you attend to other village improvements
4. if your dots keep being unhappy, lower the tax rate
5. WIN!

Back in the 80s i played a textbased economic game on my Commodore PLUS4 - I don't know the name but I know that i was fascinated.

Then in 2005 i found "dark emperor", a free java-based mobile game in german language (google knows the place ;) -- and i wanted to do that in flash. I copied some of the game mechanics of both games and added a bunch of nonsense. And here it is!

In fact, it's a dice game. So don't get frustrated when you have bad luck!